I've read the entire Dolby Pro Logic IIz thread and am amazed by the amount of negativity regarding the new format, especially since nearly all of it seems to come from people who have never listened to it.
Therefore I've decided to start this thread. The goal is to have people post ONLY honest reviews of pl IIz BASED ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.
To begin, I will offer mine:
I've spent about a week playing around with IIz on my pioneer vsx-1020. Before I got my new receiver I watched a selection of blu-rays (Incredible Hulk, Dark Knight, Iron Man, Avatar, Sin City, Serenity, Transformers) which I thought might benefit from height effects. Then I re-watched them all with plIIz, switching it on and off repeatedly, listening with my eyes closed, re-watching the same scenes repeatedly with it on and then off, etc.
My honest conclusion: my system has never sounded better.
My plasma is wall mounted and I have high(ish) ceilings at about 10ft. My room is roughly 16ft wide x 14ft deep. Before I put in the heights my system sounded fantastic, even with my old denon avr-590, but with my 40" F-2s all the sound seemed to come from straight ahead, slightly below the screen. (This is one of the reasons I decided to try heights in the first place.) With the heights, my fronts sound like they are 10ft tall. Even when the height effect itself is subtle (i.e. there is no specific action coming from up high like a helicopter) IIz does an awesome job of making my entire front soundstage sound enormous. When there is a cool effect (a helicopter, rain, bullets whizzing overhead, etc) it's wonderful to hear it coming from up high.
An example: there's a scene at the end of the campus fight sequence in Incredible Hulk where a helicopter starts on screen and flies up and to the left, ending up offscreen. The heights capture it perfectly. You can hear the helicopter up there high on the left flying around. It's really cool. Another great one is Sin City. Much of the movie is filled with rain and it all starts up high and then fills the rest of the soundstage. In every blu-ray I've watched (they're listed above) there hasn't been a single scene where I haven't preferred having the heights on.
The best way to describe the height effect is that they make your fronts sound taller. If you have $1,000,000 12ft tall front speakers, or you have your fronts mounted high on the wall already, it's probably not worth getting heights. If, however, your set-up is more like mine with 40inch floor standers or even smaller fronts (especially if your screen is higher up) then the height effect will make your system sound like you have the million dollar twelve foot towers.
Would I buy a new receiver just to add heights?
Depends and how good your old receiver is and how good your speakers are. If you just got a new receiver that can handle DTS-HD MA and TrueHD, and if your speakers are solid, then you probably don't need to go chuck them in the garbage. If, however, you're leaning toward a new receiver (I just recently upgraded from entry level 5.1 to the vsx-1020) I would strongly recommend getting a receiver that has pro logic IIz and trying it out.
Would I suggest heights over surround back speakers?
In a word, yes. The only blu-ray I've heard with dedicated 7.1 is toy story 3, and yes it was cool, but I honestly feel that you gain more from having an awesome front soundstage as opposed to a little more detailed back soundstage. Our ability to hear is focused forward, so it makes sense to have more speakers in front of us than behind.
In conclusion, in my opinion, Dolby Pro Logic IIz is pretty damn awesome. It adds some serious size to the front soundstage and does a great job of blending everything together so you never notice anything unwanted coming from up high. I recommend it. Honestly.
(note: If anyone wants pictures of my set-up I will provide them. I set it up exactly as dolby suggested: front heights about 4ft directly above fronts and pointed slightly down toward the listener.)
Therefore I've decided to start this thread. The goal is to have people post ONLY honest reviews of pl IIz BASED ON PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.
To begin, I will offer mine:
I've spent about a week playing around with IIz on my pioneer vsx-1020. Before I got my new receiver I watched a selection of blu-rays (Incredible Hulk, Dark Knight, Iron Man, Avatar, Sin City, Serenity, Transformers) which I thought might benefit from height effects. Then I re-watched them all with plIIz, switching it on and off repeatedly, listening with my eyes closed, re-watching the same scenes repeatedly with it on and then off, etc.
My honest conclusion: my system has never sounded better.
My plasma is wall mounted and I have high(ish) ceilings at about 10ft. My room is roughly 16ft wide x 14ft deep. Before I put in the heights my system sounded fantastic, even with my old denon avr-590, but with my 40" F-2s all the sound seemed to come from straight ahead, slightly below the screen. (This is one of the reasons I decided to try heights in the first place.) With the heights, my fronts sound like they are 10ft tall. Even when the height effect itself is subtle (i.e. there is no specific action coming from up high like a helicopter) IIz does an awesome job of making my entire front soundstage sound enormous. When there is a cool effect (a helicopter, rain, bullets whizzing overhead, etc) it's wonderful to hear it coming from up high.
An example: there's a scene at the end of the campus fight sequence in Incredible Hulk where a helicopter starts on screen and flies up and to the left, ending up offscreen. The heights capture it perfectly. You can hear the helicopter up there high on the left flying around. It's really cool. Another great one is Sin City. Much of the movie is filled with rain and it all starts up high and then fills the rest of the soundstage. In every blu-ray I've watched (they're listed above) there hasn't been a single scene where I haven't preferred having the heights on.
The best way to describe the height effect is that they make your fronts sound taller. If you have $1,000,000 12ft tall front speakers, or you have your fronts mounted high on the wall already, it's probably not worth getting heights. If, however, your set-up is more like mine with 40inch floor standers or even smaller fronts (especially if your screen is higher up) then the height effect will make your system sound like you have the million dollar twelve foot towers.
Would I buy a new receiver just to add heights?
Depends and how good your old receiver is and how good your speakers are. If you just got a new receiver that can handle DTS-HD MA and TrueHD, and if your speakers are solid, then you probably don't need to go chuck them in the garbage. If, however, you're leaning toward a new receiver (I just recently upgraded from entry level 5.1 to the vsx-1020) I would strongly recommend getting a receiver that has pro logic IIz and trying it out.
Would I suggest heights over surround back speakers?
In a word, yes. The only blu-ray I've heard with dedicated 7.1 is toy story 3, and yes it was cool, but I honestly feel that you gain more from having an awesome front soundstage as opposed to a little more detailed back soundstage. Our ability to hear is focused forward, so it makes sense to have more speakers in front of us than behind.
In conclusion, in my opinion, Dolby Pro Logic IIz is pretty damn awesome. It adds some serious size to the front soundstage and does a great job of blending everything together so you never notice anything unwanted coming from up high. I recommend it. Honestly.
(note: If anyone wants pictures of my set-up I will provide them. I set it up exactly as dolby suggested: front heights about 4ft directly above fronts and pointed slightly down toward the listener.)
. So I put on "Collage - Heroes Cry", corny lyrics, but they are a Polish band so I guess you can forgive them that 
