please recommend me some upfiring Atmos speakers

Dinalt

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Hi all,

I’m thinking of adding a pair of upfiring speakers to my system and have absolutely no idea where to start there seem to be very few comparative rev online so thought I’d consult the hive mind.
My set up is as follows Denon 3700 H supplying centre and rears. Cyrus One Hd feeding my fronts.
The speakers themselves are B&W 603 Front with a matching centre (not at home atm so cant rember which one but its a 600 too series I think). My rears are TDL RTL3s. Since I have floorstanders front and rear Ive never felt the need for a sub.
The room itself is rectangular roughly 15 feet by 30 with a flat stippled / artex ceiling. The speakers fire down the long axis of the room and the listening position is about 12 or so feet from the front speakers (ceiling height is roughly the same).
Would upfirers work for me and what make / model would people recommend - just spent £1200 on the Cyrus amp and a Node so £500 is absolut3 tops and cheaper is better.

Thanks
 
Buy a sub floorstanders cannot reproduce what a sub does, you're straining your amp and speakers in the process. I have speakers with lower bass performance than yours and those aren't a match for good sub.

As for upfiring I would recommend going for proper heights or ceiling instead. You'll get more for your money, and they'll offer better performance anyway. You don't necessarily need the angled speakers if you wall mount regular speakers.

I'm using q acoustic 3010i on q brackets. They're cheaper and offer wider frequency response than the much smaller trapezoid upfirers/downfirers
 
Thanks for the reply but it doesn’t really address the question.
Whilst I accept real heights will undoubtedly give a better result it is just not going to happen. And your point about stressing the Amp is really irrelevent - the AVR is only driving 3 speakers the fronts have 100 W per channel dedicated to them.
I guess what I really want to know is are upfiring speakers effective and what speakers are best value for money? I was hoping the home cinema section of this forum would be more helpful than the 2 channel / hifi channels.
 
You really need to get rears..to have Atmos height without rears doesn't really make sense.

Arendel alteco are upfiring and downfirng about £400 a pair.

It's irrelevant how much power you have, I've got 300w. Subwoofer does far better job in bass than yhe speakers will. Your speakers go down to 48hz, so you're missing 10-45hz in bass frequencies. Plus speakers will have far higher Distortion attempting to play bass, you're losing dynamics also

Also I believe you lose the lfe channel also
 
I use Arendal 1961s which are awesome. Love them.
 
You really need to get rears..to have Atmos height without rears doesn't really make sense.

Arendel alteco are upfiring and downfirng about £400 a pair.

It's irrelevant how much power you have, I've got 300w. Subwoofer does far better job in bass than yhe speakers will. Your speakers go down to 48hz, so you're missing 10-45hz in bass frequencies. Plus speakers will have far higher Distortion attempting to play bass, you're losing dynamics also

Also I believe you lose the lfe channel also

Totally disagree. I've done both. Rears are nice but a lot of films are coded 5.1.4 anyway. Rears are kind of very under utilised on many mixes.

Its really a matter of preference. Some well positioned surrounds will give a lot of rear presence.
 
Totally disagree. I've done both. Rears are nice but a lot of films are coded 5.1.4 anyway. Rears are kind of very under utilised on many mixes.

Its really a matter of preference. Some well positioned surrounds will give a lot of rear presence.


Rears/sides you know what I mean
 
Your ceiling has to met the criteria needed for upfiring speakers. It has to be perfectly flat and made of a reflective material. Height wise it has to be between 7.5 and 14 feet high. The speakers need to be positioned on top or as near as possible to the front left and right and no more than 50% of the height of the ceiling.

I've been running upfiring speakers since they first emerged on the market with the KEF R50s. Love them. The KEF Q50s would be my choice, or the KEF R8a if your pockets are deep enough.

I do agree with the remarks about needing a sub. Your missing a lot of the LFE effects.
 
Hi all,

I’m thinking of adding a pair of upfiring speakers to my system and have absolutely no idea where to start there seem to be very few comparative rev online so thought I’d consult the hive mind.
My set up is as follows Denon 3700 H supplying centre and rears. Cyrus One Hd feeding my fronts.
The speakers themselves are B&W 603 Front with a matching centre (not at home atm so cant rember which one but its a 600 too series I think). My rears are TDL RTL3s. Since I have floorstanders front and rear Ive never felt the need for a sub.
The room itself is rectangular roughly 15 feet by 30 with a flat stippled / artex ceiling. The speakers fire down the long axis of the room and the listening position is about 12 or so feet from the front speakers (ceiling height is roughly the same).
Would upfirers work for me and what make / model would people recommend - just spent £1200 on the Cyrus amp and a Node so £500 is absolut3 tops and cheaper is better.

Thanks
I am using 4 and will go to 6 this Year Elac Atmos Upfiring speakers £100 each.
Going with ONLY 2 Upfiring will not be much of a joy in fackt you might be disappointed. At least 4x Atmos speaker are required if to hear any difference and than go up with a AVR Upgrade.
My room is 6m by 3m at 2.4m height and 4x Atmos is great but got 2x mare waiting till I upgrade my AVR from 11.2 to 13.2 later on this Year.
If youir AVR supports ONLY 2 Atmos do not bother better invest in AVR with 4x or more Atmos
 
You really need to get rears..to have Atmos height without rears doesn't really make sense.

Arendel alteco are upfiring and downfirng about £400 a pair.

It's irrelevant how much power you have, I've got 300w. Subwoofer does far better job in bass than yhe speakers will. Your speakers go down to 48hz, so you're missing 10-45hz in bass frequencies. Plus speakers will have far higher Distortion attempting to play bass, you're losing dynamics also

Also I believe you lose the lfe channel also
Your ceiling has to met the criteria needed for upfiring speakers. It has to be perfectly flat and made of a reflective material. Height wise it has to be between 7.5 and 14 feet high. The speakers need to be positioned on top or as near as possible to the front left and right and no more than 50% of the height of the ceiling.

I've been running upfiring speakers since they first emerged on the market with the KEF R50s. Love them. The KEF Q50s would be my choice, or the KEF R8a if your pockets are deep enough.

I do agree with the remarks about needing a sub. Your missing a lot of the LFE effects.
Thanks Gibbsy
 
I am using 4 and will go to 6 this Year Elac Atmos Upfiring speakers £100 each.
Going with ONLY 2 Upfiring will not be much of a joy in fackt you might be disappointed. At least 4x Atmos speaker are required if to hear any difference and than go up with a AVR Upgrade.
My room is 6m by 3m at 2.4m height and 4x Atmos is great but got 2x mare waiting till I upgrade my AVR from 11.2 to 13.2 later on this Year.
If youir AVR supports ONLY 2 Atmos do not bother better invest in AVR with 4x or more Atmos
Thanks - I can run 2 sets from the 3700 dunno if I can get away with 4 more runs of cable around the lounge though will have to catch the wife in a goid mood :)
 
@Dinalt - I was going to suggest PSB Imagine XA x 4 (I agree with @Nedy71 on this), but a quick Google search brought up a few other brands:


Richer Sounds seem to offer a decent range starting at just £129 a pair:


I was lucky enough to pick up two pairs of Imagine XA's at £249 each from Brighton Sevenoaks, and I bought two pairs of these online too for front and back:


I just felt that the upfirers could do with more of a lean towards some kind of sweet spot above my head, but this isn't obligatory.

And, of course, you'll need 2 x 2 runs of speaker cable too, but anything will do, you don't need to spend loads on these.

What's the difference between the cheapest and most expensive pair? Who knows? Most Atmos soundtracks are ambient in nature and quite subtle, you are not being bombarded with sound effects over your head throughout a film, though they do heighten and widen the sound and add to the immersive experience.

This is a very interesting video and I do agree with some of the things he says:



I'd also have a read of this recent Thread too (where I stole the above video from!):


I don't want to pop your balloon here, but it's important to temper your expectations around the impact of Atmos, that's all.

Having invested in upfirers and speaker cable, do I regret it? No - I didn't drill holes in my ceiling and it has improved my film-watching experience overall. If you can afford it, go for it, but you're not really missing out if you don't.

Oh, and adding a Subwoofer will add another very important dimension to the sound too, despite the fact that you have floorstanders (I do too).
 
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Yeah subwoofer (and surround sound) is bigger and worthwhile upgrade than Atmos.
 
@Dinalt - I was going to suggest PSB Imagine XA x 4 (I agree with @Nedy71 on this), but a quick Google search brought up a few other brands:


Richer Sounds seem to offer a decent range starting at just £129 a pair:


I was lucky enough to pick up two pairs of Imagine XA's at £249 each from Brighton Sevenoaks, and I bought two pairs of these online too for front and back:


I just felt that the upfirers could do with more of a lean towards some kind of sweet spot above my head, but this isn't obligatory.

And, of course, you'll need 2 x 2 runs of speaker cable too, but anything will do, you don't need to spend loads on these.

What's the difference between the cheapest and most expensive pair? Who knows? Most Atmos soundtracks are ambient in nature and quite subtle, you are not being bombarded with sound effects over your head throughout a film, though they do heighten and widen the sound and add to the immersive experience.

This is a very interesting video and I do agree with some of the things he says:



I'd also have a read of this recent Thread too (where I stole the above video from!):


I don't want to pop your balloon here, but it's important to temper your expectations around the impact of Atmos, that's all.

Having invested in upfirers and speaker cable, do I regret it? No - I didn't drill holes in my ceiling and it has improved my film-watching experience overall. If you can afford it, go for it, but you're not really missing out if you don't.

Oh, and adding a Subwoofer will add another very important dimension to the sound too, despite the fact that you have floorstanders (I do too).

Thanks Derek - your comment about noone knowing which is best is exactly where I’m at. Interesting that you don’t rate the performance/ effect as having too much impact. Starting to think I need to see if I can set up an home demo of some sort. And maybe a subwoofer too at some point - no idea where I’d put one though (theres plenty of room behind the listening position but Im not sure I want bass coming from there even if it isnt particularly directional.
 
-- As an eBay Associate, AVForums earns from qualifying purchases --
Thanks Derek - your comment about noone knowing which is best is exactly where I’m at. Interesting that you don’t rate the performance/ effect as having too much impact. Starting to think I need to see if I can set up an home demo of some sort. And maybe a subwoofer too at some point - no idea where I’d put one though (theres plenty of room behind the listening position but Im not sure I want bass coming from there even if it isnt particularly directional.
Actually, putting a Sub directly behind the MLP is one of the best positions to place it!

It'll have a much more visceral effect and you won't need to run it as loud as if it were further away from you.

Check out the Subwoofers' Forum if you need any help or advice with this.

I do think Atmos is a good addition to any HC set up, but it's similar to having Rears in a 5.1 arrangement - it's all about atmosphere and ambience, not direct impact like LCR.

As the video I linked stated, most Atmos films aren't mixed like that anyway so the speakers can't reproduce what isn't there.
 

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