Large home theatre space gets raised luxury cinema style seating, with Dolby Atmos in-ceiling sound

Stage 1

For this large downstairs space the client wanted to convert the area to a luxury home cinema room with a bar off to the side.

Our contribution to the home cinema portion of the works included:

– Building out the front wall to make the screen appear it is ‘floating’, a feature which will have led strip lighting installed around the edges.
– Changing the framing and building a new bulkhead at the rear of the room so in-ceiling Dolby Atmos speakers could be installed.
– Installing a step up or riser so a rear row of luxury cinema style seating could be installed, including carpeting and painting of all new installed works

Let’s understand the benefits of installing a riser or step up in a home theatre setting.

Stage 2

The benefits of installing a riser or step up

A riser or step up is simply an elevated section that is installed to optimise the viewing experience if you have multiple rows of home theater seating – just like in a real cinema.

A step up also enables you to fit in more seating if you are constrained by the width of your home theatre room or space. For example, with a riser or step up you could fit in two rows of three seats, with the rear viewers able to see the screen with no obstructions – thanks to the elevation the riser provides. You need to take into account the minimum and maximum distance from the screen, and place the riser with these measurements in mind. Seating should also be placed with enough room for people to move freely to and from their seats.

Stage 3

The raised platform of the step up is typically constructed from timber framing, at a height that suits the size of the room, with reference to distance to the screen as well as the height of the chair or front row of seating. The final touch is to carpet the step up for aesthetics and sound proofing, and install the luxury home seating.

The client also specified a 5.2.2 Dolby Atmos system with overhead Atmos fronts – all powered via a Yamaha RXA1080 receiver. If you are not familiar with Atmos here is a brief overview of it and how you can get it.

Stage 4

What is Dolby Atmos and how do you get it?

Dolby Atmos is Dolby Laboratories ‘immersive sound’ and ‘multidimensional experience’ for home theater – basically surround sound on steroids.

Atmos main feature is that it adds surround channels that come from overhead to any existing surround-sound set-up. Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers direct sound upward and reflect it off the ceiling to produce incredibly lifelike, overhead sound – so rain sounds like it is falling from above. It does this by giving each individual Atmos speaker multiple channels – including front, surround and ceiling-mounted height channels. By comparison Dolby Atmos has the ability to process up to 128 channels of sound, where with a typical 7.1 setup you get a maximum of 8 channels.

Stage 5

If you want to Atmos in your home theatre setup here are they ways you can get it:

– A Dolby Atmos-capable A/V receiver with Dolby Atmos-enabled speakers (with ceiling firing speakers).
– Dolby Atmos-enabled soundbar.
– You can also add “Atmos modules” – small speakers which fire upwards – to your existing 5.1, 7.1 or 9.1 setup.
– You can also install ceiling speakers to create the Atmos effect.

Here is an idea of all the components installed for this client.