Axiom makes m3 in ceiling speakers for sound from above , but can they make on-ceiling speakers for those people who would prefer to not drill holes in their ceilings. It would be great to have some on-ceiling speakers for any of the immersive sound formats like Dolby Atmos and DTS:X . Axiom Audio Team members can you guys make such a speaker ? I'm sure it would sell.

I was only asking cause i'm currently using these yamaha speakers for my 7.1.4 Atmos setup http://usa.yamaha.com/products/audio-vis...ack/?mode=model , and I would prefer to use Axiom speakers , since all my other speakers are from Axiom.

My plan is to look at on-wall M3s and find a way to secure them to the ceiling as I too do not want to cut "in-ceiling" sized holes in my soundproofed ceiling.

That is as far as I have gotten with the idea... I don't know if I trust the wall bracket to 1) hold its bracket shape from the force of the speaker pulling away from the bracket vs. just "down" on the bracket, 2) have enough length to the bracket to have the speaker vibrate off of it, 3) be secured enough to the ceiling with just screws since they have more strength on a wall pulling down at 90 degrees than on a ceiling pulling straight down.

Sure for #3 you could look at toggle bolts or something, but that isn't the biggest problem.

Without rigging something up, I just don't know the answers to the other questions.

I wouldn't trust the bracket for the on-walls on the ceiling. It's not designed for that.

I might trust full metal brackets attached to standard or on-wall speakers, but that's sticking out a fair amount.

I am wondering how effective having a set of height speakers instead of ceiling. if you think about it, it's just sound, and it comes to how good the decoder is inside the head unit to mix the sound to get the effect that you are looking for.

I am sure that the number of actual overhead effects in a movie is limited compared to a height ambient sound

The idea with Atmos and DTS:X is that they can use that 1980's technology idea of "phantom speakers" by making a sound appear to come from a location where there isn't a speaker, so having additional speakers, whether heights or ceilings, gives the system more places to combine sounds into "phantom" sounds. It isn't that these systems just play back a "ceiling channel 1" sound like traditional 5.1 or 7.1, so even if there aren't many audio bits coming from overhead, having the speakers make something closer to a "dome" allows for more three-dimensional placement of the sound in the room.

It is just a completely different way to look at audio playback... Getting out of the "channel" based mindset that we have been ingrained with for so long, and look at it as a single enveloping soundstage in 3 dimensions that just happens to be made up by multiple speakers.

With that said, I've heard early installer reports that they got a lot more bang for their buck by adding 2 front WIDE speakers and 2 overhead speakers to an existing 7.1 setup vs adding 4 overheads to a 7.1 setup. It was more enveloping of the main sound audio coming across the "ear height" sound plane, but still had some height channels to draw audio "up" into the sound space.

I was thinking about buying some b-stock m2 and drill some holes on the side so I can use the ceiling bracket that came with the yamaha aw390 speakers . http://images.sonicelectronix.com/images/441814/main/nsaw390wh.jpg