idred

I have two la scala for the center in I guess you can call it phantom. But I have K horns for the left and right. The reason I used two La Scala for the center is because of the TV I have I had to put one La Scala off to the side and it didn't exactly sound centered. Having the two La Scalas on the sides of the TV makes it sound like it is coming from the center. I don't think it would sound right if you used your left and right as center, you would probably lose most directionality of the sound. Obviously, best would be to have a single La Scala in the center but I can't do this with a large TV.

Finally got everything installed, this includes getting the new Atmos Processor. This was a big question I also wondered about, are these speakers overkill? I still need to do more testing but I don't think they are overkill. The argument here is that the surrounds, which includes the height speakers, only play ambient sounds. While this is true that they play ambient sounds, there are also times when they play very lound and low sounds. I shut off all my other speakers in the movie Unbroken, and there were times when planes flew overhead and other moments when the height speakers played very loud and low bass. However, lots of the time they did only play ambient sounds. If I just had some small speakers up there it definitely would not give the full impact and match with the rest of my system during those moments. I also noticed in Game of thrones that they play the intro music through the height speakers and it is very loud with low frequency coming out. We are just in the beginning of what ATMOS can do and so far I do find they use the full range of the height speakers in movies. It is true that they do play a lot of ambient sounds, but you will have those times in the movies when they use the height for full effect. I believe they will keep pushing this with future movies and I am future proofed here. At a local sound store where I bought my processor, I heard their demo system which had a couple of small speakers for height. I can immediately tell they sounded like small bookshelf speakers, more like a car speaker than a full range Klipsch Heresy speaker. I still need to do a lot more testing, I need to find a good movie that plays lots of atmos sounds and then turn off all the other speakers to see how much is coming through them. But so far with doing this with Unbroken, I did find moments in the movie where they played very loud and low, and I knew immediately that there was no way some small bookshelf speakers would play those moments well. The thing is that even decent quality bookshelf speakers are going to run you $300-500, it really only makes sense to use a $1000 dollar speaker up there, it isn't all that much more and you are future proofed for anything that may come out with movies. I would agree putting a La Scala in the ceiling would be overkill, but I think the Heresy iii's are just right for height speakers, nice and compact but offer good sound.

I agree with you and argue with my father about this all the time. I tell him that you really don't hear much coming from the surrounds. I can imagine the height speakers will be the same. However, I still think large speakers will be better like discussed in this post I found. http://www.avsforum.com/forum/89-speakers/2755865-why-no-love-full-range-surround-speakers.html Today I heard a demo at a local audio store that had 2 book shelf ceiling height speakers. I could tell the sound coming from them sounded like it was coming from a small speaker and it was lacking in power. I think most people never used large surround speakers and made proper comparisons. You see I also have a very large room and turn up the volume to demo my system. I also have the luxury to place large speakers around the listening area, still over 10 feet away from me all around also, because my room is a 24' x 24' room. If the height or surround speakers do ever call for loud sound then the larger speakers will be better.

Here is a picture of my front taken about a couple of months ago. I had to go with 2 La Scala for the center in phantom because 1 off to the side didn't sound centered. The 2 La scala for center sound much better. I did lots of tests for this using 1 and 2. The corner speakers are Klipsch Horns bought in the 80's for the room and used as the left and right channel. The Black boxes are Bag end subs with 4 18' woofers in each box.

I can show this after I get my front two installed. I have everything covered right now in the room because of the installation.

This is why I went with the heresy because they would match the La Scala. Atmos recommends full range speakers, I don't believe that they would recommend this if they were only passing little to those speakers. I also have a large room at 24' x 24'. What I'm going to have to do is turn off my other channels and just play the heights in atmos movies to see just how much sound is coming out of them in the intense action scenes.

I mounted a Heresy in the ceiling using some threaded rods and angle brackets.

Finally got the rear two speakers up and mounted. They sound awesome when playing stereo music from them. You really hear the low end sounds being very directional coming from their location. This is why I can't see how you can use up firing speakers. Is this overkill, I don't know but maybe. But these fit with the rest of the system and if a movie calls for some serious sound coming from above these will handle it, while a small speaker will not. You just can't get the same bass from a tiny speaker and the bass is somewhat directional. These are mounted where there shouldn't be any damage to the speaker cabinet. They just sit on two angle brackets and I put 3 layers of electrical tape where they lay on the angle brackets. Very secure also, it would take 3 threaded rods to fail for the speaker to fall out, never going to happen. I still need to mount the front 2 speakers before playing atmos movies.

I don't know for sure but I see your point. Actually, I think it may matter because ATMOS is object based. This means that the processor places sound in a 3d enviornment. It isn't like 5.1 where it sends certain sounds to certain speakers. In this case in a typical 5.1 dolby digital it may send less stuff to the surround channels. With Atmos being object based this means that if you want the sound at a certain spot in the room the processor will send that same sound signal to the speakers and expects it to play equally well on all the speakers. Atmos would need equally matched speakers to sound well and give you that 3d object based sound to move around the room.

Thanks, I will update when I have them all installed. What I plan to do is mount 4 threaded rods screwed into the wood joists using a screwed in bracket at the corners. Then run an L bracket to hold the speaker in place. The L bracket would attach to two threaded rods. I believe this was the best way to install them without screwing into the speakers and having a neat and clean install. I'll post a pic on how I mounted them once I get a speaker in place.

I started construction on mounting the Heresy III speakers in the ceiling. The one you see in the picture would be the rear right height speaker. I'll have 4 of these heresy iii speakers placed above. The ceiling I have is tilted or cathedral type ceiling?, but I think this was good because it will angle the speaker towards the listening position better. I think putting these large speakers in the ceiling is the way to go, lots of people use tiny bookshelf up firing speakers but how can they compare to a large full range speaker with a 12" woofer placed right above your head high up in the proper location?

I have a 7.1 system of La Scala II speakers. I want to add 4 atmos speakers on the ceiling. My ceiling height is about 11 feet. I was thinking about using 4 heresy iii speakers for the ceiling speakers. Dolby atmos recommends keeping the overhead speakers similar to the rest of the speakers. Here is what they say "With this in mind, overhead speakers should complement the frequency response, output, and power-handling capabilities of the listener level speakers. Choose overhead speakers that are timbre matched as closely as possible to the primary listener-level speakers." My question is would you consider the heresy iii a decent match to the La Scala ii speakers? Like are they timbre matched, frequency response matched, as closely as possible to the La Scala ii? Would they work well as overhead speakers to match my La Scala ii? Obviously, it will not work out putting a La Scala ii in the ceiling to match perfectly, so I think the heresy iii will be my best bet here. The other question is would you consider the heresy iii to be a "wide dispersion" speaker? This is because they recommend you angle the speaker to the listener if it is not wide dispersion. Not sure if the heresy iii is considered a wide dispersion speaker. Here is what Dolby atmos says is a wide dispersion. " If the chosen overhead speakers have a wide dispersion pattern (approximately 45 degrees from the acoustical reference axis over the audio band from 100 Hz to 10 kHz or wider), then speakers may be mounted facing directly downward. For speakers with narrower dispersion patterns, those with aimable or angled elements should be angled toward the primary listening position." Thanks for helping me out here.