Question about speaker placement in Atmos 7.4.2?

Steinberg Lounge
1

Hi,
I am just waiting for some speakers to arrive and then I start converting my 5.1 Surround home studio to Atmos 7.4.2.

Atmos requires three pairs of speakers front, mids and rears and 4 overheads.

I have a question about speaker placement for mids and rears.

My studio is 4 metres wide and 5.2 metres long. I sit at one end, where there is a large 63" screen, a desk, keyboard and controllers etc. This is not going to move. My space will never be perfect. This is OK.

My purposes are two fold. Firstly I live in this space so I watch the World Cup, Utube etc here. I want to use stereo for this and I have my speakers each side of the TV.
Secondly I want to compose chiefly using MIDI, in Atmos 6.1.4.
Currently my rear speakers (for 5.1 Surround - non Atmos) are situated near the middle of the long (5.2metre) walls. I find this good. If I were to place them right at the end of this room, I guess this would be “too far” in subjective terms.

I now have to replace my speakers in Atmos Positions. Should I:

A] Place the rear Atmos speakers in the far corner of the room and the mids in the middle - text book style

or

B] Try to shorten the length of my room by placing the rear speakers say 4 metres away (instead of 5.4) and the mids in between them and the front wall? This could make the listening experience more intimate?

I compose only, no mastering. All work will be sent for mastering.

The speakers I will be using (ILoud MTM MKIIs), have several ways of calibrating teh lengths and accommodating room sizes, and Cubase has MixerDelay which can delay speakers so as to compensate for length.

I shall move out of my sweetspot, if required for final pre-mastering mixes

Advice from wiser ones sought please?

Z

2

First of all, there might be some confusion about the channel configurations (you mention 7.4.2 and 6.1.4).

See this guide which explains what the numbers mean and where the speakers are supposed to be:

Also note that Dolby Atmos is like a “virtual” format that can get mapped to a variety of speaker configurations. You don’t necessarily need 7.1.4. The minimum is actually 3.1.2 and you could go up to 24.1.10. So 7.1.4 is just one common configuration.

3

I must have made a typo it’s definitely 7.1.4. In theory I understand the object based part. This is the Ideal position in the dolby pic. I need to compromise.

4

The picture also has ranges of the angles. This is basically the range that Dolby would deem “acceptable” for compromise so to speak.

If you don’t actually need to deliver masters from your room, I honestly wouldn’t fret too much. With music, you’ll probably only have room info or “accessory” sounds in the surround channels anyway.

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