Pioneer Electronics gives webinar on Dolby Atmos for its Atmos enabled products

By Devin Brown

On Wednesday participants from all over the U.S. listened to Craig Eggers, the director of home theater marketing for Dolby, and Andrew Jones, the lead speaker designer for Pioneer Electronics, explain how to use Dolby Atmos on Pioneer Elite speakers and receivers.

The webinar covered placement of speakers, installation questions and connectivity troubleshooting. Both men believe Atmos will change the AV home theater market. But only if it’s demonstrated correctly.

Eggers said the technology won’t sell if dealers let the product sit “statically” on shelves. He said using visuals won’t convey what Atmos can do.

In this image released by Pioneer, it shows a Atmos setup with
Pioneer's Atmos enabled speakers. (Pioneer)

“Dolby Atmos is the most exciting thing to come to our industry since the introduction of surround sound more than 20 years ago,” Eggers said. “You’ve got to see it. You got to hear it to believe it. It begs to be experienced.”

Jones, who designed all of Pioneer’s Atmos speakers, said he was excited about Dolby Atmos because it gave him a “solution” to height speaker problems. He said most movies really need a front height speaker – speakers that sit above the left and right channel speakers. The height speakers, according to Jones, were first used in 9.1 surround sound systems to give audiences sound from above their heads. Atmos gave Jones the option to add to existing 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound systems.

When Pioneer went to design its new speaker line they had to follow Dolby’s instructions on the design of the Atmos enabled speakers. According to Jones, everything else in the 7.1 or 5.1 systems was his design.

“The idea of having an upward firing speaker bouncing off the ceiling requires certain specifications,” Jones said. “These are things that Dolby themselves have researched and provide that we as manufactures have to meet.”

According to Jones, the Atmos enabled speakers sit on top of Pioneer’s tower and surround speakers. Each Atmos driver is angled 70 degrees to get the right sound reflection off a horizontal ceiling. He said then the sound would travel back to the listening area.

In this image released by
Pioneer, it shows Pioneer's
SP-EFS73 tower speaker.
The speaker retails for
$699.99 each. (Pioneer)

Jones said most ceiling materials will work with Atmos. The only material known to Pioneer to have problems are sound reflection tiles. Jones said the tiles should be replaced. The ceiling height, according to Jones, should be between 8 to 14 feet high.

Jones said the Dolby Atmos enabled speakers have a perceptual filter. He said it’s there to enhance the “perception” sound coming down to an audience from overhead. Jones said the filter also limits how much sound leaves through the front firing drivers and how much leaves through the upward firing Atmos drivers.

Eggers said one of the biggest problems Dolby sees with Atmos is when users don’t set their Blu-ray players to bitstream audio output – a setup feature to bypass a Blu-ray player’s audio processor. Eggers said people need to rely on the Atmos processor in receivers to decode the signal.

Both Jones and Eggers said listeners need to be placed a minimum of 3 feet away from any speaker in the room. They said it’s the best way to get the full “effect” of Atmos and to avoid any crossover – when two sounds mix.

According to Eggers, when Dolby released Atmos to commercial theaters it saw the number of theaters double from when it released Dolby Digital – a Dolby 7.1 surround sound format.

Eggers said there are more than 100 Atmos mixing facilities around the world. He said next year Atmos will be available for more Blu-ray movies, broadcast and video games. He did not give any expected dates on when the new formats might be released to the public.