Dolby Atmos height speaker dimensions/frequency

[Plermpel]

Hello guys,

 

I am about to build my first balls to the wall home cinema in my livingroom.

I am going to use 6 magnat monitor 802 for the surround field, one or two 302a subs and one 202a sub in the front. But I am not shure about the height speakers, I want to go for the monitor 102s but the frequency range of those is much lesser than the towers. How much does frequency response matter for height speakers, I could also go for 202s, but they are allready a bit chunky.

For shure I am not going to hang four tower speakers from the sealing, even if i'd like to. The better half would probably kill me and I admit it wouldn't look too good.

It will be all powered with a MASSIVE tower of modified old studio amps and hopefully an AV 7706 is in the budget until christmas.

[tikker]

As their name implies Atmos speakers are there to provide atmosphere. It sounds great, but not worth spending tower level money on in my opinion. 42 Hz - 36 kHz (if I can believe the specsheet) sounds plenty for those to me. I have my cross-overs at 80 Hz to let the sub take care of those frequencies. My Atmos speakers are upfiring and cross-over at 180 Hz even for that reason, but I have never felt like they needed to produce more bass.

 

Why triple subs? I could understand dual, but 3? Full towers for every speaker, while ideal in terms of matching, also is overkill for me, but it's not my wallet Maybe it's just not listed, but will you not get a centre speaker?

[tikker]

10 minutes ago, Benji said:

Just a heads-up: Magnat is known to be cheap trash that never lifts up to their expectations or spec sheets. I can guarantee you that they won't even come close to reaching either the top or bottom frequency at a reliable volume anyway. Maybe at -10dB (maybe even less) or so. So I'd say that it's not even realistic at all.

With these speakers, there won't be that much of a difference and they should be perfectly fine for the use case, based on the rest of the system. That's why I don't understand the "MASSIVE tower" of amplifiers. For what? To blow those cheap things up?

I'm not super familiar with Magnat. I only knew them as an okay budget brand.

10 minutes ago, Benji said:

That's why I don't understand the "MASSIVE tower" of amplifiers. For what? To blow those cheap things up?

Good point, that Marantz AV 7706 is €2700 on its own already. Doesn't make sense pairing that with budget speakers. @Plermpelif you're spending that amount of money on a pre-amp of all things, you may want to consider rebalancing your budget and going with a "lower" tier receiver while upgrading your speakers. Even if that means less of them. Sound quality matters as much or more as the number of speakers and I'm thoroughly enjoying my 5.1.2 setup that I've built up over the last two years starting from 2.0.

[Plermpel]

22 minutes ago, tikker said:

Why triple subs? I could understand dual, but 3?

I want to custum fit the two 300mm chassis inside my sofa.

14 minutes ago, Benji said:

Just a heads-up: Magnat is known to be cheap trash that never lifts up to their expectations or spec sheets. I can guarantee you that they won't even come close to reaching either the top or bottom frequency at a reliable volume anyway. Maybe at -10dB (maybe even less) or so. So I'd say that it's not even realistic at all.

With these speakers, there won't be that much of a difference and they should be perfectly fine for the use case, based on the rest of the system. That's why I don't understand the "MASSIVE tower" of amplifiers. For what? To blow those cheap things up?

I personally like those speakers, my dad has 5.1 surround at home with a Quadral Quintas System and I preffer my 802s. 

Also I preffer to underdrive overkill speakers. The Amps are also running at 70% with their lowest  noise level.

6 minutes ago, tikker said:

I'm not super familiar with Magnat. I only know them as an okay budget brand.

Good point, that Marantz AV 7706 is €2700 on its own already. @Plermpelif you're spending that amount of money on a pre-amp of all things, you may want to consider rebalancing your budget and going with a "lower" tier receiver while upgrading your speakers.

I allready have 4 802s and the 200mm sub and I got the third pair used for 120 Euros.

A reciever is no option, since I hate nothing more than unbalanced RCA jacks.

[tikker]

1 hour ago, Plermpel said:

want to custum fit the two 300mm chassis inside my sofa.

But that processor only has 2 sub channels. It can't do 3 subs. And subwoofers inside a sofa? That's far from optimal placement I'd think. You might be better off with bass shakers in that case.

1 hour ago, Plermpel said:

Also I preffer to underdrive overkill speakers.

I think you need to redefine your meaning of overkill speakers.  I'm sure they're decent, but overkill they are not.

1 hour ago, Plermpel said:

A reciever is no option, since I hate nothing more than unbalanced RCA jacks.

Yet you pair cheap budget speakers with a top shelf audio processor that literally costs 10 times as much. Balanced outputs it the least of concern here.

[Plermpel]

42 minutes ago, tikker said:

But that processor only has 2 sub channels. It can't do 3 subs.

I will just mirror the signal.

42 minutes ago, tikker said:

But subwoofers inside a sofa? That's far from optimal placement I'd think. You might be better off with bass shakers in that case.

It's not just subwoofers inside a sofa. I am only going to reuse the cussions of the original sofa. Underneath there will be a chamber with the two speakers firing on the floor and bass reflex tubes out the back.

42 minutes ago, tikker said:

I think you need to redefine your meaning of overkill speakers.  I'm sure they're decent, but overkill they are not.

They are just the right size and power to drive my living room, without noticable noise. I haven't heared too much speakers but I've heared enough that I know that I personally prefer the sound of those paper membranes over other ones seen in speakers from teufel or klipsch in even a higher price range. I only know that the tweeters of the magnat speakers are quite bad compared to other ones but since I hardly listen to classic music it isn't really noticable, watching movies and playing video games.

42 minutes ago, tikker said:

Yet you pair cheap budget speakers with a top shelf audio processor that literally costs 10 times as much. Balanced outputs it the least of concern here.

Balanced audio signal is never unmeaningfull, I accually don't know how the AV recievers handle the signal I can only speak for PC audio but in that case the differences is enourmes, the most expensive sound card with RCAs sounds like crap compared to even the cheapest 192khz DAC with balanced outputs.

[Ham sandwich]

Wha??? Subwoofers in your couch? A pair of 12”s.? The bass shaker things sound like a much better idea. Easy to install Plus people won’t think you’re crazy. Mounting tower speakers to the ceiling is less crazy than that. But if you do install 12’s in your couch please post some pics. 
and what do you mean a “MASSIVE tower of modified old studio amps”? I can’t tell if you’re joking. Post a pic. I gotta see it to believe it. Building a massive tower of modified old amps and converting your couch into a speaker could be dangerous. Probably nothing a good fire extinguisher couldn’t handle. You said your wife would be upset if you put towers on the ceiling. Imagine how pissed she'd be if you burn down the house.

[cmndr]

Some general points.

1. It's hard to position sound frequencies below 80Hz for most people. There's VERY little benefit to having a crossover below 80Hz and 60Hz is probably the lowest worth considering (mostly because 70Hz is uncommon and there's SOME rolloff effect on the subs). As such there's relatively little benefit to tower speakers other than as the front L+R unless you are in a MASSIVE room and need the efficiency. You'd be better off with bookshelf speakers and spending more on other things (like room treatment and good subs). I'm not familiar with Magnat (they're not in North America) but you can get some seriously good choices for similar cash. In the US I'd probably say something like a Polk R200 and SVS PB-1000/2000 subwooferS. You could probably do 4 subs.
2. If you have positioning flexibility, look into the subwoofer crawl for positioning your subs. Also I STRONGLY suggest getting something like a UMIK-1 and downloading (for free) REW.

3. Tactile transducers (sometimes called bass shakers or rumblers). Look into them. This is a MUCH better option than subwoofers in the couch.
4. Sub placement - let's assume you freed up $$$ by going with some cheaper gear - 4 subs in the corners, in the center of the room OR near the corners but offset by 25% of the room length can work. It might even be worth experimenting with subs as coffee tables or side tables.

5. Custom subwoofers are harder to pull off than you think. Even if you use better parts, GOOD ones made by a company like SVS, Hsu, Rel, Monolith, etc. will have $100,000-$1 million worth of engineering in them.

 

Quote

How much does frequency response matter for height speakers, I could also go for 202s, but they are allready a bit chunky.

Usually not a ton. I use cheap klipsch quintets for my atmos height speakers. Atmos mostly does "atmosphere" effects so it's not like there's orchestral music coming from above. I'd say any speaker that can hit ~100Hz is probably "good enough" for atmos. Just make sure that you're not reflecting sound off of the ceiling. THAT is a quality killer.

 

 

Quote

It will be all powered with a MASSIVE tower of modified old studio amps and hopefully an AV 7706 is in the budget until christmas.

Sounds expensive.
You'd probably end up better off just getting something like a Marantz SR8015 (or 6015 if you don't feel a need for 13 channel processing - 11 might be enough, just be aware you might need a single separate amp for something like a back atmos or a single GOOD amp for your fronts)

The only real downside I'd imagine is that the all in one solution might struggle a little with 4 Ohm speakers if you need to fill a LARGE room. If you're in a mid-sized room (think 10meters by 10 meters) it's probably fine. This can partially be ameliorated by having a GOOD 2 channel amp for the L+R if you're trying to fill a large area, though the less $$$ AVRs don't just shut down the circuits amplification when using the pro-outs. This is VERY nitpicky and really shouldn't be a concern unless you're spending a LOT more on your speakers and are trying to get out the last little bit.

I want to emphasize - room treatment will get you purer sound than spending more on amplification.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ekssXX7rE

 

 

On 10/6/2021 at 8:50 AM, tikker said:

But that processor only has 2 sub channels. It can't do 3 subs.

You can buy a y-cable for like $5-10.

https://www.amazon.com/Rca-Y-Cable/s?k=Rca+Y+Cable

Most systems EQ all the subs simultaneously for a unified frequency curve. The only really tricky part is that you might want to tweak the phase on each sub manually.
 

On 10/6/2021 at 8:50 AM, tikker said:

I think you need to redefine your meaning of overkill speakers.  I'm sure they're decent, but overkill they are not.

Yet you pair cheap budget speakers with a top shelf audio processor that literally costs 10 times as much. Balanced outputs it the least of concern here.

Agree with this. As a rule of thumb you should probably be spending 5-20x as much on speakers as on amplification.

It's not 1970 anymore, you can get "good enough" amplification for cheap. $200ish of amplification in 2020 is more accurate than $2000 of amplification in 1970.

[Plermpel]

Very nice of you guys to answer my questions still but my home cinema is done since allmost 6 months now, I ended up with 6 towers, four shelf speakers hanging off the ceiling, one 300A Sub, one 202A Sub and an underpowered Center, My Behringer A500 tower is now more reasonable and flat under the shelf :D, I got a used AV7703 which sucks a bit since it only supports 48KHz with ARC but I am still very happy.
But since I am going to build a new house next year it's going to get a deticated home cinema with about 30m² I am going to need MORE POWER

not quite shure yet if the AVC-8500H can outperform my 8 modified A500s