forum thread Posted by doublehelixx | Staff • Jan 28, 2025
Jan 28, 2025 5:55 PM
Item 1 of 4
Item 1 of 4
forum thread Posted by doublehelixx | Staff • Jan 28, 2025
Jan 28, 2025 5:55 PM
Polk Monitor XT90 Hi-Res Height Speaker Pair $99 + Free Shipping
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While the XT90s have keyhole slots that make them wall mountable, I haven't gotten approval from my partner to try wall or ceiling mounting. Though I don't think the XT90s make a good buy if you're going to mount them either. There are better (wider frequency response, significantly so on the bottom end as the XT90s are designed only to handle the Dolby recommended upfiring crossover of 180 Hz) and cheaper surround speakers that would work as height or Atmos speakers, e.g., Polk Atriums on sale or your pick of satellite speakers in your local used market.
While the XT90s have keyhole slots that make them wall mountable, I haven't gotten approval from my partner to try wall or ceiling mounting. Though I don't think the XT90s make a good buy if you're going to mount them either. There are better (wider frequency response, significantly so on the bottom end as the XT90s are designed only to handle the Dolby recommended upfiring crossover of 180 Hz) and cheaper surround speakers that would work as height or Atmos speakers, e.g., Polk Atriums on sale or your pick of satellite speakers in your local used market.
Right, I forgot to mention before that my setup is impractical for surround speakers.
What I've learned is that it is hard to predict if you'll get good Atmos effects from upfiring speakers because a lot depends on your room. You need them to be no higher than at half your ceiling height (but if they're too low, you'll hear them from their location instead of the overhead reflection), and angled just right to bounce off your [ideally smooth] ceiling to your listening position. People use laser pointers, mirrors, and trigonometry to figure these out. I didn't do the background research and didn't realize with my 8' ceiling, the XT90's ~22° angle sitting almost exactly at 4' atop my fronts is too sharp for my listening distance.
I don't think another Dolby module would be much better out of the box (a lot of the ones I've seen are angled about the same as the XT90], although the ones with waveguides might make them less localized if I were to tilt them to angle them forward more. But outside some Atmos demos, I don't know that there's enough content out there to make going 3.1.2 worth it. Maybe you should consider regular height speakers with fuller range, and not just upfiring ones that are crippled by design.
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https://www.polkaudio.c
The Polk direct says coming soon or some such.