Question about passive and active subs for Atmos
 

We are in the process of building up our main mix room to be Atmos certified. Our current sub is a little bit under powered and we are on the search for a new one. We have the MTRX with the SPQ card that is going to be doing all of the management, filtering as needed, delays, etc.

The Dolby certification spreadsheet lists a whole bunch of passive cinema subs, along with the regular powered subs for recording studios. For instance, the Genelec 7382A gets us over the hump to be qualified, but the damn thing is $10.5k! Alternatively, we could go with something like a passive Christie S118LP that is around $1000 that also gets us over the hump in terms of power. We would also need an amp of course, but it is still a huge price difference at the end of the day. I know there are things like AES inputs and that sort of thing that make it more expensive,

I'm curious if there would be a huge difference from an listening/mixing perspective, with the nature of LFE, between the 2?

What are you getting for that extra $7-8K (after we get an amp as well)

Thanks!

Re: Question about passive and active subs for Atmos
 

I´ve just built a room using a Genelec 7370 for bass management and Lfe for the main 7.1 array. Also using a 7360 for bass management of the ceiling speakers. But our room is for HT, not for features. What´s the Dolby certification you´re applying for? We also have a MTRX, but don´t have the SPK card, as we opted to have the Genelec GLM to handle the whole setup, since it´s all Genelec speakers.

Re: Question about passive and active subs for Atmos
 

It really just depends on personal taste and budget. Some folks like to keep all their speakers the same manufacturer. Any passive sub is going to rely on the amp for differences in performance and coloration of sound. With an active sub, you know what you’re getting out of the box as far as performance goes.

Re: Question about passive and active subs for Atmos
 

Indeed^^^^. My question is; does any sub you consider need to be THX-or Atmos certified? If not, check out the Presonus Temblor T10(or even a pair of them). I initially passed over them as looking not-up-to-the-task, but boy was I wrong. Was chatting with Rick Naqvi and asked about one of their AIR15 subs for my last CR. He said that would be serious overkill for my room(14' wide and 19" long). He went on to describe the factory studio that runs dual T10 subs and told me I could try a pair to see if they measured up. My Genelec 8050A's ran out of steam before the subs:o Needless to say I bought a pair, but I also feed a separate line from my speaker selector that passes through a digital crossover so I can tweak everything(using SMAART Live). I plan on adding a single to my new mix room ASAP(a much smaller space).:o

I would not do a passive sub unless it was a very big room that could fit something like a pair of JBL Cinema boxes(18" loaded) with appropriate power and system control:rolleyes:

Re: Question about passive and active subs for Atmos
 

Thanks for the responses everybody. The sub just needs to pass muster when it comes to the Dolby certification process. There is a spreadsheet that they send you that has a bunch of prebuilt lists in it, containing dozens of pieces of gear (see attached). There are lots of active subs listed as well, but so many just don't have the power to make the spreadsheet in the green (any colored cells indicate something that is under powered and needs to be addressed). At the moment, our surrounds are also a little bit under, which we might be able to solve by bass managing them with an additional sub, which gets us another 3-4db, which will put us in the green.

Quite the process!

https://6foot4vt.s3.amazonaws.com/dardt+screengrab.jpeg