[VinceT]

I am in the process of designing a system. Complete blank slate with no components and relatively decent size room with high ceilings.

Plan on doing 2 channel music (vinyl and streaming)and HT for movies. Reading about some of these different formats like Auro and DTS versus the ever popular Atmos prompted me to do more research and ask on here what everybody's experiences are with these different formats?

The Auro 3D md DTS sound interesting and sounds like it could also be very cool for music when I want something different than 2 channel or listened to live concerts. I have the ceiling height to add the height speakers and the VOG ceiling speaker. Just curious when comparing these to Atmos did anyone feel Auro or DTS were better and what was better of the two?

Thanks in advance

[WGH]

There is no better, Atmos and DTS:X are equal and both are necessary. I would think any surround processor or AVR you buy will have both Atmos and DTS:X. Auro 3D is the odd one, I haven't seen any media using it but maybe it is used for things I don't do like gaming or concert videos.

Netflix uses Dolby Atmos, I haven't seen the DTS display on anything I have streamed from them, I don't know what the other streaming services use. Some Blu-ray movies have DTS-HD Master Audio and not Atmos soundtracks.

DTS Neural:X uses all speakers in a DTS:X system for an immersive audio experience by placing sound at different points in the soundfield. DTS Neural:X does not work with any Dolby encoded material like Dolby Digital Plus, a common streaming format.

Dolby Surround upmixes stereo, 5.1 and 7.1 material to take full advantage of all speakers in a Dolby Atmos system.

[VinceT]

As I research this more and more, seems the best course of action is to optimize my speaker placement and play around with these codecs once get a a decent AVR. Only thing to decide on is the voice of god speaker or not. My room looks like the best I can do is a 5.2.4 with speaker configuration.

[Bob in St. Louis]

As I research this more and more, seems the best course of action is to optimize my speaker placement and <snip>...... acoustic room treatments.

There ya go, I 'fixed' your sentence for ya. 

[Vince in TX]

Woah.   I might need to change my screen name now.   I didn't realize there were two of us on similar quests.   

Although I set up my Atmos system a few years ago with a 7.1.2 in my gameroom by adding a couple of ceiling speakers, I am in the process of an attic room addition to have a dedicated theater / media room space that will be 7.2.4.  After listening to Disney Plus and some of their Atmos enabled movies (aside from 4K Blurays), I can't ever imagine being without those extra ceiling speakers now.   Here's the layout of the new setup:

[VinceT]

There ya go, I 'fixed' your sentence for ya. 

 

I have quite the room modes, that's whole other can of worms.

[VinceT]

Woah.   I might need to change my screen name now.   I didn't realize there were two of us on similar quests.   

Although I set up my Atmos system a few years ago with a 7.1.2 in my gameroom by adding a couple of ceiling speakers, I am in the process of an attic room addition to have a dedicated theater / media room space that will be 7.2.4.  After listening to Disney Plus and some of their Atmos enabled movies (aside from 4K Blurays), I can't ever imagine being without those extra ceiling speakers now.   Here's the layout of the new setup:

 

That's hilarious, great minds (and Vince's) think alike!

[WC]

How important to you is even bass throughout the whole space? I'm not sure that you will have based on your sub positions, but based on the pictures of your room it will be difficult to predict the positions of the subs beforehand without measurement.

[Vince in TX]

How important to you is even bass throughout the whole space? I'm not sure that you will have based on your sub positions, but based on the pictures of your room it will be difficult to predict the positions of the subs beforehand without measurement.

If you're talking about MY setup based on the above diagram (I'm changing my screen name to Vince in TX, BTW, so you don't confuse the two of us), I was planning sealed in the corners, but now I'm contemplating OB, so that may change their position.   It depends on how they sound once I get everything put together.

VinceT (OP), do you have a diagram of your proposed room layout?   If not, this is what I used to create mine:  https://www.homestyler.com/

Thanks.

--Vince T in TX

[VinceT]

Just to give an update on this from a few years ago

I decided to get a Denon X4700H. I had some issues with it, had to return the first one and the second one is now out of warranty and the main channels went on it. I am now running the mains on an external amp which sounds really good.

As far as what audio formats sounds the best, by far it is Dolby Atmos. Reason being is I stream everything and Dolby is supported. Auro 3D is fun but to me Atmos sounds the best probably because this is the native format it is mixed in.

[Vince in TX]

Wow.  Blast from the (recent) past.   My whole system went from concept to completion in this timeframe.   

And, yes, Dolby ATMOS is really, really cool and sounds best coming from the 4K UHD discs.   Streaming still compresses it somewhat.   The most notable difference was Dune going from streaming to disc.

I added another pair of speakers to the ceiling at the back of the theater recently for a 7.4.6 configuration (two open-baffle and two sealed subs).  Now the back row of the theater is every bit as immersive as the front row.