Advice for best Surround Speaker Setup for a Harmony: Ceiling/Hight ?

In the next couple of days I will install my new Harmony and took the opportunity to read the "Technical Sound Guide" on the B&O website. Quite an interesting read! On Page 13 it talks about the multichannel setup.

As I have Beolab 5's as Front left and right no need for a subwoofer and if you take off the center as well from the count you are left with 5 channels. According to the sound guide on top of the usual "Left and right Surround" and "Left and right Back"

- 180 Degree Centre Back

- Left and right Surround Hight

- Ceiling (looks like one center speaker on top of the listening position)

- Centre Front Hight

- Left and right Fron hight

I have 2 pairs of Beolab 3, 1 pair of Belob4 and one 7-4 I can play with.

I guess you need at least 2 channels for the back channels on ear level, but what is the best choice for the remaining 3 channels based on B&O's TrueImage processing ? Any experience with the extra channels?

 

I, too, have been interested in adding height channels. I'm interested in hearing what other people have done with height channels.

I'm currently using a BeoLab 4000 for "center front height" and a BeoLab 4000 for "ceiling." I really don't seem to detect much of a height effect.

I would use what I did, take both sets of 3’s. One for rears and one set of 3’s hang em high up pointing down at roughly 100 degrees of sitting straight forward to the tv and set them to height surround. It’s mind blowingly good in my set up and i love it

We still freak out every so often not knowing where the sound is coming from as it seems too real

Miki-

Could you please clarify if you’re using the rear speakers as height speakers? Or are your only height speakers the left front height and right front height?

No so i have the harmony and 50’s up front.

Then i have the 17’s basically up on the wall at the ceiling height, more or less 8”/20cm behind my head.

And then i have 18’s as rear speakers.

The 50’s are left/right and harmony set to center.

The 17’s are set to height surround.

The 18’s are set to left/right back.

The 17’s in this position where a late addition and i though the gains would be marginal but fun. But in reallity it transformed the whole sound emersion and soundstage. It’s not so much the loudness that has changed but the possitioning of where the sound is coming from. You can pin point if the sound is coming from the left front, left or left rear or left height for instance and vice versa. It’s increadible and i love it. The 17’s get a mixed signal for height and surround and the trueimage processor does it’s magic beyond belief it’s silly accurate and very often we swing our heads around because it’s so accurate and it sounds way too life like and also where the sound originates from a film with rain makes it feel like you’re sitting in the rain or a film where let’s say an upstairs neighbour in the film is stomping on the floor to quiet down the subject actually sounds like our upstairs neighbours are trying to do that to us in real life and we can’t tell the difference from the movie to real life lol

that sounds very promising! Hope I can test the suggested setup by end of the week.

Mikipidia:

No so i have the harmony and 50’s up front.

 

Then i have the 17’s basically up on the wall at the ceiling height, more or less 8”/20cm behind my head.

 

And then i have 18’s as rear speakers.

 

 

The 50’s are left/right and harmony set to center.

 

The 17’s are set to height surround.

 

The 18’s are set to left/right back.

 

 

The 17’s in this position where a late addition and i though the gains would be marginal but fun. But in reallity it transformed the whole sound emersion and soundstage. It’s not so much the loudness that has changed but the possitioning of where the sound is coming from. You can pin point if the sound is coming from the left front, left or left rear or left height for instance and vice versa. It’s increadible and i love it. The 17’s get a mixed signal for height and surround and the trueimage processor does it’s magic beyond belief it’s silly accurate and very often we swing our heads around because it’s so accurate and it sounds way too life like and also where the sound originates from a film with rain makes it feel like you’re sitting in the rain or a film where let’s say an upstairs neighbour in the film is stomping on the floor to quiet down the subject actually sounds like our upstairs neighbours are trying to do that to us in real life and we can’t tell the difference from the movie to real life lol

So maybe my problem is hoping that there would be a remarkable effect along the front-back axis. Whereas, you went with the left-right axis. I did notice some pretty amazing sound watching "Top Gun" and "Air Force One." This was after I very recently replaced my BeoSound 1s with BeoLab 9s as front left and right and moved my BeoSound 1s to left surround and right surround. The BeoSound 1s truly do make a nice improvement (over the former Beolab 8000s) for the surround left and right speakers! I'm hoping to add two more channels for height to have front height left and front height right along with surround height left and surround height right -- instead of the current "center height" and "ceiling" roles that I currently have. However, I first need to either get a special cable to isolate the powerlink to only send one channel to the BeoLab 10 center channel speaker or to completely remove the Beolab 2 subwoofer to free up some available speaker connections. I'm still not certain about the debate of whether a BeoLab 2 is needed when one has BeoLab 9 speakers.

Here are the speakers and their roles that I have with my BeoSystem 4:

BeoLab 10: center front

Beolab 9: left front

Beolab 9: right front

Beolab 1: left surround

Beolab 1: right surround

Beolab 6000: left back

Beolab 6000: right back

Beolab 2: subwoofer

Beolab 4000: ceiling

Beolab 4000: center height

Personally I would put the bl1's as rears as the corners tend to give the most oompf and then move the 6000's to the surround role. (you have the speakers furthest back set as rears right, as in not set as surround?)

Also important is to get the most out of it is to watch something that is actually recorded in 7.1 or above. as otherwise the trueimage processor is still upmixing. so in the case of a source that is 5.1 the most of channels used are now the bl9's and 6000's, where as if you swapped those arround it would be the 9's and 1's.

In my opinion with your setup the bl2 is fairly useless unless you set it to subwoofer rear.

 

to my knowledge, unless there are some atmos set up this way for recording, there aren't all that many films natively set up to have channels in the height front or height center. I personally feel the height channels on the side give more effects, but if there are center or dedicated height channels they would be mixed to the side height channels anyway. But I could be wrong, all I know is that as I sit for a film at home it's bloody spectacular with how I have it set up and the difference from 5.x to 7.x what I have now was eye opening and jaw dropping. It has exceeded my expectations for adding these speakers by a looooong mile

I believe that Mikipidia has the solution for the height channels. Whereas, kawo and I (and likely many others) were misunderstanding the height roles with regard to the TrueImage upmixing.

 

Geoff Martin wrote a blog about TrueImage Upmixing in 2013 and discussed the height channels. The blog can be found here:

 

https://www.tonmeister.ca/wordpress/2013/12/06/bo-tech-trueimage-upmixing/

 

Especially useful are some of the discussions that follow the article. In one response to a question posted, Geoff Martin said the following: “The question of what components from which inputs, get directed to which outputs is one of philosophy in algorithm design. One philosophy (which you describe) is that the front height channels should be used for reproducing uncorrelated (or negatively correlated) signals (measuring correlation using L/R pairs). However, another philosophy is to use the front height channels to help elevate the centre front (typically dialogue) channel so that its perceived location is similar to the height of the video screen. The latter of these two is the choice we made in the TrueImage algorithm.” Geoff went on to recommend that the person instead use the roles “Left Height Surround” and “Right Height Surround” to get the desired effect.

 

Thus, it’s my understanding that the Left Height Front and Right Height Front roles provide more of an improvement of dialog rather than creating the height dimension that the Left Height Surround and Right Height Surround speakers create. Therefore, we might be mistaken in thinking that all of the height channels work together in the same manner in adding the height dimension.

 

I’ve felt that the article by Geoff seems cut off and unfinished. A “part 2” of the article that further explains the PRACTICLAL uses that we should keep in mind when adding height channels and assigning roles would be very useful. For example: if you add just 2 height channels, where should they be and which roles should they be assigned? If you add 4 height channels, where should they be and which roles should they be assigned? And so on.

 

I feel that I’ve been misunderstanding the use of height channels and their roles until now. I still don’t claim to really quite understand them.

 

It would be great to see what these amazing B&O loudspeakers could do in a Dolby Atmos setup. The adoption of Dolby Atmos has come a long way since 2013. I’m seeing it everywhere now --- Apple TV (iTunes), Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney Plus. There is now plenty of content for us to really enjoy proper height speakers in our B&O home theater. Until then, “built it and they will come”?

 

@beojeff

In rhe article...or rather in the Q&A’s Geoff suggests that you might ‘lie to’ the system by telling that the height speaker, that are placed at the from are surround heights.

(This is what I would do if I was funtanate to havecthe option of 2 height channels at home).

That seems to correspond with the findings of Miki - although his height surrounds aren’t placed at the front, but more at the side.

By the way - the ‘person’ is Henrik Baron Vejrup, who from time to time takes part in the Beotalk podcast.

In his current setup at home he does not use any heights, but I am sure that he will be glad to tell about his impressions from back then. You could contact him in the chat/Beotalk or on his social media mentioned there.

We’ll see, if there will be a ‘part 2’ of the upmixer article some time - would be nice imo.

 

@Miki

You wrote in the description of your set up:

’The 50’s are left/right and harmony set to center. 

The 17’s are set to height surround. 

 The 18’s are set to left/right back’.

Does that mean that you have no speakers set as surround.....which would be the usual layout for 5.1 in the horisontal plane. Rears/backs are mostly used for a 7.1 layout as an addition to the surrounds.

Questions:

Since you always upmix/use the TrueImage upmixer, what are the differences between playing a 5.1 and a 7.1 source (in case you have 7.1 sources at hand/mostly from bluray discs). 

MM

When I read this thread, it seems to me that there is a blurring of terms and purposes...

There are some questions to ask before setting up such a large-scale system.

1. Why are you doing this?
The best reason for putting in "height" loudspeakers is to take advantage of humans' difficulty in localising sources above us. Sound coming from a position directly above you is hard to localise - which results in it sounding like it's coming from everywhere.

2a. Are you putting the loudspeakers in the correct locations? If not, it won't work.
In a 2-channel system, you will not get a centre image if the two loudspeakers and the listening position are not in the correct three locations... This is also true for a multichannel system. In fact, if you have a multichannel system where all loudspeakers'. audio channels are identical, then the "sweet spot" is smaller than for a 2-channel stereo system. A multichannel system only makes the "sweet spot" bigger if the audio channels are different.*

2b. Are the various loudspeakers' channels correctly configured with respect to Speaker Level and Speaker Distance? If not, then it won't work.
If you have a "ceiling" speaker mounted in the ceiling directly above the listening position, and it's playing a signal that should come from the ceiling - and it's not adequately delayed, then you'll hear that sound first - and any contribution of "spaciousness" (or whatever word you want to use) will be lost.

3. Remember that True Image is an upmixer. So any content that it generates for any channels that are not in the original stream are "derived" for loudspeakers that are additional to loudspeakers in the correct positions. However, if you have a correctly configured system, and you're sitting in the correct location, then upmixing will be a downgrade. A 5-channel upmix of a 2-channel signal is meant to make the overall experience better for people NOT in the "sweet spot" - at the expense of the experience of the person in the sweet spot. If you have one chair and no friends, then the best thing to do is to set up your loudspeakers correctly, turn off upmixing and send the signals to the correct loudspeakers - no more, no less...

4. Don't confuse loudspeaker position with Speaker Role. Sending a "ceiling" signal to a loudspeaker behind you will not give the impression that you have a loudspeaker in the ceiling. This might be obvious - but it's sort of implied by some of what's been written here. The loudspeaker models that you have is not as important as where they are positioned, since the purpose of having more than one loudspeaker is to enhance the SPATIAL effects.

I know this is all very general - but it might help...

Cheers
-geoff

 

 

Geoff:

 

Thank you so much for participating in this discussion. For the end user, it can be difficult to get some answers about multi-channel setups with our Bang & Olufsen systems. BeoCare doesn’t always seem to have the correct answers. (They suggested that I connect my BeoLab 9s to my BeoLab 2 instead of directly to my BeoSystem 4. I find that advice very questionable.) Some of the benefits that I read on the Dolby Atmos site are: “Moves sound all around you.” “Adds an overhead dimension.” “Creates a powerfully moving entertainment experience.” “A new sensation in height immerses you in the action, creating a full audio atmosphere and realistically depicting objects moving overhead.” So while I understand that TrueImage is not the same as Dolby Atmos, some of those descriptions are goals I have in adding height speakers. With that in mind, I’ll pose a few simple questions to you. Also, since you’re here, I’d like to pose a few questions to you about freeing up some BeoSystem 4 powerlink connections to add more speakers.

 

1.     If adding just 2 speakers for height, where would you recommend they be placed and which roles should be assigned to them?

 

2.     If adding 4 speakers for height, where would you recommend they be placed and which roles should be assigned to them?

 

3.     Do you agree with Millipidia’s suggestion that the my BeoLab 1 speakers (currently used for left and right surround speakers) be swapped with my BeoLab 6000 speakers (currently used for rear speakers) – thereby making the BeoLab 1 speakers the rear speakers?

 

4.     Does the BeoLab 10 speaker for center channel need to receive BOTH channels in a Powerlink cable? It’s possible to just assign one channel of a Powerlink socket in the BeoSystem 4 settings. However, the BeoLab 10 will still continue to receive both channels of that Powerlink connection of the BeoSystem 4. Therefore, it seems to waste one of the channels because the BeoLab 10 will receive both channel of the PL socket. The reception of both channels of a Powerlink cable could be solved by creating a special Powerlink cable to isolate for only one channel of a Powerlink cable being received by the BeoLab 10. This is a custom cable I could have Steve at Sounds Heavenly make for me.

 

5.     If a BeoLab 2 is only being used for the LFE channel and does not have other speakers connected to the BeoLab 2, does it need both channels assigned to it in the BeoSystem 4 settings? Or would it be okay to isolate for only one channel in a Powerlink cable to go to the BeoLab 2 with a special cable as I suggested in #4 above?

 

6.     Should I still use a BeoLab 2 if I have 2 Beolab 9 speakers?

 

I truly do appreciate your insight.

Thanks Geoff,

Is B&O ever going to support Atmos natively on the Harmony? Right now i have to do a work around with the aptv4k to have it show up and it makes a huge difference in sound quality from netflix and the like.

Mikipidia:

Thanks Geoff,

 

 

Is B&O ever going to support Atmos natively on the Harmony? Right now i have to do a work around with the aptv4k to have it show up and it makes a huge difference in sound quality from netflix and the like.

What is the work around?

Millemissen:

@beojeff

In rhe article...or rather in the Q&A’s Geoff suggests that you might ‘lie to’ the system by telling that the height speaker, that are placed at the from are surround heights.

(This is what I would do if I was funtanate to havecthe option of 2 height channels at home).

That seems to correspond with the findings of Miki - although his height surrounds aren’t placed at the front, but more at the side.

By the way - the ‘ person ’ is Henrik Baron Vejrup, who from time to time takes part in the Beotalk podcast.

In his current setup at home he does not use any heights, but I am sure that he will be glad to tell about his impressions from back then. You could contact him in the chat/Beotalk or on his social media mentioned there.

We’ll see, if there will be a ‘part 2’ of the upmixer article some time - would be nice imo.

@Miki

You wrote in the description of your set up:

’ The 50’s are left/right and harmony set to center.

The 17’s are set to height surround.

The 18’s are set to left/right back ’.

Does that mean that you have no speakers set as surround.....which would be the usual layout for 5.1 in the horisontal plane. Rears/backs are mostly used for a 7.1 layout as an addition to the surrounds.

Questions:

Since you always upmix/use the TrueImage upmixer, what are the differences between playing a 5.1 and a 7.1 source (in case you have 7.1 sources at hand/mostly from bluray discs).

MM

There is a tv - and there is a BV.

Henrik is with us 80% of the time, if he doesn’t have to work etc. So feel free to leave any question for him to over on the beotalk thread or email me and we’ll go over it for sure!

@millemissen

I actually have two presets, one is the classic 7.x where the 17’s are normal surround and the other where the 17’s are called “left surround height/right surround height”

The app shows them in two different ways, the first as 7.0.0 and the other as 5.0.2.

My work around for getting atmos signal is that i have connected the aptv to the panel and not to the soundcenter as the soundcenter always defaults the aptv to 5.1 what ever you do. This then gets converted to dolby digital plus when you get atmos signal in(which is 7.1) and the app says in either that it’s actually down mixing for my setup. When it’s a 5.1 source it says it’s upmixing.

When listening to a 5.1 source the 17’s and 18’s sort of work in tandem in either preset and it’s a sort dual rear setup, it still ads to the experience but not it’s not as impressive as listening to a atmos/7.1 signal. There it really shines and the channels feel fully separated and seem to do individual sounds and effects. A lot on netflix is now in atmos, most newer stuff anyway, and it’s great honestly.

Also the aptv work around when atmos shows up, i actually feel you get a higher bitrate of sound as even the front speakers sound way more distinct from one another. Attached to the soundcenter(5.1 default) or attached to the panel(atmos) with the same show i would say that with 5.1 if someone if to the left of center it sounds like the left channel and center channel are both playing, but when you watch the same thing on atmos it sounds like they are truely on the left as it sounds like only my left 50 is playing. The atmos tracks on netflix make it much more accurate to determine where something/someone is spacially where 5.1 can be a little bit vague. It’s all a bit hard to put in to words, i’ll try and make a video about it sometime soon!

But in either case i would highly recommend 7 speakers, i thought the change would be minimal but boy was i wrong

I would love to understand more about the TrueImage technology of B&O and hope Geoff could share some more insights. 

Across the home cinema enthusiast community there are many debates what is the prefect setup for Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, Auro3D. What is better, which sources provide these formats. Thousands of pages have been written...

If you are familiar with the German language, check out the youtube channel of Grobi.tv. Patrick Schappert is one of the few guys really in the know with this topic. He recently did many session on this topic. One stands out is with Wilfried van Baelen, the guy who invented Auro3D within his Galaxy Studios in Belgium. 

https://youtu.be/w3S3SasF2EM

Also what is the "perfect" setup for all 3D immersive sound formats this one https://youtu.be/xHNc7c-9q5U by a product manager from Sound United (they own Denon & Marantz)    

So how would TrueImage would fit in here?

Geoff Martin-

It would really help me if you could answer the 6 questions I posed. I'm not getting proper answers from BeoCare.

Also, with regard to whether to use a BeoLab 2 with 2x BeoLab 9s -- I've tried creating various speaker groups. Some tell the BeoSystem 4 that I have BeoLab 9s and others tricking the BeoSystem 4 by saying that I have BeoLab 1s instead of BeoLab 9s. Under the "sound info" menu, when I say that I have Beolab 9s and 2x Beolab 2s, the Output Format is shown as "9.0 (True Image)." However, when I tell the BeoSystem 4 that I have BeoLab 1s and 2x Beolab 2s, the Output Format is shown as "9.2 (True Image)." So does this mean that True Image is no longer using the BeoLab 2s when I have BeoLab 9s?

hi BeoJeff,

I just saw these questions this evening...

 

So, remembering that

- TrueImage is an UP- and DOWN-MIXER and not a DECODER.

- And that an ATMOS signal is not decoded by the BS4 - so you're getting either 2.0, 5.x, or 7.x from your source.

- and that the purpose of True Image is to have as little effect as possible in the "sweet spot" - but to improve things as much as possible elsewhere (which implies that if you have a correctly configured system, and one chair, and no friends, then you should not use True Image...)

 

Here are some answers:

beojeff:

1.     If adding just 2 speakers for height, where would you recommend they be placed and which roles should be assigned to them?

beojeff:

2.     If adding 4 speakers for height, where would you recommend they be placed and which roles should be assigned to them?

beojeff:

3.     Do you agree with Millipidia’s suggestion that the my BeoLab 1 speakers (currently used for left and right surround speakers) be swapped with my BeoLab 6000 speakers (currently used for rear speakers) – thereby making the BeoLab 1 speakers the rear speakers?

beojeff:

4.     Does the BeoLab 10 speaker for center channel need to receive BOTH channels in a Powerlink cable? It’s possible to just assign one channel of a Powerlink socket in the BeoSystem 4 settings. However, the BeoLab 10 will still continue to receive both channels of that Powerlink connection of the BeoSystem 4. Therefore, it seems to waste one of the channels because the BeoLab 10 will receive both channel of the PL socket. The reception of both channels of a Powerlink cable could be solved by creating a special Powerlink cable to isolate for only one channel of a Powerlink cable being received by the BeoLab 10. This is a custom cable I could have Steve at Sounds Heavenly make for me.

beojeff:

5.     If a BeoLab 2 is only being used for the LFE channel and does not have other speakers connected to the BeoLab 2, does it need both channels assigned to it in the BeoSystem 4 settings? Or would it be okay to isolate for only one channel in a Powerlink cable to go to the BeoLab 2 with a special cable as I suggested in #4 above?

beojeff:

6.     Should I still use a BeoLab 2 if I have 2 Beolab 9 speakers?

 

Hope this helps - and apologies again  for taking a while to get to it.

 

Cheers
-geoff

kawo:

I would love to understand more about the TrueImage technology of B&O and hope Geoff could share some more insights. 

Across the home cinema enthusiast community there are many debates what is the prefect setup for Dolby Atmos, DTS:X, Auro3D. What is better, which sources provide these formats. Thousands of pages have been written...

If you are familiar with the German language, check out the youtube channel of Grobi.tv. Patrick Schappert is one of the few guys really in the know with this topic. He recently did many session on this topic. One stands out is with Wilfried van Baelen, the guy who invented Auro3D within his Galaxy Studios in Belgium. 

https://youtu.be/w3S3SasF2EM

Also what is the "perfect" setup for all 3D immersive sound formats this one https://youtu.be/xHNc7c-9q5U by a product manager from Sound United (they own Denon & Marantz)    

So how would TrueImage would fit in here?

 

True Image is a down- and up-mixer.

Atmos, DTS:X, and Auro3D all have upmixers built-in, but they are primarily encode / decode systems, intended for specific loudspeaker configurations that include height - for audio materials that have been mixed for that configuration.

So, they are different things with different purposes... My posting on this thread might help to clarify things a little.

Regarding the question about the "perfect" setup - it would be to match the loudspeaker locations that were used by the person that mixed the audio. Unfortunately, except for 2.0 stereo, there is no agreement on a standard. The ITU-775 document has a standard for 5.x systems - but the NARAS document says something like "there's no point in making an ITU-775 setup in a studio because that's not what people have at home" so they recommend something else.

Atmos, Auro3D, and DTS all have different recommendations for configurations - and each has variants within it. I remember a time (when I was designing the True Image algorithm) when DTS had 7 different standard configurations for 7.1 - but only one of them was ever used... 

So, unfortunately, there's no answer... 

Cheers
-geoff

 

Geoff-

Thank you!!!!!! You've answered questions that it's taken years to get answers to!

Thank you Geoff!

May I also ask you to make the soundcenter of the BV Harmoy Atmos compliant? I know it's easier said than done, but I and a bunch of others would really love for this to happen. I'll even buy a new dsse board if needed, if it's not a straight up software update to the current one.

 

Thank you once again!

Thank you Geoff! 

At the end of the day this is enjoying a music experience and I guess technology is not the key driver for a typical B&O customer to make a purchasing decision. My shop for example could not demo a 5 channel setup, and when we started talking about above ear level speakers there was absolutely no experience.

So your comments help a lot, also (just guessing) most of the multi channel setups in the B&O world are not dedicated cinema rooms but more living rooms. So I think most  can't position speakers where they should be according to the specs. When debating what is the next step after retiring my good old Beosystem 3/Beoliving setup I dreamed about a 7.4 Atmos/DTS.X what ever setup driven by this high speced Denon/Trinov/Storm Audio bib boxes, but realistically wife would not allow to drill the holes into the ceiling and change a nice living room setup to more like a man's cave.

Finally with the Harmony and currently only a 5.0 setup (BL5 plus 2x BL3) and two more BL3 as Hight speaker to add, I am already happier with the sound experience than I have expected. After enjoying a couple of nice Blu Rays I am much more relaxed and don't think I need to add more. I guess after adding the hight speakers I am good with it and no need for me to find the last 5% of an even "better" setup. I have one spot at a wall for the hight anyway, so no way to get them there where the specs say.

I think the power is with the "Software", I second Mikipidia's comment, I would upgrade  the sound center to get some updates if they make sense (like a BL50 room compensations for multichannel or Atmos). Hope B&O goes down that route more to keep our gear up to date.

Thanks to Geoff's VERY helpful information, today I removed my x2 BeoLab 2 subwoofers since I have x2 BeoLab 9s, and I set up x4 BeoLab 4000 speakers as Left Height, Right Height, Left Surround Height, and Right Surround Height. The results are phenomenal. Playing "Top Gun" with 7.1 channels up-converted to 11.0 channels is just incredible. "Air Force One" is also great.

It would now be nice to hear recommendations from other BeoWorlders of movies that are up-converted for height channels using True Image.

Glad to hear beojeff! Since my BL3 are back into service after repair, I started slowly from 5.0 (BL5 fronts, Harmony Center (all 3 speaker set to center), BL left and right back. Nice but not great... than I added the next 2 BL3 to the mix, 7.0 setup with left and right surround. So still on ear level, but what a difference! the addition of two more speakers is just such a big step up. Could not stop listing to David Gilmour "Live in Pompeji" and Adele at the Royal Albert Hall. Was blown away from the performance of the Harmony with the two BL5 combined with the clarity and transparency of the back channels.

Next step will be to bring the BL2 Surrounds up to become hight speaker. 

I only can recommend who has a 5.0/5.1. setup to add two more speakers.

What are your settings for the harmony doing all center? Iam asking as this is not recommended really. And how far away are the bl5’s from the harmony on either side?

Generally the harmony or eclipse do better as a center channel when only the center row of speakers is playing for clarity.

Still testing, I started with the standard settings of the Harmony (front left, center, front right). The BL5 are roughly a little bit less than 1 m away from the Harmony edges. distance to the listening position is for all three  3,30m and the BL 5 is facing towards the listing position. I used a sound level meter to have them all playing at the same volume. Made a difference as well to my first quick setup just trusting my ears.

This gave a very wide soundstage but lacked in clarity and it was not so crisp. Than moving on to all 3 Harmony speakers to  center. Happy with it so far! But will take your advice and will test the center loudspeaker only (or turn down the volume of the left and right Harmony speaker).

Did some testing and played with the different settings for the center, finally I 2nd Mikipidia's suggestion just to run the center loudspeaker of the harmony and switch off the left and right. Damm I paid for them, but no use :-) 

Just ‘play on’....try setting the built-in L/R’s speakers to Front L/R Heights.

MM

MM might be onto something there. The front l/r height roles really do improve the dialogue. It might be due to the physical height of the speakers I've assigned to those roles, but it's still worth trying MM's idea.

I've found that the front l/r height speakers HUGELY improve hearing dialogue when the speakers are assigned said roles. Geoff Martin had mentioned in his blog that the decision was made in creating True Image for these speaker roles to do that. Prior to adding those speakers, I sometimes missed hearing dialog from my BeoLab 10 center channel speaker. Maybe this is partly due to my diminished hearing. At any rate, it provides a more cinematic experience.

I've set up other speaker groups using other role assignments for those same speakers -- such as assigning them (1) "wide" role or (2) "surround l/r height" roles similar to what is assigned for the rear height speakers. While these speaker groups might give greater surround effect they make the dialogue even harder to hear.

I've also assigned speaker groups for various SACD speaker roles. For example, some SACDs have the LFE channel used for height for speakers assigned the "ceiling" role -- with the advanced settings adjusted for "LFE input to ceiling YES." Some SACDs have the center channel used for height speakers, which is used in another speaker group.

Thanks to Geoff's blog, I learned how to reveal the hidden speaker groups that I never knew where there. There are now THIRTY possible speaker groups for the BeoSystem 4. Plenty with which to experiment.

I love it :-) , interesting idea with the hights!

Today I also received a new HDMI Premium cable as my current one had some trouble with the Sony Blu Ray UDP 800m2 with 4K and Atmos content  to the C9 as I am on Mikipedia's track to see the difference in 7 channel pass trough from  eARC port instead gaining into the sound center directly.

With regards to the full range drivers on the side in the harmony/eclipse i’ve found that you can basically only have them on and add something when they’re set to center but at -3db or more compared to the center row of speakers. Providing youre left and right channels are sufficiently far away from the center, otherwise it all sort of blends in too much imho. That’s what i found, but i think i also read something similar on tonmeister but can’t find it anymore.

With regards to the atmos, sometimes i get no sound but that’s not because of b&o. It’s an LG thing they said they were going to fix, but there is a work around. When you go into the sound menu settings(on my c9) earc is set to “pass through” by default, but if you change that to “auto” or “pcm” you’ll get sound and it’s bloody wonderful

There should be a software update out for the C9 for this problem, released last week.

the eARC bug I have experienced as well, also the workaround. Little bit annoying...let's see if the update fixes it

Emil,

Do you know what update nr/sw nr that is supposed to be fixed with? Haven’t checked in a while and don’t think my panel has had an update in a while too, atleast I haven’t seen it

My C9 just updated... 

So what software/firmware number are you on now and is it fixed?

Is there something similar like Sonos Trueplay (Sound tuning software for Sonos loudspeakers) available for Bang&Olufsen equipment? Perhaps from third party?

Or is this automated sound tuning only „hocus pocus“ and just putting the loudspeakers in the correct locations is the only (main) think to optimize the sound?

I took the opportunity to play with some of the ideas and thoughts Geoff mentioned in his Sound Guide. As I had to move one pair of the Bl3 from the back (7.0 setup) to the front due to my BL5 waiting for repair to a 5.0 setup. As I have no subwoofer I adjusted some of the bass management settings to have the Harmony's loudspeaker provide more of the low end. So 4x BL3 plus the Harmony. Quite impressive how much this setup with the little BL3 moves the air and sound!

As I still have a pair if unused BL4 in storage and to much spare time over the weekend... I put them on the ceiling (luckily found the ceiling mounts in a box) as Goeff described in his guide.

Man, what a difference! A whole new world of sound filled the room. I was really blown away! With this small not most loved speakers in the B&O range magic happened. The Track which impressed my most was Kraftwerk's Radioactivity from their recent Blu Ray. (for the folks who do not know Kraftwerk, the are named as the innovator of the electric sound). Also Yello's last concert from Berlin on Blu Ray as well very impressive.

So long story short, I only can second Mikipedia's suggestion go for for ceiling speakers all time before you add a second pair on the floor for the backs. 

To put this in perspective, I visited a reference show room with a Denon/Auro setup as the Auromatic is probably the best up mixer for hights outside the B&O world, but B&O is not far off...

 

 

@kawo

Thanks for reviving this important (if you are into multichannel B&O) thread.

MM