Comes up constantly in threads here and elsewhere: someone's finished room predates Atmos, there's no way to run wire through a finished ceiling without real demolition, and the choice comes down to up-firing modules on top of the front/surround pair versus biting the bullet on in-ceiling drivers anyway.
The usual knock on up-firing modules is that the reflected/bounced presentation sounds vague or smeared compared to a real discrete overhead driver, but the reports from people who've actually lived with both don't fully back that up — ceiling height and existing absorption up there seem to matter more than the module-vs-driver question itself. A flat, moderate-height ceiling with some acoustic treatment already in place apparently gets surprisingly precise imaging and convincing "overhead" effects (rain, atmospheric sweeps), while the same modules in a taller or more reflective room get reported as flat and diffuse.
Where the gap seems to stay real even in a good room is fast overhead pans — a plane or a ship crossing the listening area — where discrete in-ceiling drivers apparently keep continuity that bounced sound can't quite match.
For anyone who's actually run both setups, even at different times or in different rooms: how big was the real difference for you, and did calibration/room correction close much of it, or is the up-firing presentation just fundamentally different no matter how well it's tuned?
The usual knock on up-firing modules is that the reflected/bounced presentation sounds vague or smeared compared to a real discrete overhead driver, but the reports from people who've actually lived with both don't fully back that up — ceiling height and existing absorption up there seem to matter more than the module-vs-driver question itself. A flat, moderate-height ceiling with some acoustic treatment already in place apparently gets surprisingly precise imaging and convincing "overhead" effects (rain, atmospheric sweeps), while the same modules in a taller or more reflective room get reported as flat and diffuse.
Where the gap seems to stay real even in a good room is fast overhead pans — a plane or a ship crossing the listening area — where discrete in-ceiling drivers apparently keep continuity that bounced sound can't quite match.
For anyone who's actually run both setups, even at different times or in different rooms: how big was the real difference for you, and did calibration/room correction close much of it, or is the up-firing presentation just fundamentally different no matter how well it's tuned?