HT upgrade to 4KUHD and Atmos (1 Viewer)

[sinisanav]

My old processor from 2008 ( Onkyo PRC-885) has finally succumbed( HDMI board). I was recently able to secure used Anthem AVM60 capable of both 4KUHD and ATMOS. So, now I "need" to upgrade a few things in dedicated, finished basement HT. I know that the best and "right" way is to try to install ceiling speakers for what would become then 7.2.4 system. I am interested to hear about experiences with Atmos enabled speakers placed on front towers and if people chose to upgrade after that to full system? I do have my fronts bi-wired so I can easily, yet reluctantly, single wire my fronts and use those wires for angled Atmos speakers. That would be cheapest upgrade, any recommendations?
My room is 7'6" high/low, so ceiling speakers will be pretty close to the main seats, what would be best options for those? I was reading and Dolby kinda reccomends diffuse type speakers if dealing is on lower end. I would like to match them as close as able to the rest of my speaker setup if I go that route. You can see what those are in my signature. Here are few pics for orientation. Thanks for our thoughts.

 

[PSYLNT2UHD]

Nice looking HT. What are the dimensions of the room and your screen size?

 

[sinisanav]

13 wide, 15 long, screen size as in my signature, 106"

 

[sinisanav]

So, after some evaluation of options ( speakers, mounts and avoidance of installing in ceiling speakers and retrofitting wires) I found an old and trusted European brand of speakers making its way slowly in US. HECO german speakers, that are slim with simple aesthetics, yet with fairly good extension and ingenious mounting option ( VESA 100x100) bracket. They are part of their slim collection Ambient, on par with Martin Logan SLM flat and KEF flat option , both are thinner, but with less low Hz extension( and much more expensive).
I found ATDEC swivel mount able to angle at 20 deg in any direction. Allowing installation to DOlby recommended pattern around MLP.
Unfortunately had to connect with regular 16 AWG wire ( tried flat wire that was to be painted but failed in producing good signal to the speakers) that is in color similar to my room.
Results so far pleasing, more listening to occur, AVR 60, did good job of EQ , as I said more measurements and a bit of tweaking to come.

 

[Wardog555]

Can you tell the difference between the two layers of speakers with the surrounds very close to the overheads?

 

[sinisanav]

Can you tell the difference between the two layers of speakers with the surrounds very close to the overheads?

Yes, I am wondering how the effects will be in my room given position of the back surrounds that are high due to available space given riser and furniture. Not so much sides. Back heights are 3 ft away from the back surrounds and 3.5 from sides.
I will start figuring that today a bit, had time to work on dialing in the EQ yesterday , listened to only a couple of scenes from Dune only last evening and enjoyed the immersion of rain falling as Benne Gessrit ship arrived and transporter ships exiting emerging form waters of Caladan.

 

[sinisanav]

After a few more sessions of listening and watching some movie scenes I can say taht envelope of sound is great, back is a bit congested and at times have hard time figuring is its back set of Atmos firing or back surrounds, but then again, it’s atmospheric effects , with panning I can locate the movement from back to front and vice versa well. Listening to At os mix of Dark side fo the Moon by Pink Floyd is something else, there I really did not have trouble with imaging, at times too clear especially on front row of Atmos. I might consider, in future trial of lowering of the side surrounds.

 

[sinisanav]

Final piece of the upgrade. It came a bit unexpectedly as I was looking into most likely 4K e-shift type of projectors at second hand market…
Sony VPL-VW885ES full 4K… of course that begged for new HDMI run, but found AV Access HDMI extender capable of running full 4:4:4 HDR signal over Cat5e cable Which saved me a lot on cable installation.
Hope to be set for many years to come. Contrast better and black at least as godo as on my old Epson, and that s before recalibration.

 

[John Sparks]

Beautiful Home Theater! You should submit it to AVSForum for Home Theater of the Month.