Today was the first time I experienced Atmos at a HiFi store (5.1.2) - 2 setups, 1 room

[KENI]

Today was a big milestone for me. Getting to experience Atmos in a private and acoustically treated room was an absolute treat. They even had 2 different setups each setup with the speakers I was there to listen to before deciding what to buy for my own home theater, with the AVR I'm using at home, currently a 3.0 setup.

I got to listen to bluray tracks for Interstellar, Mad Max, and some demos from a demo disc.

For Interstellar which I knew because it's a Nolan film, there was no native Atmos, but I couldn't tell the difference because the height effects still sounded deliberate when upmixed.

What was very interesting to me was the comparison between high-end in-ceiling speakers, and a pair of DALI Alteco (lowest in the entire DALI lineup). I could not for the life of me tell that the high-end speakers sounded better, so that's going to save me a lot of money as well.

I cannot wait to get started again on my own home theater. I still have furniture that I need to buy so that everything can be setup properly, but I have a shopping cart of speakers ready to go once the time comes...

I'm very excited writing this, and in the future I might open this thread again and think to myself "eh, whatever, it's just Atmos". But right now, I'm over the moon!

I have worked with both audio and video in the past, but I never worked in a studio with Atmos, so I do know some things, and am still learning other things.

Bonus: On-wall speaker comparison

In a different room I tried On-wall speakers, namely the Argon Audio Forus 4, DALI Oberon, DALI Opticon. The difference was enourmous between the Forus and the Oberon. They used a quick switch panel which ment within 1 second I was listening to a different pair of speakers. The soundstage just opens up, the clarity, the dynamic range.

However, again what surprised me was switching from Oberon to Opticon. I didn't expect to not be able to tell the difference, not even after a 1 second quick switch. I listened to a couple different music tracks, and it was extremely hard to tell what the differences actually were. Meanwhile between Forus and Oberon, the difference was instant, 1.5-2 meter wider soundstage and it sounded fantastic!

Have a lovely day people!

 

[Todd Anderson]

That's awesome @KENI, there's no doubt that a great immersive setup will get the juices flowing. Once you hear it, you can't unhear it!

I'm not too surprised you couldn't hear much of a difference between the ceiling channels. The Atmos audio information is often subtle enough that it's hard to tell. The most important factor for you will be proper placement.

Interesting about the Forus and Oberon comparison. Could you see how the speakers were positioned?