3 feet 11¼ inches to the ceiling HT-A7000

[TheRealKjalarr]

I'm afraid that my Upfiring Speakers  isn't working that well because I have 3 feet 11¼ inches to the ceiling, but I still get a good experience with Dolby Atmos. I only have the Soundbar and the SA-SW5 subwoofer. others with low ceilings?

[royabrown2]

@TheRealKjalarr 

(Is there a fake one? 😛)

What’s your ceiling made of? If your property is old, cottagey, even with beams perhaps, you won’t get the same reflectiveness as a modern plaster one, and this may be more significant than the distance to it.

[TheRealKjalarr]

The ceiling is made of concrete with white paint. 🙂

[royabrown2]

@TheRealKjalarr 

It should bounce off that really well, then.

Are you thinking this is a timing issue, with the overhead sound arriving too soon because of the unusually short path it takes? Is there an adjustment in Settings for this?

[rooobb]

I am not used to imperial measures but if I am not wrong it is less than one meter! Dolby Atmos without actual ceiling speaker is already fake but what you can expect with so low ceiling on top of the soundbar? Also because I am quite sure you cannot have the same ceiling above you...

[royabrown2]

@rooobb 

1.15m

[rooobb]

@royabrown2 thanks but still an incredible low ceiling and cannot think about having it over your head when you rest on a couch can be legal in UK, so you he should have a non plain roof in the room that adds up to create problem to any kind of reflection the soundbar could be engineered to try....

[royabrown2]

@rooobb 

In my not-too-tiny 2021 house, it is 1.2 metres from the top of my (non-upward-firing) soundbar to the coving in the picture, and the coving is 0.15 metres.

I do not think I would bang my head if the ceiling were where @TheRealKjalarr ‘s is 😛

[rooobb]

It doesn't seem low in your (beautiful) home but according to law in Italy the lowest ceiling permitted is 2,70 meters and the eyes on a couch normally are at 1,10 and should be aimed at the center of the TV with the sound bar normally placed below it....but that are general indications 

[royabrown2]

@rooobb 

My wife thanks you for the compliment and says it’s a shame the photo doesn’t show any of our Alessi 😛

Our ceilings are 2.4m, which is rather higher than in our previous (modern) house, so I guess in the UK, builders can go a good bit lower than 2.7m

Sitting eye height for the TV shown is 90-100 cm, so mounting it level, the bottom edge of the TV, 80 cm tall, would be at 50-60 cm off the floor, so not much room for the soundbar below that.

But the middle of the TV is actually at about 150cm - the console is 70 cm, then provision for an AV amp to sit on the console (even though there is just a little YouView box there at the moment) then the soundbar, and then the TV. The sofas are some way back in the room, and we tend to recline, so we are not stretching our necks to watch TV 🙂

The 55in TV in the kitchen/diner is actually centred at 165cm, but we sit up higher there, on dining chairs at the table, or bar stools at the breakfast bar.

Our 43in bedroom TV is likewise centred on 165cm, but here we have a tilting wall mount so the TV is at 90 degrees to our line of sight from the bed. It is also centred only slightly above the AV wall socket the builders put in, with mains/terrestrial/satellite/Ethernet, so you don’t see any wires going to the TV.

I’ve looked at several articles on the web about TV height, and they all describe the horizontal ‘ideal’, and then they all say ‘but…’ and suggest mounting it higher, pretty much where we have them, if you are sitting far enough back.

We started off with a 32in set in the bedroom, but it was so far away, we couldn’t see it. So we went for the 43in, and even there, I sometimes have to go up to it to read any small print. Maybe we should have gone bigger still 😛