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Towers for Height Channels?

4K views 16 replies 3 participants last post by  willis7469 
#1 ·
I just purchased a lovely pair of Klipsch RP-160M's, and they are spectacular! These were going to be used for the front Height (Atmos) channels.

But we have a pair of very good tower speakers (BIC DV84's), and is there any reason why they can't be used for the Atmos channels? We have plenty of room, and they can be mounted pretty high on the wall. Near the ceiling.

I will experiment with both speaker sets later today.

What do you say?
 
#3 ·
The towers could go on a sturdy, bracket braced shelf. The walls in the front of the theater are fairly tall and they could fit one of three ways...

1. Placed on the wall vertically, as is standard flanking the screen and drapes.
2. Placed on the wall next to the ceiling, "head-to-head" horizontally. They would be separated by the screen and curtains, of course.
3. Placed vertically in the corners, at the 45 degree angle from the seating position.

The RP-160M's could be placed similarly, in the corner, or on the sides of the screen.

The advantage of the towers is the present a huge sound stage. Even though the content does not require a speaker of the size and build, the audio content very well may benefit from a tower.

Found some info online concerning placement of front height speakers, saying they should be in the corners, as close to the ceiling as possible.

I will experiment later this afternoon.
 
#5 · (Edited)
In ceiling is not really an option. Yes, the AV Pre-Pro will be upgraded soon...depending on my results today with the speaker placement.

Now that it is not necessary to buy a new blu-ray player (current DMP-UB900), that money can be diverted to a new Integra preamp.
 

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#6 ·
In ceiling is not really an option. Yes, the AV Pre-Pro will be upgraded soon...depending on my results today with the speaker placement.



Now that it is not necessary to buy a new blu-ray player (current DMP-UB900), that money can be diverted to a new Integra preamp.



Can't post photos here, as it is not possible to upload straight from my computer picture files.


Interesting. I use Tapatalk for iOS and posting pics takes about 5 seconds. It’s really nice. Anyway, not a biggie.
Also, keep in mind that your testing today will be different than an actual immersive test.
Sorry I don’t recall. We’re you eventually going to do 4 height/top speakers?
Curious. What kind of ceiling installation obstacles do you have?
 
#11 · (Edited)
Update: Just set up the RP-150M's as the front height channels, near the corners of the walls in front. This selection has turned my Integra DHC-80.3 9.2 into a 5.2.4 system (sort of).

Two front height, two front wide, L+C+R, two subs, plus the rear L+R surrounds.

Both speaker sets have been tried in the front L+R height channels. Here is the shocker. There has been zero (zero) audio output from these channels, except when all channel stereo is played. Watched part of two movies, Dunkirk (4K) and Sully. Zero audio. None. I even turned off all the amps except for the front height channels. It was like going to a silent movie.

I went through several times in the setup menu, adjusting volumes and distances for all channels and speaker placements.

Total waste of time, and money so far.

Edit: I finally broke the code, as not all modes support all channels. To get the front height channels involved, I selected DTS Neo: X Cinema. And also THX: Cinema.

Still more listening to do, but there is a fair amount of info in those front height channels.
 
#12 ·
You certainly CAN use tower speakers for height channels, but I wouldn't do it unless the ceiling height was 10.5 feet or more. And if I used towers, I would attach the BASE of the speaker to the ceiling, not the top. That makes the speaker hang "upside down" so the tweeter is lower.

You want SEPARATION of the height speakers from the "low" speakers to get a decent immersive effect--the top of the lower speakers should be at least a few feet below the "bottom" of the top speakers.

Also don't forget that most movies with Atmos or DTS:X soundtracks are absolutely PATHETIC in the height channels because there was no human sound engineer involved in creation of the immersive soundtrack. If it is a Dolby soundtrack, it sounds like they start with the 7.1 soundtrack, run that through Dolby Surround (that sounds HORRIBLE on everything you use it on) to create completely fake immersive sound, then they encode that as an Atmos soundtrack and call it done. Studios hate to spend money if they think they can get away with cheap-shotting something like this. The few discs that do have pretty good immersive soundtracks have clearly had a human at an editing consolde. DTS:X tracks are just as bad, except Neural:X does a better (but only a little better) job of synthesizing channels from 7.1 soundtracks. AuroMatic (the upmixer you get with Auro-3D, makes most Atmos and DTS:X movies sound better if you do NOT use Atmos or DTS:X and instead, use AuroMatic to decode the 7.1 or 5.1 original soundtrack. Of course if you choose a processor that doesn't support Auro-3D, you can't really hear how much better AuroMatic is when the original Atmos or DTS:X soundtrack was done without a sound engineer at the helm.
 
#13 ·
You certainly CAN use tower speakers for height channels, but I wouldn't do it unless the ceiling height was 10.5 feet or more. And if I used towers, I would attach the BASE of the speaker to the ceiling, not the top. That makes the speaker hang "upside down" so the tweeter is lower.



You want SEPARATION of the height speakers from the "low" speakers to get a decent immersive effect--the top of the lower speakers should be at least a few feet below the "bottom" of the top speakers.

If you want more separation from the bed layer(which I agree with) why would you place the tweeter lower? That’s bassackwards.
 
#14 · (Edited)
After further review, doing side-by-side A/B listening tests, the towers proved to be no advantage in the front L&R Height Channels...much to my surprise. I guess that reinforces my review (on another thread) of the overall quality of the Klipsch RP-160M's.

I will put these on shelves flanking the screen, near the ceiling. The ceiling height in the front of the theater is 10.4 feet.

The angle will be very close to 45 degrees from the central "Sweet Spot" in my theater. But that figure will be different depending on which row of seats you are sitting in, and if you have a middle seat, or an aisle seat.
 
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