Hi guys,
Have sketched up a HT build for my house to be started building this year.
Any help or advice is appreciated but I feel I’ve made the most with the space whilst following Dolbys Atmos setup guide.
I have purposefully left my subwoofers out. I will be aiming to put them L,R,Centre,Rear L and Rear R.
All running and controlled via a miniDSP HD
Cheers
What kind of advice are you looking for and what is your (I assume large) budget? 15 speakers and 4 subs is going to need a lot of power and processing.
Any plans on what device will be the central brain for the system?
The Marantz AV8805 or AV7705 look like they might work for this, have no experience with either though (or their software to manage it).
You may want to look into bigger DSPs such as DBX DriveRack or Xilica XP-series
That way you could run Front L/R and Center as full range from the preamp, then split out into two front subs and various speakers.
Noob question: Why 9.1.6?
I thought Dolby Atmos and DTS:X both top out at 7.1.4 ?
Edit:
DSP can do a lot, but DSP can not fake a channel that is not there in the source.
Was also thinking what is the source device and material/media why control everything with miniDSP HD? What it the overall benefit?
What speakers are planned and what amp/amps?
This also and yes. That 7.1.6 or 9.1.4 combinations are supported, material/movies do not have more channels to give sound to my knowledge?
Sub’s can be easily added to 4 or more (even arround the room) if they or a separate DSP is used to fix everything. Basically same signal can be used.
You can basically double/copy/send the signal with really good processor like to 32 channels. Like 4 front upper surround or 4 rear surround, since top channels only have 4 signals. no point driving it to 6 speakers…
Will sound weird if top front and top center play same front surround noise with different time/delay etc and only 2 back channels play the rear surround.
I know. This is my candy shop area.
I can just use plain sub’s and daisy chain them up to 4. Everyone with there own DSP’s.
Amp also has 2 sub signal (left / right) so basically i can daisy chain another 4.
Proper processor can send that signal to… up to many channels + all the chains. Then fix everything to sound even.
If you’re going all out on a HT setup there are processors that go up to 16 channels of processing. Such processors also usually include Auro 3D processing which has a slightly different speaker arrangement than Atmos/DTS:X. The extra channels then allow for native processing and amping of each surround format with the option of dubbing channels into unused speakers. This 9.1.6 setup is why I thought this might be an all-out-cost-no-object (or very little object) type of system. The cheapest 16 channel processor I know of is by Monoprice:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=37887
The miniDSP may help with extra bass management. I don’t know if that Monoprice will contorl 4 subwoofers separately or treat them all as a single LFE channel. A miniDSP could room correct multiple subwoofers simultaneously.
32 channels, don’t know can there be even more.
Indeed!
That’s the golden one. 
That plus Genelec’s speakers… oh my looord. That demo was so freaking good.
Depending on your definition of channel, I could agree.
If money was of no concern, I would take the most channels I can out of the AV-preamp (all of them full range), then run front, rear and top (completly arbitrary zones) through DSPs/PAM to split out into Sub, Low/Mid and High for each zone.
The problem is, running 4 components (AV-Pre, 3x DSPs) before you even get to amps fills up 5 or 6U of rack space.
Gear space, power and cooling, space in general.
Also the overall delay of picture comes to play. Lip Sync problems might pop-up if to much processing and audio delays are used to get surround/audio correctly timed.
Though this is more audio related. Haven’t updated my picture info/possibility for some time, what is available today.
Never dealt with syncing a movie to audio, what I did was always the light desk getting signal from audio.
Hey mate, thanks for your reply.
I should’ve changed the title, I suppose!
I’m just asking for advice on speaker placement really.
I’ve put quite a lot of effort into following the Dolby recommendations as I said above, but hearing from those with real world experience setting them up may enlighten me to something I have overlooked…!
I have all the ear lever speakers and subwoofers.
I have a relatively large budget considering I need not purchase those speakers.
I had a 7.1ch setup previous to this and am building a new house.
I require one more 5ch power amp to complete the amplification requirements.
I am heavily leaning toward an Emotiva RMC1 as the processor, though I will not require the upgradability, so maybe an XMC2 or RMC1L may be a better option.
I nominated the MiniDSP HD as my bass management as I can daisy-chain the rear 2 subs together/split the input signal (though not desirable) and treat them as 1. 4 outputs on the MiniDSP HD but that’s okay.
Thanks everyone, good comments.
Have just been planning the room out in my head and wanted to put it all onto paper to map it out properly.
I appreciate all the advice I can get.
Supports Dolby Atmos up to 9.1.6 so the planning is ok.
