Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Speaker height

So I just made the trip up to Axiom last week (well worth the drive, but more on that later) and now have all my gear! The basement home theater space will soon be drywalled, and I'm now agonizing over how high off the floor to be installing my in-wall speakers.

-Ear level at the listening position is ~40 inches
-Ceiling height is ~91 inches
-Dolby Atmos placement guidlines recommend 3.9 feet (not sure if this is the height of the bottom of the speaker, or middle, or middle of the tweeter)
-Dolby also recommends that overheads be 2x to 3x the height of listener-level speakers

All said and done, this will be a 7.1.4 setup with M5HP in-wall L/R, VP180 Centre, M3 in-wall side/rear surround, and M3 in-ceiling overhead. I need to get placement right the first time, so looking for all the advice I can get!

Consider placing the tweeter at or just above your ear height when seated.

Are we talking an inch or two? 6 inches? how narrow is the sweet spot for tweeters?

A big congrats on that system. I think you got a 600v4 as well, correct?

I have zero experience with Atmos, in-ceiling and in-wall. The best advice I can give you is to mock it all up and listen to it somehow before drilling holes. I think Blair's advice makes sense for all speakers except maybe the front left and right. I've found with my M5s, tweeters at a few inches below ear height helps them disappear better without any loss of treble detail or air. At that height, images in well-recorded music appear behind the M5 (as they should) rather than at the M5. I've found that to be dependent on MLP distance. At 10' away in my living room, tweeters at ear height works but at 13' away in my main room, tweeters below works better. This may also be dependent on the different adjacent reflecting surfaces in each room.

Since you have in-walls, the above may not apply. I am really curious if your in-wall M5s will give you the same holographic soundstage I enjoy so much.

Short answer- follow the dolby guidelines.

Long answer- Post dimensions of your room with furniture intended. In order for ATMOS to work correctly many factors must be considered.

The first question should be "how tall is my seating seatback?" The minimum height of the tweeter should be so that no listener is shadowed by either the seatback or an adjacent listener.

The second question is "What is the distance from the surrounds to the closest listener?" If some are seated very close, cheating the surrounds a little higher will reduce hotspotting and give more even coverage to the seating area.

The third question is "What is the ceiling height?" If the ceiling height is proportionally low to wall height, and you have cheated your surrounds higher for the above questions, you may find angled ceiling speakers are a good choice. This way you can avoid having to place ceiling speakers more narrow than the dolby layout and reduce hot spotting in lower ceiling designs.

There are a lot of factors to consider. To do it right you really should either research a lot or start a build thread and get help along the way or hire a professional to help.

Not the geek squad at BB either....

Thanks Mojo. Yes, got the 600v4 as well. I've tried all of the speakers in my office, just sitting upright on a table, and they sound great! The M5HP's sound particularly good, and I did get a very holographic sense with just those two connected.

The 600v4 is not doing it for me, sadly. I've tried it in multiple rooms, big and small, with a Yamaha RXV479, my Denon 4500H, and even my PC speakers (Simple Audio Listen, has a sub -out RCA connection). Even with the volume knob on the sub completely maxed, and +10 in the amps, I find the output to be underwhelming, especially at the lower end of the spectrum, where action/scifi movies really go nuts. I'm thinking that a ported sub will better suit my setup.

I haven't tried the 180v4 yet, but am pretty excited to hear what it can do!

Here is the room, almost perfectly to scale (1 grid square = 6 inches).

-Room is 12'x20' with ~7.5' (91 inch) ceiling height
-MLP is 9.5' from front wall
-Circles are in-ceiling
-Side surrounds are 3' behind MLP
-Rear surrounds are 10.5' behind MLP
-Surround Left speaker is as far forward as I can get it.
-Surround Right speaker could be moved forward a touch, but I figured it better to stay symmetrical.

[img:left]https://photos.app.goo.gl/gPGhR7jJSfFSFwKCA[/img]

Are you listening to a true .1 signal or are you using music to test the 600?

bman, Serenity is a pro. He does this for a living. He can apparently work magic with rooms and systems.

There is something wrong with your 600 or maybe the sub cable. If you have the time and desire, I would suggest you try to resolve this. A sealed sub is far more satisfying than ported and that 600 should be good for 7500 cu ft rooms. There's a big difference between boomy bass and smooth, transparent, articulate, linear bass. The Axiom sealed subs are designed to be ultra-linear with high dynamic power. There's a defect lurking somewhere. That defect by the way could be your ears or your expectations if what you were used to before was boom boom.

Tried both music and .1 source material. Crossover is maxed on the back of the sub, and set to 80hz on the amp