Atmos placement help for two seating rows, not one, on 7’ ceiling. All Dolby diagrams are only for one row. (1 Viewer)

[Rancho5]

All the Dolby info I see is for single row seating and I have two rows, couches actually. I get the 45° angles, and all the calculations when it comes to single row but I’m baffled on two rows. With my 7’ ceiling I cannot have angled speakers on brackets. They have to be flush mounted. My MLP is the back sofa since it has foot rests, and it’s on a riser. Some say to calculate from the MLP and let the front row suffer, while others say compromise and down fire both rows, front couch at the front corners and back sofa at the rear corners. My HT is above the garage, narrow and short. Currently 7.1, soon to be 5.1.4 now that I upgraded to an Integra DRX 3.4 with 9 channels. Any advice much appreciated.

 

[Dave Upton]

Generally Dolby recommends you focus on the primary listening position when you have two rows. This means you'll want to make sure that the spot you listen in most often aligns with their specs.

One workaround is to get a speaker with broad dispersion so you get better off-axis sound. Something with a 60 or more degree radial dispersion will typically work well for this. You could then position the front channels just above the listeners on the front sofa, and the rears just above the rear - something like the below: