John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Are you guys doing anything different when designing for immersive audio rooms?

I guess Atmos is probably the most popular, but since I'm also a live guy I've worked with the L-Acoustics L-ISA and Meyer Sound SpaceMap systems a bunch also. Those immersive audio set ups for those system can have as many as 5 to 7 speaker sources along the front of a room, and as many surrounds and overheads as you have the processing for. L-ISA tops out at 64 outputs, and SpaceMap tops out at 255 or there abouts.

The most common implementation of Atmos is either 7.1.2 or 7.1.4.

Are you still trying to soffit mount all the speaker sources? Do the mix rooms need to enlarge by a percentage to accommodate the extra volume from the multiple speaker sources? Do the shape of the rooms need to change?

I'm guessing that the biggest issue is locating and safely mounting the over heads.

What are you guys doing for immersive systems?

an immersive system "could be" wall mounted, soffit mounted, ceiling mounted, and/or a combination of stands. i've seen some rooms with 20 or so speakers. all mounted on wall/ceiling brackets for something like a 14.6.2 arrangement. i imagine many combinations of speakers and audio virtualization are possible with modern digital electronics.

however, the room should be designed to handle complex "first" reflections where each speaker has some dispersion which needs to be attenuated or diffused at their first boundary interface, and also the reflections from across the room and from other speakers. all the principles behind SBIR and ITD as well as frequency response need to be considered. an "overall slightly dead" room with a good frequency response, and adding reflectivity support as needed, with speakers on stands may be the simplest approach to getting things sorted.