Dolby Atmos

Has anyone else gone for this I wonder? I've owned a Denon AV receiver that's Atmos-equipped for a while, so I thought - why not utilise it properly? Just an extra four discreet ceiling speakers, the same colour as the emulsion so hardly visible at all (these thoughts shared with SWMBO before proceeding).

I planned how to run the cabling & where to position the speakers so a set of Monitor Audio speakers were ordered up, all to coincide for when SWMBO was away for a couple of days to avoid any unpleasantness. Alas, having cut four bloody great holes in our ceiling & offered the speakers up I realised they were too deep. Oh gosh! Further reassurances to SWMBO that the large holes would shortly be indiscernible, I awaited the shallower KEF replacements. A couple of days later these arrived, and very nice they are too - dead easy to install & they sit almost flush with the ceiling. The white grilles are held by magnets & really do blend in very well, even SWMBO was mollified.

So, I now run a 7.1.4 speaker system, and I must say, it sounds wonderful, even with 7.1/5.1 material. Roger Water’s live “The Wall”concert on BluRay has a Dolby Atmos soundtrack & it’s staggeringly good. Most of my 4K BluRays are also Atmos & the enveloping effect of this sound format is very effective.

I do appreciate that accommodating twelve wired speakers is a considerable challenge and not feasible for many folks, but if you can find ways of sneaking them in I can heartily recommend the end result.