GoldenEar Hits the Ceiling
Ceiling fronts shouldn’t sound better than workmanlike, but functioned far better even in this flimsy show room than I ever expected. If your domestic situation requires that the speakers be more or less invisible, this can work. As an audiophile I know I’d never be permanently happy with it (come to think of it, we audiophiles are never permanently happy with anything!), and given the choice would still opt for the floorstanders at the left and right together with a matching center. But that’s not possible for everyone. I’d avoid it however (for the fronts) if your ceilings are more than about 9 feet high (my estimate of the ceiling height in the show’s prefab sound rooms).
On my first visit to the GoldenEar room I heard demos from Dolby’s latest Atmos sampler. Everyone was using this Blu-ray, and while it had a nice range of selections, the same three or four (the noisiest, of course) were seeming heard everywhere and became tedious as the show wore onlikely even more so for the demonstrators who had to listen to them at least 50 times a day for 3 days.
I returned later with some of my own Blu-raysthe live action Cinderella and Oblivion. Since neither are Atmos transfers, we played them in simulated Atmos (which is now officially known as Dolby Surround). They both sounded excellent, with nary a gunshot, a car chase, or a city being trampled on, and only one explosion between them. I picked them specifically for their stunning (and very different) music scores. Both of them sounded expansive and compelling on GoldenEar’s system.
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