Wondering whether to use the upgrade program to move from a Beam (Gen 1) to a Beam (Gen 2). I’d originally been planning on getting a pair of Ikea Symfonisks to flesh-out a surround system for watching films. But I’m wondering whether the Atmos in the second-gen Beam might actually be a more efficient (and/or cost-effective) way of achieving a surround sound experience, in a relatively small room. Can anyone speak to the effectiveness of Atmos on this new Beam?
Beam (Gen 2) with Atmos vs Beam (Gen 1) with surrounds
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Atmos channels are different from surround channels. In my opinion, adding surrounds to a non-Atmos Beam will be far more effective than an Atmos Beam with no surrounds.
I switched from the old Beam to an Arc for other reasons but the amount of material I’m seeing (that I want to watch) with Atmos sound isn’t impressing me. The increased sound and stereo separation of the Arc sold me on it, not Atmos.
Both sounded a lot better with Play 1 or One SL surrounds than with no rear speakers and that would be my first move.
If you have a TV equipped with eARC and watch a lot of movies on Blu-ray or UHD disc, go with the Beam (Gen 2) so you can enjoy lossless Dolby TrueHD/Dolby Atmos or multichannel PCM audio. And then save up and add a Sub or surrounds later.
If you mainly just stream movies, keep the Beam (Gen 1) and add the surround speakers.
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