Ceiling speakers - how much sound is transmitted above?

viper900

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Currently building a house

Living room is directly underneath my son's bedroom.

I'm tempted to get 2x in wall ceiling speakers for Dolby Atmos goodness however I'm worried it will leak a considerable amount of sound into his bedroom.

How much sound do ceiling speakers actually leak?

The alternative would be to put some speakers directly on the ceiling without drilling a huge hole, which should hopefully dampen/limit the effects of sound transfer.

Has anyone done the latter in their room?
 
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I have B&W CCM663 in ceiling speakers and as currently the floor is up in the bedroom above I've been able to measure the amount of leakage from the rear of the speaker.

Using the receivers test tones, 1m below the speaker it was 82dB, and 1m above the rear of the speaker it was 71dB.

I have an intumescent hood over the rear of the speaker and will be further reducing the leakage level by putting rockwool RW3 60kg slabs around that before putting the floor down.
 
If you want to limit the amount of sound that transmitted to the floor above, I'd recommend at least going with a sealed speaker.
 
Monitor audio do a CP range with a sealed back box
 
Thanks for this. Are these in ceiling cp range generally well thought of?
I've got a pair of monitor audio C265's not the CP ones and they are excellent speakers but the CP range with the sealed back dampens the sound transfer to the rooms above, the speakers are very good but a bit more expensive because of the sealed back
 
Thanks for this. Are these in ceiling cp range generally well thought of?
My front and rear atmos are CP-CT380IDC. I've been really happy with them, but it's my first pair of in ceiling speakers, so I have nothing to compared them to. As far as downsides are concerned, I would say it would be similar to comparing a sealed sub to a ported sub.
 
My front and rear atmos are CP-CT380IDC. I've been really happy with them, but it's my first pair of in ceiling speakers, so I have nothing to compared them to. As far as downsides are concerned, I would say it would be similar to comparing a sealed sub to a ported sub.
Cool, I was looking at a pair of Cp-ct380 alright but I'm not sure if they're worth it at 268 per speaker just for Atmos duties. What do you think?
 
Cool, I was looking at a pair of Cp-ct380 alright but I'm not sure if they're worth it at 268 per speaker just for Atmos duties. What do you think?
More than worth it. Here is a Dolby statement that will be useful to you "Dolby Atmos audio is mixed using discrete, full-range audio objects that may move around anywhere in three-dimensional space. With this in mind, overhead speakers should complement the frequency response, output, and power-handling capabilities of the listener-level speakers".
 
More than worth it. Here is a Dolby statement that will be useful to you "Dolby Atmos audio is mixed using discrete, full-range audio objects that may move around anywhere in three-dimensional space. With this in mind, overhead speakers should complement the frequency response, output, and power-handling capabilities of the listener-level speakers".
Interesting. They're the only closed back ones I can lay my hands on but not sure they'll match the timbre of the base layer! 4X Klipsch RP-240d and 1x rp-260d...
 
I wouldn't worry about trying to timbre matching with your base layer - it's not important. The point that Dolby is trying to make is, atmos channels don't have a limited frequency range.
 
I wouldn't worry about trying to timbre matching with your base layer - it's not important. The point that Dolby is trying to make is, atmos channels don't have a limited frequency range.
I’d second that. Mine are a different brand and I can’t tell the difference at all, they blend in just fine.
 

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