Put a giant concrete walled theater room in my basement when I built my house 10 years ago that has sat as an empty shell since then. All this staying at home has me looking for some projects, so I figured it was time to start building things out. The room is 217" side to side, 349" front to back, and 132" tall on the screen side / 90" tall in the back with two 21" stadium steps along the way (see attached - all layout is done from a seated position in the red box). The concrete walls are furred out with 2" metal studs, with 5/8" drywall on top. The concrete ceiling has a barrel arch (low points on the sides) with about a 14" spring line, made from 2" steel studs and 5/8" drywall. We will be building wood columns at each of the stadium steps and filling the space between with acoustic panels (on top of the drywall). Currently leaning towards the Denon AVR-X8500H (13.2) channel) that supports both Atmos and DTS:X, but really hoping they release the X8600H before I get around to actually buying the receiver. That said, I want to put in wiring and speakers for both Atmos and DTS:X, so that I won't be ripping up walls in the future.
After going through way too many Dolby and DTS specifications and guides, as well as the Denon manual, I've landed at the following placements:
Middle of Screen Elevation Speakers
C - center of screen (behind AT screen)
FL/FR - 16" inside front corners on screen wall (behind AT screen)
FWL/FWR - 27" forward of second stadium step
SL/SR - 21.25" forward of first stadium drop
SBL/SBR - 2ft towards screen off the back wall corner
SB - center of screen on back wall
Height Speakers
CH - center of screen, in front soffit above screen
FHL/FHR - 16" inside front corners on screen wall, in face of front soffit above screen
TFL/TFR - in ceiling, 54-3/16" off side walls, 60" from front soffit
TML/TMR - in ceiling, 54-3/16" off side walls, 21.25" forward of first stadium step - align with TS
TRL/TRR - in ceiling, 54-3/16" off side walls, 79-5/8" from back wall
TS - in ceiling, center of room, 21.25" forward of first stadium step
SHL/SHR - directly above SBL/SBR, on wall at ceiling
RHL/RHR - 16" inside back corners on wall opposite of screen (align to FL/FR), in face of rear soffit
Ok, so now that the speaker placement is defined, I need to pick speakers. There are 24 speakers and 2 subwoofers. This is where I could really use the community's help, as I'm stuck at the following:
1 behind screen center (C)
RC-64 III or RP-504C or RP-450CA?
2 behind screen front speakers (FL/FR)
RP-600M or R-5650-W?
6 wall hang (or shelf) speakers (FWL/FWR/SL/SR/SBL/SBR)
RP-502S or RP-600M?
1 wall hang (or shelf) (SB)
RP-600C or RP500SA?
1 high center (CH)
RP-600C or RP500SA?
4 wall hang (or shelf) speakers (FHL/FHR/RHL/RHR)
RP-500SA
7 in ceiling speakers (TFL/TFR/TML/TMR/TRL/TRR/TS)
CDT-5800-C II
2 wall hang (or shelf) (SHL/SHR)
RP-500SA
2 subwoofers
R-115SW
I need help with the ones in red, but also feel free to tell me if I went wrong on any of the last 4 choices not in red. The R-5650-W is out for the side walls, as it is 3.75" deep and our wall assembly will only come out to about 3.25" unless we artificially extend that - which doesn't seem worth it for in-wall when we can do on-wall. For the front wall it is fine.
On the RP-502S, I like the specs, but the wide dispersion makes me uncomfortable for spatial audio formats like Atmos and DTS:X.
Additionally, we will have 3 columns on either side, so we can place the FWL/FWR/SL/SR/SBL/SBR inside the columns if we go with shelf, or even in walls (like the R-5650-W).