At CEDIA Expo in Denver this year, Dolby Atmos was the talk of the show. The immersive height-enabled surround sound format has wowed theater-goers for around two and a half years, and soon the format will be available in the home. But some potential customers might not want to install speakers in their ceilings, despite how much more immersive movie-viewing could be.
Dolby understands this and so they are working with speaker makers on an alternative approach. Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers are mounted on a wall or on top of existing tower speakers (or are integrated into traditional speakers). They use an upward-firing driver which bounces sound off the ceiling, combined with psychoacoustic processing in order to create the impression of sounds coming from directly overhead. This allows a customer to get a full-fledged height-enabled Dolby Atmos surround sound system with the speaker footprint of a traditional 5.1 or 7.1-channel system.
Pioneer is one of the early adopters of this technology and they used this year's CEDIA Expo to show off their upcoming Dolby Atmos-enabled receivers and speakers. The speakers are the brainchild of speaker design legend Andrew Jones. Jones favors a coaxial drive unit called the "Coherent Source Transducer." On this speaker, the tweeter is located in the center of the midrange driver. Jones believes this is the best way to get proper time and phase alignment of the critical midrange and high frequencies. And this alignment leads to a better-defined, more cohesive soundstage.
Pioneer's Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers feature two of these coaxial drive units: one facing forward, for the traditional front speakers and surrounds, and another facing upward at an angle to bounce the height information off the ceiling. At CEDIA Expo in Denver last week, Pioneer was showing off final production versions of the speakers and one of their Dolby Atmos-enabled receivers.
The receiver model on display was the Pioneer Elite SC-89 ($3,000) flagship. The speaker complement included the Pioneer Elite SP-EC73 center channel ($399) and four of the SP-EFS73 Dolby-enabled floorstanding speakers ($699/each), plus two SW-E10 subwoofers ($599/each). This is what is being called a 5.2.4 configuration (five traditional speakers, two subwoofers and four height speakers). The height speakers are integrated into the towers with their own independent inputs. The company also offers a smaller bookshelf Atmos-enabled speaker (the SP-EBS73-LR at $699/pair).
Demo content came from the standard Dolby demo disc used by all exhibitors at the show. We listened to a series of Dolby trailers and some Atmos-enabled movie content, plus an Atmos-enabled music video from Enrique Iglesias. In all cases, the illusion of having overhead speakers was quite convincing. Sound came from all around and above the listener. Rain fell from clouds overhead while spears flew through the air above and past us. Movies at home are exciting again!
For Atmos-enabled speakers, Dolby recommends that your ceilings be anywhere from 8 feet to 14 feet high, with flat, reflective material (like sheetrock) for the best effect. If your ceilings are absorptive, textured, very high or angled, you may need to consider discrete ceiling speakers instead. But for those looking to get into Dolby Atmos with a minimum amount of installation effort, Pioneer's Dolby-enabled speakers offer an elegant solution.
Pioneer expects the speakers to be available later this month and the receivers to begin shipping later this fall. The Dolby Atmos firmware upgrade for the receivers is expected to be available before the end of the year at no additional cost.
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