Using in ceiling surround, shall I upgrade?

I do not know anything about "drop-down" speakers but I have always been unhappy with in-ceiling speakers for anything other than background music (which I hate anyway). Speakers should be at ear level or slightly above if all the sound is not to be perceived overhead. In-wall or, even, very small unprepossessing speakers are better, imho.

Kal

for "drop down" I mean the typical surround speakers hanging on ceiling or stick on side walls. Isnt it surround speakers are suppose to provide a surrounding effects only, I thought in-ceiling are able to do that.

Grandtech

I have both atlantic technology in wall and in ceiling in my secondary setup and revel ceiling in my primary. I did this because of the absence of walls in an open space. No choice. I did have revel s30 surrounds on furniture stands prior and focal on wall surrounds in my Previous home.

So I can speak from experience and tell you the following:

1) if you have no choice, then in ceilings will work well as surrounds if they are high performance speakers and preferably angled to point at the listening seat (which my revels do).

2) you can use in wall Atlantic dipoles in-ceiling. You just keep the null point consistent as you move up the wall into the ceiling. It's not ideal but works. It works better if the speakers are not too close to the listening seat either.

3) comparing the revel s30 on wall vs the in ceiling ic15 I can say that there is a bit of a difference in the fullness of the sound and in some instances, the sour round effect is probably better with the setup when it had the S30s. But, not by much. It will be impacted more or less depending on ceiling height and whether you have the speakers at 90 degrees or behind the listening position. There is only one movie, and I can't remember which, where I thought the surround effects were impacted a big due to the placement in ceiling. Listen, I'm too finicky about audio to let a sub-par setup rule my primary listening. It works in my setup but I spent a ton of time measuring out distances and angles before I cut the speakers in.

So, in summary, no, the surrounds do not need to be in ceiling or ceiling mounted. The standard specs call for wall mount about 2-4 feet above listening seat and slightly behind. However, if you cannot do that, then in ceiling can and do work well but you need to really take care to measure and setup properly. Otherwise, it will be a terrible experience that is hard to fix once the holes are done. If you can quantify your displeasure then it may come down to the fact that you would prefer a different brand of speaker. My Revels and Atlantic tech speakers sound very different. Simaudio stuff is great. So your electronics are multiples more than the cost of your speakers.