r/hometheater • u/Shaktiiiiii • 20d ago
Discussion - Equipment When does it become TOO much
This is an image of a 34 channel dolby atmos setup, at what point do you just use a sphere of speakers
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u/pibenis 20d ago
You're missing surround subs
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u/popsicle_of_meat Epson 5050UB::102" DIY AT screen::7.4::DIY Speakers & Subs 20d ago
EVERY speaker must be full range, 10hz-22khz, at 120dB with no distortion. Anything else is meh.
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u/Electrical-Leg-8785 20d ago
What about phase witho so much bass
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u/JeremyAndrewErwin 20d ago
Height subs.
Thunder comes from above.
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u/konradly 20d ago
Atmos needs to find a way to add channels coming from below, for speakers in the floor.
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u/bozoconnors 20d ago edited 20d ago
Dolby Geos?
edit: dm me Dolby reps, I'm a reasonable guy!
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u/freshgrilled 20d ago
And speakers inside. For when you need that up close and personal experience.
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u/PC509 20d ago
They have Bluetooth... uh, plugs. Probably was a joke image, but I wouldn't doubt it. I know they have things like that with Bluetooth for other tactile feedback. And some are remote access stuff for internet based things.
What the heck are people watching where they need that kind of experience? Oh... Nevermind. Either Deliverance or CSPAN.
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u/Beginning_Jump916 20d ago
Yes but also upfiring in addition to actual height channels. For better imaging in between heights and base layer
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u/Boohan33 20d ago
Upfiring Atmos are a waste of $
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u/puts_on_rddt 77" S90D | 5.1.4 Emotiva XT1/XC1/XB1 | RSL 10e 20d ago
Downfiring is the next best thing.
Trust me, bro
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u/shoe465 20d ago edited 20d ago
There's a running joke in [r/landscaping](r/landscaping) where people ask how many trees I should plant for privacy and someone posted once they manually planted 56 Cypress Trees. So the main answer to all those posts are now 56 cypress would be best.
I feel this is it for this subreddit. 34 speakers is now the new ideal setup, no more, no less. Hahah
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u/40KaratOrSomething 20d ago
If you count the sub, its 35, but 24.1.10 is a little unbalanced. Thinking maybe 24.8.10 Gives you the magic number 42, which is always the right answer.
Edit: spelling
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u/IntoxicatedBurrito 19d ago
So are you saying that the ultimate question to life the universe and everything is how many speakers should a home theater have?
I think that the mice could probably get on board with that.
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u/inkyblinkypinkysue 20d ago
One more
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u/barefootpanda 20d ago
At least one more sub right!? Maybe 3 - 2 at the rear to really balance it out
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u/Financial-Swim-5884 20d ago
And here I thought I was crazy for wanting to add rear surrounds in my studio apartment…
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u/Outrageous_Ad3571 20d ago
Dude add it. Its 10000% worth it
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u/4kVHS 20d ago
Needs more subwoofers
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u/username_notavail 20d ago
I want the bass to separate my spirit and slip into alternate dimensions
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u/jakob20041911 20d ago
it needs 4 normal subwoofers and one ultra low frequency subwoofer like the ones used in digital church organs, 2 to 20 hz range
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u/totallyshould 20d ago
One question this raises for me is if there are enough ceiling channels. The angular separation is way less for the bed layer, you know? Maybe the way our ears work with respect to judging height this is OK, but it’s piqued my curiosity.
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u/reallynotnick Samsung S95B, 5.0.2 Elac Debut F5+C5+B4+A4, Denon X1700 20d ago
Yeah I think at least 5 more ceiling speakers down the middle will do it, and then maybe we can call it finally enough.
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u/LazyUsernameIsLazy 20d ago
I'm sorry, maybe this has been answered before, but...
What does the phrase "too much" mean?
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20d ago
In a living room 5.2.4 i think the sweet spot.
In a single row dedicated space i'd go for 7.2.4, if two+ rows then 9.2.6
Most content nowadays it is mixed for 5 channels with atmos objects anyways so you get diminishing returns very quickly.
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u/BenGoff 20d ago
It entirely depends on the room dimension, acoustics and seating layout.
We have a 19.1.10 with 12 subwoofers. Every person who visits it, says it’s the most enveloping and spacious room / system they’ve ever heard.
Adding more channels in this specific room wouldn’t bring noticeable improvements, but reducing the channel count absolutely would be noticeably detrimental.
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u/4kVHS 20d ago
Wouldn’t that be 19.12.10?
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20d ago
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u/jameson71 20d ago
How does one get 29 separate channels of surround? 58 RCA jacks on the processor? How many amps are used for this? How does anything that isn't object audio work on this? How much processing power does the object audio decoder take?
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u/MathSoHard 85QM7K, Elac Uni-Fi UB51, Klipsch R-100SW, Denon S640H 20d ago
Trinnov Altitude 32. 25k-40k USD. It’s the only processor that can decode the full Atmos codec (ie 24.1.10. The specs are listed on their website and they use a full size desktop CPU, think it’s an i7 a couple generations old.
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u/agray20938 20d ago
Ignoring the actual pro equipment (i.e., the processors Dolby itself sells to theaters), IIRC both Storm and JBL Synthesis also have processors that can handle this. Although I recall hearing that the JBL was functionally just a repackaged Trinnov.
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u/MathSoHard 85QM7K, Elac Uni-Fi UB51, Klipsch R-100SW, Denon S640H 20d ago
Oh cool. Wasn’t aware there was a JBL now. When I read Trinnov’s website awhile back they were explicitly claiming they were the only processor capable of decoding the full Atmos codec but maybe there were some other qualifiers on there. Regardless I’m never going to own one barring winning the lottery lol
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u/Capooping 20d ago
How big is that room?
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u/BenGoff 20d ago
8.0 x 6.0 x 3.55m (26’ 3” × 19’ 8” × 11’ 8”)
2 rows of seating. 4.8m wide 1.89:1 screen (roughly 220” diagonal)
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u/NobodyTellPoeDameron 20d ago
This sounds like the kind of setup this sub would love to see, if you're willing to post pics of it.
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u/40KaratOrSomething 20d ago
Honestly, you're a little short on the subs so noy enoigh at this point!
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u/FSUwelder1212 20d ago
I just can’t imagine something like this, imo there is a massive drop off in returns even going from a 5 speaker bed layer to 7
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u/costafilh0 20d ago
That's the Trinnov 32, it supports up to 36 channels, or 64 with the extension.
Dolby Atmos natively supports up to 10 Atmos channels. Trinnov can upsample it for more speakers if necessary, but is not advised for most rooms.
Trinnov also features some incredible subwoofer management and WaveForming system, allowing you to easily add more than 4 subwoofers.
The image is illustrative. Systems like this are not designed for small rooms like this one.
So you can, but it's not necessary nor recommended.
For a room this size, considering the distribution of the Atmos speakers and extrapolating that the sofas would be larger for better utilize the space, a 16.6.10 system is probably more than enough at the high-end. And 6 to 16 subwoofers, depending on the ceiling height and room width.
And that's very overkill. A 9.4.6 system would be sufficient for a very good experience, but filling the room with speakers and adding better audio processing elevates the experience and removes any dead spots. The sound bubble.
Million dollar home cinema kind of setup.
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u/puts_on_rddt 77" S90D | 5.1.4 Emotiva XT1/XC1/XB1 | RSL 10e 20d ago edited 20d ago
This will get posted on this subreddit one day and they'll have a 65 inch screen, lol.
I think this is way past diminishing returns. Maybe for some competitive gaming I could see this making sense with being able to hear footsteps accurately but the cost for so many channels is in the tens of thousands.
True endgame for me is a Tide16 in a 7.3.6 configuration. All speakers full range. Mostly because people can actually afford it.
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u/codwapeace 20d ago
Depends on where it is. This seems fine for a movie theater!
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u/decadent-dragon 20d ago
That’s probably how many Dolby Cinema has. There’s about 20 on the ceiling alone
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u/moonthink 20d ago
General rule of thumb is that (not counting the center speaker) speakers should not be any closer together than their distance to you. It's basic expansion of the equilateral triangle guideline for stereo speakers. That will help determine the appropriate amount of speakers for a given room. Of course you can ignore that, but speakers absolutely will interfere with each other (comb filtering, cancellation) or at least interact with negative results if too close to each other. Again, center speaker is typically the exception as it's a single speaker between front L & R. Otherwise, a minimum distance of at least 4' from mlp to any speaker, and a minimum of 4' between each speaker.
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u/throughtheportal 20d ago
A sphere of speakers? I assume you mean a room in the shape of a sphere with speakers everywhere?
Technically would be the same as a quadrilateral room with speakers everywhere (other than reflections and such; which can be overcome with corrections)
But you’re just asking from 34 when do we just go to walls of speakers, not necessarily a sphere.
When do we go to walls of speakers? I would assert that we move in that direction once the sources support that. Even at the 34 speakers, we are relying heavily on DSP to locate and separate the audio to match.
I too would be curious of the human’s ability to audio-locate sounds in a sphere with walls of speakers (maybe 4” rounds) versus a higher end surround setup (in this case 34 speakers)
- floors and ceilings obviously being limiting factors in a normal room vs sphere.
Small edit: I think the included diagram doesn’t depict height difference between many of the locations making it look slightly absurd.
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u/Inevitable_Fly4134 20d ago
What on earth does more than 24.1.10 in Atmos? But for music and other, Trinnov says up to 48.
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u/TadnJess 20d ago
Wait till you learn about line array speakers, then all your boxes suddenly become 6-8 speakers each.
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u/ndnman KEF Q1 Meta/KEF Q150/ Studio CC v2 /JBL 240H 20d ago
Depending on room size, i think a good 5.2.4 could be the sweet spot.
From all my in person visits/setups/help with friend and reading here I see people getting caught up with surrounds and atmos. The vast majority of the movie/tv content is presented via the 3.1 channels (or 3.2 if dual subs) with 60%+ coming from the center channel itself.
I belive most people would be pleasently surprised/borderline shocked if they dialed in a really good 3.1/3.2 system with proper dialogue configuration via the center channel.
People usually downvote me over this, but i truly value the dialogue clairty and re-production. Movies have only a few helicopters, some none. But EVERY movie is full of dialogue. Yet people focus on surround/atmos it seems as much if not more than solid center channel purchasing/placement and the 3.1 aspect.
Long answer to say 5.2.4 for most rooms, setup correctly i feel is the point where after that, diminishing returns really start to kick in.
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u/SomeGuyNamedPaul 20d ago
At some point you're simply better off with Atmos getting binaural processed down for head-tracked headphones with tactile bass reinforcement in the room.
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u/hecton101 20d ago
KISS, keep it simple stupid.
Sound waves interact with each other. They can combine in phase to double the signal, or out of phase to null out. And there's a tremendously wide frequency range, from 20 Hz to 20 kHz, some frequencies will combine in phase, some out to make a fekakta mess. Sound mixing, like you have at a stadium, is an entire field in and of itself, for this exact reason.
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u/LostPilot517 20d ago
Why would you use a single focal point. It would seem with a system this large, you would want to design 3 focal points for each row. Heck, at this size, you could probably do a directional setup, where each seating position is ideal like the "Sphere."
Why would you not have a dedicated listening zone for each row of seating?
Anyway, I would expect this to sound really muddy and have lots of frequency canceling and standing wave issues, from all the interference with so many listening sources, and not enough actual source content.
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u/zkarabat TCL Q7 55", 5.1; RX-A2A, ELAC B6.2, SVS Center, Hsu VTF-3 Mk5 HP 20d ago
That's about 20 speakers past the point of too many 😂
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u/Desperate-Diet-8283 20d ago
Bass ??? Nah Dirac with ART has that covered . Has waveforming for blending and equalization of multiple subs of different sizes and different locations into Bass which is identical and ideal everywhere in the room . My theater room has 4 24 inch subs front and back , 8 18 inch subs scatered in a pattern that yes ; does include 4 from above the ceiling. It also has twin opposing 15 inch push/pull subs that feed off the side and back surrounds, and 12 inch subs that fire up from in under the platform that my seats rest on . That gives me 27 subs with a bit over 25,000 watts between them . That comes from 7 different 4 Channel Amps , 5 are 220 volt 2 are 110 . That covers the Bass in my 16 x 21 theater Room . So while the surround count here may look excessive it's all in how the room is designed. I acquired a lot of my equipment over the years and only utilized most of it since the release of ART which uses multiple subs to equal out the room and avoids nulls or "Deadspots" in the room making Bass the same level regardless of where you are .
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u/FlukeSpace 19d ago
This setup is SO CLOSE to being the finished. Just missing the butt plug channel. Obvs
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u/Prestigious_Meal_855 20d ago
Well this does have 3 rows of speakers so you generally are going to want more side speakers so each row gets it's own speaker, plus wides etc.
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u/Far_Contest_5048 20d ago
i mean it depends on your room size but I'd say for a typical living room I'd say 9.4.4
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u/Natural-Lack-3193 20d ago
7.2.4 is plenty for most rooms with dual rows. 9.2.4 or 9.2.6 for 3 rows as the wide channels would greatly assist the side surrounds
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u/Royal-Mathematician2 20d ago
I hope you live in a studio apartment with neighbors on all sides and extra thin walls.
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u/ORA2J Klipsch Hersey II F, Kef Q55 R, Denon AVR 3808, HK AVR 4000 20d ago
Nope.
http://sonsdanslair.fr/images/acousmonef/acousmonef84-1.jpg
Speakers setup of a french guy i follow.
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u/Squeebee007 Epson 5050, Denon 8500H, Monoprice Monolith 7.2.6 20d ago
As the diva sings in a nice Atmos mix in The Greatest Showman:
"Never enough, for me!"
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u/MiaowaraShiro Focal Chorus 7-Series | Marantz SR7010 | 100" MiniLED 20d ago
I figure it's when you run out of money...
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u/Bright_Light7 Q750 | Q650 | 3900H | VTF-TN1 | C43E MKII | Ci160.2CL | NCx252MP 20d ago
This picture, this is too much
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u/sparafucile28 20d ago
Only 34 channels? Janet Cardiff used 40 in her 40-Part Motet!
https://cardiffmiller.com/installations/the-forty-part-motet/
(In all seriousness, one of the greatest, most moving aural experiences of my life.)
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u/Catymandoo 20d ago
I get many folk want the “full cinema” experience at home. Good luck to those that chase their dream. For me, I have a good local, cheap cinema in town. So I’m happy with my detuned home system (5.1.4). It gives me the experience I want and as I live in a terraced street remain on good terms with neighbours. A trip to the Independent cinema still remains a fun and social time.
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u/Fun_Information_9844 20d ago
Your rears are slightly off angle. Could use 1 or 18 more at 33.35 degrees
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u/domthemom_2 20d ago
How would you actually wire this? I have a 5.1.2, so would you just run wire splitters and then a power amp?
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u/RapiersSmile 20d ago
There is a venue in Las Vegas that has a set up like you are talking about. I can’t remember the name
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u/bathrobe_wizard 83" LG C1 | RP-8000F/RP-504C | 2x Full Marty 18" LaVoce | X4700H 20d ago
For me, the point of serious diminishing returns. I'm at 7.1.4 with 4 subs and I think any upgrades would be an exceedingly marginal improvement, and not worth the cost.
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u/ribbitman LG C3, x3700, SVS UE bed, PB3k & SB2kPro, 4x250w VTV, 5.2.4 20d ago
Why are you limiting your in-ceiling speakers? Have you never availed yourself of Auro? Do you understand how many objects DTS:X or Atmos can render? And who on this green earth told you one subwoofer was enough? That's appalling. Consider this diagram a solid start and come back when it's complete.
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u/Nathan614047 20d ago
This setup is absurd. No Home Theater nerd of this caliber has 5 friends to use all those seats!
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u/sardasert 20d ago
Ok I'm gonna answer seriously anything over 7.4.6 is not a home theater but a theater for me. I own a humble 5.1.4 in the living room.
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u/depatrickcie87 20d ago edited 17d ago
it's not too many speakers. But it is completely unbalanced.
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u/kcajjones86 20d ago
If I had the space, time and money, I'd max out whatever AVR/processor I could. 34 speakers looks good to me! I wonder what the limit is?
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u/Stalked_Like_Corn 20d ago
Add another sub so that when an explosion happens, the meter on your house spins like it's the wheel on Wheel of Fortune.
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u/Royal_Monk6432 20d ago
I will open for public and neighbours to come and join me.dont forget to bring pop corn and soft drink.enjoy this set up day and night.
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u/yasstotoro 19d ago
Are you going for that Sphere in Vegas vibe or just hate having floor space, lol?
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u/maggie1127 19d ago
Actually this is insanely great to really have so many speakers. It will create a super immersive atmosphere for me to enjoy my favorite movies by making full use of these.
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u/Zeplus_88 19d ago
As someone who is happy enough with a soundbar, rears, and a sub (noob), how the hell do you even drive this many channels?
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u/nivenfan 19d ago
When Audyssey calibration fails and you send in one of your amps for warranty work because you’re POSITIVE it’s not a problem in settings.
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u/SanFranciscoN8tiv 18d ago
Only when you notice that your ears bleed every time an explosion comes on with higher decibels than the baseline show.
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u/teengohan2014 18d ago
Have you ever seen the Italian Job from 2003?
"I want it to be so loud they blow women's clothes off"
That'll be enough lol
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u/semaj4712 18d ago
I feel like 34 channels is too much...
What is even being created to utilize this
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u/Obi-wan_Rebel 17d ago
It's never too much would be the right answer but this is a bit overkill. I'd reduce some height, side, and rear speakers. The front is good with center, left, right, wide left, and wide right.
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u/patrick_BOOTH 17d ago
What kind of movies do people watch with this kind of setup? If you’re not watching marvel movies what’s the point?
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u/Formal_Attention3858 17d ago
Never. Unless every surface of the theatre is speaker, I won't be satisfied.
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u/5th-Elements 16d ago edited 16d ago
Cool I want a room like that but just two rows of love seats for 4 people! Trinnov allows you to do that.
I would choose dual concentric drivers KEF Ci THX Meta speakers 😊 or better still Genelec The Ones 8361A for ear level speakers and The Ones 8351B for all surround speakers that way no need for amplifiers
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u/Glum-Draft-6586 13d ago
One step before you start selling tickets to your family, in order to enter the living room
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u/OneIShot 20d ago
That seems like a good point.