Vote

Is Your Home Theater Configured with Height Channels?

SV Staff  |  Aug 25, 2014

While we await the arrival of the new Dolby Atmos surround format we wondered how many Sound & Vision readers' home theaters are set up for surround processing that derives height channels to enhance spatiality. Make a choice below and tell us about your experience in Comments.
Is Your Home Theater Configured with Height Channels?
Yes, I use them with Dolby Pro Logic IIz.
7% (63 votes)
Yes, I use them with DTS Neo:X.
5% (45 votes)
Yes, I use them with Audyssey DSX.
4% (42 votes)
Yes, my Yamaha receiver is set up with “presence” channels for Cinema DSP HD3.
6% (54 votes)
Yes, I use them with surround processing not listed above. (Tell us which one in Comments.)
1% (11 votes)
No, I have a conventional 5.1/7.1/etc. surround-sound configuration.
78% (745 votes)
Total votes: 960

COMMENTS
notabadname's picture
Submitted by notabadname on August 25, 2014 - 10:40am

And too high of a ceiling in my viewing area for speakers or bouncing sound. And my current library of 370 movies could not use anyway.

willdao's picture
Submitted by willdao on August 25, 2014 - 11:11am

I get frustrated with many of the casual polling efforts in A/V publications (Home Theater Review, I'm especially looking at you, for your inept polling of entrants for monthly sweeps!).

For example, above, you imply there are single choices for processing--the opposite of which are "NONE."

DSX, PLIIz(x), Neo:X are NOT mutually exclusive. Most mainstream receivers include more than one option! A consumer will tend to use whichever among these options that sound best with any given source file (or analog equivalent)!

Any HT buff that has gone the expensive route to more than 7.1 channels certainly will tinker ad nauseum with all available options...I mean, don't YOU?

Not much thought (at all!) went into this silly, quick-and-dirty, post; and the results will be relatively worthless.

For example, I chose "Other," just to see the results and to be able to comment--but ANY option I would have chosen--this one included--would have been inaccurate.

willdao's picture
Submitted by willdao on August 25, 2014 - 11:17am

...not to mention there are earlier incarnations of these modes of processing still extant in capable home theaters (e.g. Yamaha's DSP, which has used height "presence" speaker options for decades, now)...

willdao's picture
Submitted by willdao on August 25, 2014 - 11:36am

...Hire me as a freelancer. I'll be happy to put more thought and effort into such posts/polling, such that they at least have the potential for offering meaningful results. (B.A. English Lit., M. S. I. R., M. B. A., published peer-reviewed academic publications, tech writer/researcher, business process and management consultant...first "home theater" with VHS Hi-Fi and home-built Hafler-type "surround" out-of-phase ambience extraction, ~early '80s)...

mikem's picture
Submitted by mikem on August 25, 2014 - 12:43pm

I have a 7.2 system with one problem and that is my couch has to be placed on the back wall as are my back surrounds. Just for the heck of it I moved them to front height. My Pioneer vsx52 found them but the only problem was that I had to enable them in the audio menu and every time I popped in a BD I had to "re-enable" them every time. The other problem was that using these as height channels seriously reduced the impact of my original 7.2 - so back went the speakers on my back wall - and nobody is going to change these unless they are taken from my cold dead hands.

K.Reid's picture
Submitted by K.Reid on August 25, 2014 - 9:38pm

Still stuck at 5.1. Will not bother with pro-logic2z, DSX or Neo X as no movies are mastered in these formats. Receivers/separates featuring Dolby Atmos will need to evolve for me to take the plunge. I won't bother with first generation.

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