Atmos Setup - Two Ceiling Speakers + 2 Upward Firing?

Sure, it can be done, it's just not ideal as I'm sure you already know. Your AVR should take care of the timing as long as you set the distance correctly in your AVR for the upfiring Atmos channels. The distance should be measured from the speaker to the ceiling reflection point PLUS from the ceiling reflection point to the main listening position.

I think the biggest challenge you may have is getting the upfiring channels to sound balanced with the ceiling mounted channels. You might detect a difference in how the reflected Atmos channels sound compared to the more direct ceiling mounted channels. Also, the upfiring modules are a little hit or miss. Some people can get them to work well, some people can't. It's very room dependent. You might want to try the upfiring modules first to see how they'll work for you before committing to mounting the rear ceiling channels.

You didn't say specifically, but I'm assuming the real issue is that no ceiling mounted speakers in front will pass the WAF, otherwise your best bet would be to just use two ceiling mounted for front Atmos and skip the rear atmos altogether.

HarleyRider said:

Sure, it can be done, it's just not ideal as I'm sure you already know. Your AVR should take care of the timing as long as you set the distance correctly in your AVR for the upfiring Atmos channels. The distance should be measured from the speaker to the ceiling reflection point PLUS from the ceiling reflection point to the main listening position.

I think the biggest challenge you may have is getting the upfiring channels to sound balanced with the ceiling mounted channels. You might detect a difference in how the reflected Atmos channels sound compared to the more direct ceiling mounted channels. Also, the upfiring modules are a little hit or miss. Some people can get them to work well, some people can't. It's very room dependent. You might want to try the upfiring modules first to see how they'll work for you before committing to mounting the rear ceiling channels.

You didn't say specifically, but I'm assuming the real issue is that no ceiling mounted speakers in front will pass the WAF, otherwise your best bet would be to just use two ceiling mounted for front Atmos and skip the rear atmos altogether.

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I'll have to keep the distance piece in mind when I ultimately get it set up.


As I said, I've never heard Atmos in action in any format or setup so I'm not even sure what to expect, but I know that it sounds cool on paper and I'm trying to make my movie space as nice as I can given the limited budget and specifically the limited arrangement options.


The WAF in allowing even two low-profile Polk OMW3's to be mounted to the ceiling above our couch (which is up against a wall across the room from the TV) is proving difficult enough. Most official Dolby layouts I've seen had the Atmos speakers directly above the listening position or slightly in front of / behind, right? To answer your question, I do not believe anything ceiling mounted would be permissible in front of the listening position - the room is too large for that anyway since in-ceiling isn't an option and the wires would look awful strung across the ceiling.


The other thing I'm worried about is that at the upfiring Atmos speakers from the front would have to roughly pass through / around / near a large ceiling fan in the middle of the room.


With all of that in mind, would I just be better off placing Atmos speakers above the main listening position and skipping the front? I ask because going from a 7.2 to a 9.2 receiver is a relatively big jump price-wise in most cases. I figured .4 Atmos would sound more immersive than .2 Atmos, and if it sounds only "iffy" at best it probably wouldn't be worth the necessary upgrades across the whole system and components to get Atmos in the first place ...

You mentioned your listening position is right up against the back wall. How far away is the seating position from where the upfiring modules would be? The success of upfiring modules comes down to sitting in the exact right spot so the sounds that reflect off the ceiling hit you square in the main listening position. It's all about the angles and distances based on ceiling height, speaker position, and seating position. Your best option to get the best Atmos effect may be to do a single pair mounted over the MLP and go with 7.1.2. If doing only .2 Atmos, Dolby recommends anywhere from 65 - 100 degrees from horizontal, which is just slightly ahead of MLP to just slightly behind directly overhead. https://www.dolby.com/us/en/guide/speaker-setup-guides/5.1.2-overhead-speaker-setup-guide.html. If you're doing 7.1.4 Atmos, then you'd want them moved out front and behind the MLP, ideally evenly spaced forward and back, but with your couch against the back wall, no way to get rear Atmos behind you really.

iceman936 said:

Right. It's about 13-15 feet from where the upfiring speakers would be to the MLP. Ceiling height is about 9 feet I think. I haven't done the math/geometry, or gotten the angle of the upfiring speakers, to determine if it'd 100% work. I can definitely accommodate the top-down angle of 65-100 degrees from the ceiling-mounted speakers though since the recommendation flexes farther forward than backward in the diagram.


You're right that I wouldn't be able to do even-spacing forward and backward with the .4, however. It would more likely be right on top and then a few feet ahead. Now you're making me second guess it ... perhaps that wouldn't be worth the extra cost? If I can only do .2 and not .4, is it still worth the effort? My wife would greatly prefer I just go with the front two upward-firing speakers and completely forgo those on the ceiling but I don't know if that would sound very good, even if I got the angle perfect?

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It's really hard to say how it will work for you without trying it. I used upfiring Atmos modules for a while. They worked ok. The sound is obviously more diffused than a direct radiating speaker, but the effect is still pretty good if, like I said before, you can get everything into the right positions. I did eventually switch to using small speakers mounted on the side walls at ceiling height aimed at the MLP. I do prefer that. Much like your situation, I was limited to what I could put where. In-ceiling speakers were out of the question, so it came down to finding the best compromise.

I think since you couldn't really get the rear Atmos channels far enough behind you, you should stick with doing 2-channel Atmos and try the upfiring approach first. If you haven't already bought the upfiring modules, buy them online from a place like crutchfield.com that has a good return policy. They'll give you 60 days to try things out. See how they work out for you. If you're happy with them, you're done. Sit back and enjoy your new Atmos HT! If the upfiring modules don't work for you, return them and mount the two Atmos speakers overhead.

HarleyRider said:

It's really hard to say how it will work for you without trying it. I used upfiring Atmos modules for a while. They worked ok. The sound is obviously more diffused than a direct radiating speaker, but the effect is still pretty good if, like I said before, you can get everything into the right positions. I did eventually switch to using small speakers mounted on the side walls at ceiling height aimed at the MLP. I do prefer that. Much like your situation, I was limited to what I could put where. In-ceiling speakers were out of the question, so it came down to finding the best compromise.

I think since you couldn't really get the rear Atmos channels far enough behind you, you should stick with doing 2-channel Atmos and try the upfiring approach first. If you haven't already bought the upfiring modules, buy them online from a place like crutchfield.com that has a good return policy. They'll give you 60 days to try things out. See how they work out for you. If you're happy with them, you're done. Sit back and enjoy your new Atmos HT! If the upfiring modules don't work for you, return them and mount the two Atmos speakers overhead.

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Finally got to visit a Best Buy Magnolia room to hear Atmos in action. Unfortunately, only one of their ceiling Atmos speakers was functioning, but one is better than none if only to hear what sorts of sounds came out and what the effect might be. Also, the ceiling in the room was of the sound-absorbing white square variety which is the opposite of my flat painted ceiling at home, which directly impacted the upfiring speakers during the test.


My initial impression was "I definitely want Atmos" haha Beyond that, the in-ceiling speaker definitely sounded better. Granted, I'm sure there was inadequate room-correction distance-correction etc, so it's possible the closer proximity of the in-ceiling speaker made it sound better, and of course there was the upfiring speaker shooting directly into a largely non-reflective surface which certainly hurt its case. Definitely not a fair or great 'test', but a 'test' nonetheless.


In your experience, did you have similar responses? That Atmos was definitely cool with the right source material, and worth trying to get? But also that in-ceiling or in my case ON-ceiling speakers would be vastly superior to upfiring ones? Or was my test really not fair due to the lack of fine tuning and non-reflective ceiling?

iceman936 said:

Finally got to visit a Best Buy Magnolia room to hear Atmos in action. Unfortunately, only one of their ceiling Atmos speakers was functioning, but one is better than none if only to hear what sorts of sounds came out and what the effect might be. Also, the ceiling in the room was of the sound-absorbing white square variety which is the opposite of my flat painted ceiling at home, which directly impacted the upfiring speakers during the test.


My initial impression was "I definitely want Atmos" haha Beyond that, the in-ceiling speaker definitely sounded better. Granted, I'm sure there was inadequate room-correction distance-correction etc, so it's possible the closer proximity of the in-ceiling speaker made it sound better, and of course there was the upfiring speaker shooting directly into a largely non-reflective surface which certainly hurt its case. Definitely not a fair or great 'test', but a 'test' nonetheless.


In your experience, did you have similar responses? That Atmos was definitely cool with the right source material, and worth trying to get? But also that in-ceiling or in my case ON-ceiling speakers would be vastly superior to upfiring ones? Or was my test really not fair due to the lack of fine tuning and non-reflective ceiling?

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That's good that you got to experience Atmos and feel it's worth pursuing. I jumped into it never having heard it in-person, only what I had read from equipment reviews and people's experiences posted here on AVS. I do think it's worth trying to set up. With the right source material, it just adds that extra dimension of realism. One thing I should mention -- I'm guessing you already have a 4K UHD player. I did not when I started my Atmos adventure, and then I quickly found out there were very few Bluray's that had Atmos soundtracks. Most studios only put Atmos soundtrack on their UHD releases.

I think most people probably agree that in-ceiling is the best way to do Atmos, but obviously that doesn't work for everybody, myself included. You can still get a very convincing effect with upfiring if you have the right room/setup for it. I did get pretty good results with it. The reason I switched to on-wall is because I upgraded my front towers to electrostats, so there was nowhere to sit the Atmos modules anymore.

From your description, it does sound like Magnolia's upfiring demo was not well executed. They won't work well trying to bounce off an acoustic tile ceiling. Here's what the Dolby specs say for upfiring modules:




If your room meets those parameters, I think it's worth giving the upfiring modules a try. Like I said, just make sure wherever you get them from, you have enough time to try them out and return them if they don't work for you.