# 5.1 or 7.1



## Heath Cunningham (Jun 28, 2014)

Hey guys, 
I'm currently in the process of building my new house, I have a room that is 6m long x4.5m wide, I have purchased some of the audio, so far I have paradigm reference speakers (studio 60 mains, cc-590 centre, sismic 110 sub, adp-590 rears) Yamaha aventage RX-A2020 amp. It is currently a 5.1 speaker pack, my question is, should I be running 7.1 in this size room or would 5.1 be enough?


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## Tonto (Jun 30, 2007)

Plenty big enough for 7.1, go for it! You might as well pull wire for atmos while it's open (4 in the ceiling).


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## Heath Cunningham (Jun 28, 2014)

Tonto said:


> Plenty big enough for 7.1, go for it! You might as well pull wire for atmos while it's open (4 in the ceiling).


yeah I think I will, I have a couple of people mention atmos, is there any particular arrangement needed for the speakers


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## Tonto (Jun 30, 2007)

I just went to their website to link a diagram & I don't find one. I messaged them to create a tab for it. Hopefully they will soon. I would imagine the 11.1 set up would be the most interesting (standard 7.1 with the added 4 ceiling speakers).


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## sdurani (Oct 28, 2010)

Heath Cunningham said:


> I have a couple of people mention atmos, is there any particular arrangement needed for the speakers


Yes, you can do either 5 or 7 speakers around you (same arrangement as now), and either 2 or 4 speakers above you. 



















Scroll all the way to the bottom of the link (below) to see different configurations. 

http://dolbyatmos.onkyousa.com/


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## Heath Cunningham (Jun 28, 2014)

sdurani said:


> Yes, you can do either 5 or 7 speakers around you (same arrangement as now), and either 2 or 4 speakers above you. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the link (below) to see different configurations. http://dolbyatmos.onkyousa.com/


wow, I just watched a youtube clip, it sounds like it will take off, surround sounds starting to get a bit full know hey.


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## sdurani (Oct 28, 2010)

Dolby was smart to start Atmos off with 7 speakers (L/C/R + 2 surrounds + 2 heights). It doesn't seem like many speakers, but it still allows you to separate sounds in front of you vs sounds around you vs sounds above you. Basic vectors are covered. 

Whether it takes off or not will depend on movies. Between now and next year, if only 5 movies show up on Blu-ray with Atmos soundtracks, then there will be very little interest. However, if 50 Atmos movies show up on Blu-ray in the next few months, then game on.


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## Tonto (Jun 30, 2007)

I agree, if I'm gonna crawl into my attic & pull more wire & buy more speakers, there better be material from Hollywood! And they need to stop with the 30 Hz filter! 

OK, I finished now.


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## phillihp23 (Mar 14, 2012)

sdurani said:


> Yes, you can do either 5 or 7 speakers around you (same arrangement as now), and either 2 or 4 speakers above you.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That 11.1 setup looks kinda similar to the current 11.1 setup. Instead of front heights being on the wall they transitioned up to the celing. And instead of front wides..they have a second height set above the seating area.


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## sdurani (Oct 28, 2010)

phillihp23 said:


> That 11.1 setup looks kinda similar to the current 11.1 setup. Instead of front heights being on the wall they transitioned up to the celing. And instead of front wides..they have a second height set above the seating area.


Right, the Wide speakers and front wall Height speakers are gone, replaced with four Top speakers on the ceiling. But doesn't that mean that this 11.1 set-up _doesn't_ look similar to the current 11.1 set-up?


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## phillihp23 (Mar 14, 2012)

sdurani said:


> Right, the Wide speakers and front wall Height speakers are gone, replaced with four Top speakers on the ceiling. But doesn't that mean that this 11.1 set-up _doesn't_ look similar to the current 11.1 set-up?


 Kinda. I guess it will depend on the recording of the movie audio track, atmos software, and design of the speakers. But that's a lot of what if's, and will require you to spend the extra money in each area to obtain the effect. While not perfect, the current software Neo etc. allow you to use common speakers found across the market and don't require specialty audio tracks. To be honest a lot of movies are not even available in 7.1 today.

Don't get me wrong, i do think the atmos concept is cool and that the audio industry should continue to look for better ways. I just don't see it all coming together in the mainstream market.


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## Heath Cunningham (Jun 28, 2014)

phillihp23 said:


> Kinda. I guess it will depend on the recording of the movie audio track, atmos software, and design of the speakers. But that's a lot of what if's, and will require you to spend the extra money in each area to obtain the effect. While not perfect, the current software Neo etc. allow you to use common speakers found across the market and don't require specialty audio tracks. To be honest a lot of movies are not even available in 7.1 today. Don't get me wrong, i do think the atmos concept is cool and that the audio industry should continue to look for better ways. I just don't see it all coming together in the mainstream market.


if it was to come out, would it be like a surround speaker such as a dipole or just a standard straight directed in ceiling speaker, for example, would I need to mount adp-590's on the ceiling so all surround effect speakers are matched?


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## zonecoaster1 (Jan 23, 2014)

I wasn't thrilled about in-ceiling speakers, but it was a compromise that we had to make for our situation. Now with the arrival of Atmos, we're pretty happy about that compromise! We still can't take advantage of it for a good while, but at least when we're ready it will just be a matter of swapping out AVRs and moving the front wides to surround positions.


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