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NO Side Speakers in an atmos system?

Hey guys I hope you can answer this.
 I am looking to build a theater and have zero place to put side speakers.  I have the rears and the over heads covered plus the main front three and sub.  However my question is this, does my Pre/pro (marantz 8802a) take the signals normally sent to the side channels and send them to the back speakers if there are no side speakers?  I would hate to lose two important channels that seem more important than the rest.

Part two of this question depending on the answer from the first.

Should I use the rear speakers as side speakers?  Meaning, that I have the rear speakers hooked up to the side speaker terminals of the pre?

Thanks for your help.
Mark
mgould
reubent
6,988 posts
 
Does the pre/pro have automatic setup? If so, try both connections (rear and side) and see which sounds better. Just remember to run the setup routine after you make the wiring changes. I'm guessing you would want to connect the back L&R speakers to the rear speaker connections.

tls49's avatar
tls49
1,351 posts
 

You will need to use the surround channels (side) even if the speakers are on the rear. The basic 5.1, front L&R, center, surround L&R, and subwoofer are all discrete audio channels and should always be used. Everything else is created by matrix processing.

ozzy's avatar
ozzy
7,466 posts
 

So are you guys saying that a Atmos set up is 7.1?.

(2) Front, (2) rear, (2) overhead, center +sub

Can receivers (Like Denon) that use side channels be re routed to be used as the Atmos overhead channels?

ozzy

imhififan's avatar
imhififan
2,183 posts
 
There are many ways to setup a Atmos system:
https://www.dolby.com/us/en/guide/speaker-setup/index.html
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