Someone going 5.1 to 5.1.4 with a properly mixed system, in-wall KEF Ci4100QL-THX up front, a Q250c centre, Polk OWM3s on surround duty, an RSL 10S sub, all pulled together with Dirac on an RZ-30, and the question is whether the four heights have to match any of it.
Short answer: no, and it is the wrong thing to worry about. Heights carry ambience, overhead pans and reflections. They almost never carry dialogue and they rarely carry sustained music, so the timbre handshake that genuinely matters across your left, centre and right does not apply the same way over your head. What does matter is that the four heights match each other. Two bright ones in front and two duller ones behind will smear an object as it travels across the ceiling, and no amount of room correction repairs a dispersion mismatch.
The ceiling beam is the real constraint in this build. A horizontal beam behind the listening position kills the neat in-ceiling circle, so angled on-ceiling boxes aimed at the seats become the answer, and that is a legitimate answer rather than a fallback. Dolby's angle guidance is a window, not a line. Sitting a bit further back and a bit off the ideal elevation costs far less than a ceiling speaker firing straight down into the carpet two feet in front of your ears.
The one thing Dirac will not do is fix aiming. It will level match and time align happily, and it will make a badly pointed speaker measure flat in the main seat while sounding wrong in every other one. Point them first, measure second.
What did people end up using overhead, and did anyone regret going with a different brand from the bed layer?
Short answer: no, and it is the wrong thing to worry about. Heights carry ambience, overhead pans and reflections. They almost never carry dialogue and they rarely carry sustained music, so the timbre handshake that genuinely matters across your left, centre and right does not apply the same way over your head. What does matter is that the four heights match each other. Two bright ones in front and two duller ones behind will smear an object as it travels across the ceiling, and no amount of room correction repairs a dispersion mismatch.
The ceiling beam is the real constraint in this build. A horizontal beam behind the listening position kills the neat in-ceiling circle, so angled on-ceiling boxes aimed at the seats become the answer, and that is a legitimate answer rather than a fallback. Dolby's angle guidance is a window, not a line. Sitting a bit further back and a bit off the ideal elevation costs far less than a ceiling speaker firing straight down into the carpet two feet in front of your ears.
The one thing Dirac will not do is fix aiming. It will level match and time align happily, and it will make a badly pointed speaker measure flat in the main seat while sounding wrong in every other one. Point them first, measure second.
What did people end up using overhead, and did anyone regret going with a different brand from the bed layer?
