What ATMOS processor (or AVR) do you use, what channels setup and what did it cost (approx)?

There’s no fixed % split of the movies vs music, very much depends on the mood of the moment; a 50-50 probably a gud assumption as I’m passionate on both

I’m only allow to embed 1 pic per post :sweat_smile:

Why is that so? You can can post a series of it.

Desray,

The system prompted “new user” limits pop up dialogue.

I was also no able to post more than 2 replies earlier.

Probably a spam protection mechanism.

wcseow,

I’m using wall mounted surround.
Not able to move seating too far front;
My atmos speakers are not ideal, it’s those reflection types… the effects aren’t anywhere near the ceiling mounted kind.

Any major work (ie drilling and reposition) surround and Atmos would require significant motivation-

Due to my front equipment size and weight,:weary: there’s significant effort needed to move them out of the way plus protect against dust… I need a lot of convincing that there’ll be substantial improvement and benefits. :smirk:

Maybe once new equipment change and a pair ceiling mounted Atmos,… till then, I probably just move few inches left and right

Yes. U need to post more often to get past all those “limitations”. It is a defense mechanism against spambots.

Whoa, nice setup! :smiley: Love the unique look of those speakers. Man, they are HUGE for the room! Just wondering, won’t u face challenges to place them to have enough space around it to breathe and not affecting the minimum width needed for imaging/sound stage?

My listening area is similar too, 4m depth x 3m width, so can appreciate the space limitations u face.

Music - I can’t comment as I’m a 99% HT person. So it will be mainly for HT.

From the photos, few observations. A few placement issues:

Frontal width of front speakers/ Minimum angle of front speakers to MLP

  • The frontal width between your front speakers seems not sufficient to have the minimum angle needed for angling VS your MLP based on Dolby specs.
  • This affects the overall sound stage + intended frontal sound panning between LCR speakers

Surrounds VS MLP placement

  • Like what wcseow pointed out, your surrounds placement is not good for 5.x.x wrt your MLP and will affect the intended surround envelop effect.
  • Because of your door, I would mount your surrounds near the corners of the rear wall, such that it points diagonally from the rear at an angle to have the intended sound envelop effect for HT.
  • Also, do consider moving your MLP fwd slightly besides shifting your surround backwards to achieve the min angle based on Dolby specs. By doing this, your front speakers angle to your MLP will improve too and it will improve frontal sound stage.
  • I can’t seem to locate your surrounds in the photo beside your sofa. Are they mounted above?

LCR timbre matching

  • great work in raising the centre high to ear level :slight_smile:
  • Seems like your centre is different brand. If the timbre and tonality is very different, this affects your HT frontal immersion and LCR panning greatly due to incoherent tonality.
  • If your front speakers are much better in specs, and u dont intend to change the centre speaker, suggest u explore phantom centre approach for HT to have a more coherent sound field and sound panning from the front.

Subwoofer

  • how low can your front’s go and when does it start rolling off?
  • staying on 1 sub seriously will not give u good bass as the serious peaks and nulls caused by the room will affect your sound a lot, both in HT and music.
  • as i suggested earlier, get 2 identical subs. Try placing them front middle and rear middle as this is a recommended placement to smoothen the bass response. Play around with placement for the best results…
  • Get an Antimode DSP to manage the dual subs.

Are u using your sub for music too? Or do u switch off the sub for music?

Thanks, those are great speakers. Placement wise, I found that the width is not as critical as the depth. It needs some distance from the front wall to get that 3 dimensional soundstage.

These are not your usual conventional but omi-directional (the sound propagates 360 degrees on the horizontal plane). Thus the issue of directivity is a non-issue. Below is the speaker without the grills, as you can see the tweeter, mid and mid-bass driver shape face the full 360 degree. There is a 12" sub-woofer integrated in the ported enclosure.

At the moment, not a lot can be done on the surrounds;
I might look into moving the around, but drilling new holes and relocating the brackets is a major effort especially protecting the existing equipments from dust.

Surrounds are from MK Sound S150, they are tri-pole, so it’s not exactly directional.
The atmos is Elac unit that bounces from the ceiling. I would look into ceiling mount if I decided to relocate the surround.


Wall mounted - a bit too high :sweat_smile:

You are correct, the center is from Dynaudio Confidence series. My ears are probably not that sensitive to timbre as I find the sound integrates quite ok,… If you refer to my new thread below, I had revised the config,… I brought the center back to the front… not ideal in term of sound placement, however the SQ is much better. I am more willing to accept this compromise. As my screen is not acoustically transparent, it does lose a lot of fidelity when place behind the screen… sound distinctively veil/muffled.

I started a thread to discuss on the room nodes here Room Nodes. There are some plots as well.

The front does goes very low… near 30Hz;
I have moved the sub to the side wall on my left. It is not too boomy and after YPAO, I find it acceptable 95% of the time. I do not use it for music - overkill and integration with the front just not ideal.

Wow, those front speakers are super interesting. Must hear them one day man. Must have cost u a lot… Does this brand do matching centre speakers as well?

Surrounds - tri-pole will help a bit. But moving them to a more “rear” position would help a lot in the sound :slight_smile:

ATMOS - reflection method is very hard to get it sound right. If u can, mounting them in the ceiling would be great.

You are welcome to experience it once we have a new normal :wink:
TBH this brand was never in my “dream path” in my earlier part of the journey.

I went from B&W to KEF, back to B&W, then Sonus Faber, Dynaudio and finally MBL.
At some point I drooled over the horns from AvantGarde.

Unfortunately MBL is position more as a stereo purist. I’ve seen some people using a single bookshelf for center duty but the shape and size is just plain awkward.

This would be project for the future… way too many moving parts at the moment…
exploring my “source” solution… getting that ‘all-in-1’ device - hopefully later today I will have a zidoo Z9x to play for a few days to sort out my impression

Hi Bro,

The boomy bass that you are experiencing with both movies and music is due to the room primary mode peak. Based on room dimensions, it is likely in the 35hz range.

Using the PEQ in your yamaha processor, try applying a high Q cut (Q of 5 or even higher) at 35hz range ( try 34, 35, 36 Hz etc ) up to 6-8db cut. Not too familiar with the yamaha, if can apply for both subwoofer channel as well as front LR channel for stereo.

You should be able to hear the difference clearly once the cut addresses the main modal peak.

Let us know if this works.

Amazing MBL speakers and electronics !! Superb!!

You are spot on in terms of the cause of the boomy FR - this I am aware from early on;
The on-going challenge is how to effectively address it without introducing issues in other areas.

Theorectically based on the room dimensions;

The primary axial nodes are 43Hz, 55Hz and 67Hz
Comparing to the actual SPL plot the problem area is 43Hz, 67Hz and 80Hz (grey plot).
The 2nd axial node of 55Hz don’t really give any issue, while the tangential node at 79Hz does.

Moving the speakers around I ended up with a relative compromized where the offending 43Hz seems to be addressed. The room treatment adsorbers seems to help :wink: (as shown by the blue line plot.

After running the YPAO calibration after the latest reshuffling, I’m quite content (for now). The boom is addressed for the most part except for rare occasions while stereo imaging is not compromised too much…
In the future, when itchy finger/butt, things will change again - that’s for sure.

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