I'm Weak, I Broke Down, Marantz AV7703 On the Way (1 Viewer)

[Bob Bielski]

John what is the ceiling surface that you are bouncing off, smooth or beams, or what. Are you gonna treat the surface for max reflection or just be ok as is?

 

[JohnRice]

Your standard, ugly 12" ceiling tile. Even though it's typically called "acoustic tile" it's pretty reflective, plus it's only 7 1/3' high and the speakers are 4' tall. Ultimately, I'll surface mount them to the ceiling, aiming down, angled toward the seating area.

The room also has incredibly ugly, 4' fluorescent fixtures, which I plan to eventually remove and put in recessed cans with dimmable LEDs.

 

[Bob Bielski]

Make sure you post how it sounds to you. I love to learn new things. And value your opinion and experience. And congrats on open box bargains. You saved wisely due to experience and recognizing the value of those products. I have seen you helping a lot of people on here and am glad you share your time and knowledge, very nice.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Thanks a lot guys. I already have more than I need. I will get by and land on my feet. My wife still has a good job and we have saved a little for retirement so could be worse.
Best of luck to you fine gentlemen

Sorry to hear this, Bob. Something similar happened to me over a year ago, as my position was eliminated after the organization I was working for was bought. I decided to retire, as I was within a year or so of doing that anyway. I hope things turn out well for you, too.

 

[JohnRice]

So, everything is here and I did the quick setup for reflecting Atmos speakers.

I feel rather confident in saying...

Reflecting Atmos speakers are a joke. They vertically fill in the front soundstage a little, which is OK, but the sound I hear as I set the levels is coming from the speakers, not reflected from the ceiling, where the sound is supposed to be coming from. I haven't really given them a workout yet, other than playing the first few minutes of Fury Road, but the results seems pretty obvious.

This brings up something I'm constantly more annoyed with the CE industry about. They bring out this stuff, then make people think it's easy to achieve. I can state my proof in two words. Atmos Soundbar. What a joke. Soundbars are a joke to begin with.

Anyway, my ultimate plans are to have two pair of the ELAC Atmos speakers, but to make brackets for them so I can surface mount them to the ceiling. I'll run speaker wire through the drop ceiling to wall plates near the speakers.

 

[Bob Bielski]

I felt the same way on my first listen. I just threw the small speakers up on top of the regular speakers and aimed them at me. The movie was Star Trek Beyond. I was let down on the volume. Every once in a while I could hear some information but not much. I didn't mount them on the ceiling at the time cuz the wife was already bitching about the speaker wires running all over the place, and the 2 12 gauge extension cords running into 2 different rooms to feed the 5 channel amp that required to separate 15amp circuits. But with the movie Tarzan I did really hear a difference and it was pleasing even set up half assed. I think some movies like music discs sound better and were done better. So please try a different movie before you get disgusted. And when you get to the Elacs and mount them down firing I'm sure they will sound better to you. Thanks for the post John, you will be educating a lot of potential reflection speaker pursuers and maybe you can sway them to down fire instead. Any way to just play the up firing speakers themselves? Just to isolate the sound.

 

[JohnRice]

Any way to just play the up firing speakers themselves? Just to isolate the sound.

Yeah. The Atmos speakers are on their own amp, so I can just turn off the other two to play only them.

 

[Bobd207s]

Sorry late to reply - Bob I had similar layoff at 61 - things turned out great ! Good luck to you - your attitude is excellent !!

 

[JohnRice]

BTW, I just found something odd in the interaction between the AV7703 and my Oppo BDP-103. In the audio output option on the Oppo, there is "Auto", which I've never seen on other players. So, I left it to that, instead of "Bitstream" like I usually do. Well, as I've been taking quick looks at different movies since getting the first Atmos speakers, I realized that sometimes it wasn't receiving an Atmos or DTS:X signal. Especially when I was playing from an .mkv file. It was receiving a decoded LPCM 7.1 signal with soundtracks that were Atmos or DTS:X. So, the height channels had been stripped out.

There for a while I thought I was losing my mind, because I was certain that yesterday I had played a few seconds of Ex Machina to confirm it showed up as DTS:X, then I went to actually watch it today, and it says "Multi-In", which means LPCM. After checking and changing everything I could think of on the Marantz, I remembered the "Auto" audio setting on the Oppo, changed it to bitstream, and now everything is peachy.

So, I guess the moral is, set your Oppo to "Bitstream", not "Auto".

 

[Bob Bielski]

Yes the best sound setting on our 93 is LPCM at 96?? But you have to set it to output bitstream to get Atmos. I thought that was odd when I read the manual for the pre pro I have. Any improvement in your experience with the setting now in bitstream? Have you tried the height only experiment?
Please let me know.

 

[Bob Bielski]

Sorry late to reply - Bob I had similar layoff at 61 - things turned out great ! Good luck to you - your attitude is excellent !!

Thanks for the support, the wife can bring home the bacon now, and I'll cook it, after I'm done reading John's post on his new adventure.

 

[JohnRice]

Sorry late to reply - Bob I had similar layoff at 61 - things turned out great ! Good luck to you - your attitude is excellent !!

Bob, I wanted to make a public update on a private question you sent me yesterday regarding the AV7703 having trouble locking on to a surround signal. It's hadn't ever happened to me, but like I posted yesterday, I had my Oppo audio output set to "Auto" and noticed that it didn't always send the proper format signal. Dolby HD was usually output as LPCM, and getting an Atmos signal was hit and miss. When I switched the Oppo to "Bitstream", it started having trouble locking on to Dolby HD signals. A lot of the time it simply never locked and there was no audio.

This must be why it had typically played back Dolby HD and Atmos soundtracks as LPCM. The Oppo must have been negotiating a connection when it was set to auto, and typically went to LPCM. That was fine, until I started wanting to play Atmos soundtracks. I'd read comments somewhere about the AV7703 sometimes having trouble locking onto a soundtrack. I played around with it and found that when it fails to lock onto the audio, just switch it to another soundtrack (like a regular DD one) and once it locks on to that, switch it back to the Dolby HD one. Yeah, it's a little annoying, but not exactly a deal breaker. This much be the reason Marantz replaced the AV7703 so quickly, and with a model that's barely more than a re-badge. I'm guessing they fixed this. Considering the outrageous deal I got on it, I'll live with it.

To update my impressions of the reflecting Atmos speakers: I've watched a few movies, including one with a DTS:X soundtrack (Ex Machina) and I do hear the result of those speakers. Rather than create effects overhead, which is what I expected, they open up the front sound stage, especially extending it up a bit vertically. I'm still very suspicious about how effective they are, especially in a lot of rooms. My main HT is in my basement and the ceiling is only 7' 4" high, and my main speakers are 4' tall, so there is only 3' from the front of the Atmos speakers to the ceiling, and I already feel like they can hardly project that far.

So, my gut feeling is that reflecting Atmos speakers are the simplest, but least desirable of the options. In most cases, I think the next best solution would be front (NOT side) height speakers, probably directly above the L&R speakers. Angled speakers like the ones SVS makes would probably be good, or wall mounted ones on adjustable brackets, or just some way to aim them down a bit. I really want to emphasize that I think those speakers should be on the front wall, not the side, because it seems clear to me the sounds that come from them, especially with non-Atmos/DTS:X soundtracks (which are still extremely rare) are supposed to blend with the front channels. For non-Atmos/DTS:X soundtracks, the processing seems to use matrixing in the L&R channels to extract the artificial Atmos channels. The result varies with how the movie was mixed. It wasn't particularly noticeable on The Greatest Showman or the 3rd Harry Potter, but there was one moment in HP where there were birds flying around, and their sound kind of rose up and moved around above the front speakers. It was subtle, but nice. I should point out that my main speakers have exceptional imaging, far better than most speakers, so they create an extremely large and three dimensional sound stage, so I wouldn't be surprised if the effect is more pronounced with other speakers.

I played a little bit of Frozen, and it almost seemed like it was mastered in DTS:X, even though it wasn't. Something about how the front channels are mixed created the most dramatic effect from the reflecting speakers. That one really opened my eyes. There were no "effects", just an enormous, three dimensional front sound stage. The funny thing is, of the few movies I've watched, the only one mastered for this setup (Ex Machina) probably had the least noticeable benefit from it. That movie is entirely dialog and I don't know why it was chosen for DTS:X.

I'll live with reflecting the Atmos speakers for a while.

 

[Bobd207s]

Thanks John for the input on the audio signal not locking on . I'll let you know how that solution works. I agree that the AV7703 is an awesome piece of gear - I am really happy with mine too !!

 

[JohnRice]

Thanks John for the input on the audio signal not locking on .

I did quite a bit of experimenting and that always worked, but I did it all with mkv files, so I could try a bunch of different movies without having to constantly switch discs. I haven't experimented with discs yet.

 

[Bob Bielski]

Thanks John great info. I see your dilemma with proper height of speakers. I read a very in depth explanation in Widescreen Review, it was an interview with the creator of Auro 3D . He gave the proper height in a ratio. Said it was important, too high or too low makes a difference. He was talking wall mounted. I was going to make telescopic speaker stands to hold small height speakers on top of 4 floorstanders and experiment with different heights. Just haven't gotten to it yet but plan on it. I'll post when I do. Thanks for sharing your experience so far it helps all of us to learn.

 

[John Dirk]

...and the 2 12 gauge extension cords running into 2 different rooms to feed the 5 channel amp that required to separate 15amp circuits.

Not to get off topic but what amp is that??? The only amp I'm aware of that requires two 15 amp circuits is the venerable Outlaw 7900, which is 7x300.

 

[Bob Bielski]

Hi JD
It is an Anthem P5 Statement. Got it used 5 yrs old for half price of new. Overkill but the last 5 channel amp I will ever need. Love how John is in the experiment stages of fine tuning an Atmos system. Nice to sit back and watch an old pro do all the work and share all the discoveries with all of us. Couldn't think of a better man to tackle the different possibilities. I am confident that when he is done and satisfied, we will be able to take the results to the bank. Can't imagine how many people will be spared making bad choices, and saving time and money not to mention getting a free education minus the aggravation.

 

[JohnRice]

Holy smokes, that Anthem amp is a beast. Basically the same power specs as my (Gen 1) XPA-2, but with 5 channels instead of 2. Fortunately, my HT room has two circuits on the front wall, so I only had to bring power from a second circuit from across the room, instead of a different room. I have to admit, sometimes when I'm blasting a movie I wonder if I'll trip a breaker. So far, that's only ever happened when I was cranking music and vacuuming at the same time.

BTW @Bobd207s, I played a few BR discs with different soundtracks today, and the AV7703 locked on them all without trouble. Even Atmos ones. So far, after changing the audio output from "Auto" to "Bitstream" the only times it's been a problem was when playing back mkv files.

 

[Mike Frezon]

when I was cranking music and vacuuming at the same time.

THAT....is awesome!

 

[Bob Bielski]

https://wsrpdfs.s3.amazonaws.com/22...266896&Signature=vdYO9eK//G7+32B/iQoZ4EYgphs=

I hope this link works. Just wanted to share the info with you John.