Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

adults typically can’t hear 16khz.

The pursuit of higher and higher resolution files is like chasing rainbows. This is why the law of diminishing returns kicks in hard for two channel purists. Do you know WHY audio shows are full of $50K amps and $100K speakers. That is what it takes to squeeze out the last "bits" of two channel resolution. I am firmly in the camp with Tomlinson Holman who states multi channel offers very great value. I use his Audyssey DSX codec which is channel based, incredible, especially with live recordings. In essence, add WIDE channels to your system BEFORE height channels. Object based Atmos is great but less than 10% of the available music out there is mixed in Atmos. Audyssey DSX is an upmixer:

As Mr Holman is quick to point out, any audio engineer confronted with the question, “what do you want to do with a higher bitrate?”; will always ask for more frequency range and more dynamic range because they don’t know what to do with more channels. "It’s a new paradigm." "Just to go to 192 KHz sampling rate to satisfy passing bats instead of human beings is pretty crazy, but adding channels is of very great value." (For those readers not terribly familiar with flying rodents, bats have an ability to hear ultrasonic frequencies, the kind you can reproduce with a 192 KHz sampling rate). In answer to the question what is 10.2? Mr Holman replies "It is as far as we can push the market without people thinking we are crazy."

When pursuing multi channel the limiting factor tends to be space, space for speakers and space for amps. ACTIVE speakers that house the amps inside resolved that dilemma for me. For anyone wishing to experience unleashed dynamics and realism try this setup with either a processor that does Atmos with wides or DTS-X Pro:

An Atmos version of the same layout (as you see in my virtual system) The angles are key, I moved the top middle ceiling speakers a little more in toward the center of the room to separate them from the surround speakers and between the first and second rows. They also can double as VOG channels for Auro 3D that way. Front and rear height channels are mounted above the front L-R and rear L-R channels and center height above the center for a total of 7 height channels in my layout. I didn’t use active speakers for top middle and center height, too big for my ceiling, but I did use the smaller Paradigm speakers that most closely matched my actives (same tweeters):

@kota1 that is the best set up I've screen, I know you don't want equal angles from front and back as most layouts have. I realize it us much better to have the speakers in the proper physical places but how do you feel about using DSP to time align the speakers? Delay is the easiest DSP action but what about angle in an Atmos configuration? Since panning is object based is it still so important to have the speakers physically in standard positions around your head?

@donavabdear , I like DSP for time alignment as the last step. In the Dolby diagram they have the MLP toward the rear. I scotched that and moved my MLP equidistant between the front and rear channels, using a tape measure to dial it into the inch and a laser pointer to get the angles of the height channels aligned. It didn't take that long. I'll post a diagram of Floyd Toole's home layout and he has the exact same layout. So I use the time alignment feature of DSP after using a tape measure and a laser pointer to get the distances and angles as close as possible. For example my room isn't wide enough to have my side surrounds equidistant so DSP in that case is a big help. As for speakers overhead I think for the top middle, it works. For front and rear height, it isn't ideal. No sense having the sweet spot pointed at the floor right? For front and rear height (which are equidistant from MLP) I find facing them toward the MLP and angled about 30 degrees like in this diagram: