9.1.4 vs 7.1.4 (1 Viewer)

[koolego2]

Hi,

Currently preparing my home theatre room and looking forward by planning out my speaker layout.

I constantly hear about 7.1.4 layouts but no much or people setting up 9.1.4. The layouts from the Dolby Atmos home theater installation guidelines as attached.

Any reason why? costs maybe or do most movies come out with 7.1.4 format?

Room size is 7 meters by 4 meters.

Would be great to hear peoples thoughts.

Thanks
Mark

 

[Sam Posten]

Atmos adapts to however many height channels you have. x.x.0 through x.x.max, which no human will reach any time soon. The discreet formats don't support more than 7 channels in general. So for today 7.1.4 is perfect. Will that change in the future? Maybe. Adding additional channels to a single amp is rough tho. Only Denon's top two models support 4 atmos channels out the box for instance. You can add outboard amps if that's your thing....

 

[DaveF]

Few people have room for a 9.x.x configuration. And until recently there weren't processors readily available for that format either. But there are now 13 channel processors becoming available at the "flagship" level.

https://www.us.marantz.com/us/Produ...CatId=AVSeparates&SubCatId=0&ProductId=AV8805

 

[JohnRice]

Yeah, there are very few processors with 13 or more channels, and they are expensive. Like Sam said, Atmos soundtracks don't have a defined number of channels. They are object based, not channel based, and the processor creates however many channels are in the system. I'm not sure why he says that only applies to the height channels, because from everything I understand, it applies to all channels. Non-Atmos soundtracks are (currently) limited to 7 channels, but Atmos has no theoretical limit. I kind of doubt a 13 channel system would be worth the significant additional cost for most people. My suggestion is to be more concerned with optimal implementation than the number of channels. Of course, if you're wiring the room and want the option for the future, it's not that much more to wire for the front-side channels of a 13 channel system.