Looking for some SoundBar/Atmos Guidance.

[bromains]

Alright so i've had the Sonos Playbar and a couple Play 1s for 4 or 5 years. Their good i'm not disappointed but i've wanted atmos for a while and with the Sonos arc that came out i thought this was the time to upgrade playbar and buy the additional sub. I found out the Arc needed eARC port which my TV didn't have but that was fine because a TV upgrade was around the corner anyway.

So i bought the Sony A8H 65' recently but as i began to read more and more i started to realize, Me using SONOS for exclusively Home Theater has me paying a large premium for SONOS whole home music system that i never intend to use, and at the $1500 price for the arc + new sub there are other systems that might be better or are at least higher channel count for compareable prices.

At this point i could still go SONOS even knowing that but the biggest turnoff for me is the no DTS with sonos, basically only dolby atmos which is a bummer because i use physical media as muchas streaming content.

This took me down a rabbit hole of many options, initially i began to look into AVR and slowly adding klipsch over time but it's been pretty much determined to be a no go on running cables through the wall and for the most part ruled out a wired AVR setup.

Sound Bar Wise i've come to 3 or 4 possible packages with atmos

Samsung Q90R 7.1.4 - Seems to be rated the best from RTINGS as far as a sound bar atmos system but i feel like i personally see more complaints about it than the nakamichi or sonos.

Nakamichi Shockwafe Ultra 9.2.4 - the most channels and the cheapest option, i don't know much about the company but it seems to be great for that "Theater" experience. But it has no eArc and a new eARC audio port is kinda what sent me on the journey for a new TV.

LG SN11RG 7.1.4 - Read some common issues about it temp turning off the wifi if its too close to the router and it would be pretty close in this room (around 10 feet) there were some fixes im fairly confident i could employ but in overall comparisons against the others it just tends to fall short

Sonos Arc + Sub + Rears 5.1.2 - I guess one of the bigger things to note is i'm fairly happy with the playbar and 2 surrounds i've used so perhaps a large jump in channels would be unnecessary, maybe just adding that new arc with the sub i never had would boost my system enough to satisfy me. since im not a major audiophile but the no DTS is a turnoff.


Bear in mind i didn't even know what an AVR was a couple months ago so anything i'm confused about feel free to correct me because all of this information is very new to me and there's tons of it.

I've been starting to lean nakamichi because it seems like it'd give me the theater experience i want, the downsides being, no eARC and I kinda question the surrounds upward firing, like almost all the surrounds i've seen with dolby atmos have a blatantly obvious speaker on the TOP of it firing upwards but the nakamichis just look like a regular speaker which makes me question how good it would really be.

This is all started because i wanted dolby atmos, and on some level it might be impossible to get really good 3D sound without going full AVR setup with speakers in the wall/ceiling.

But since theres no nearby stores with ANY of the models in question on display i'm here trying to squeeze out that last info that i won't find on a youtube video or review site.

im really not trying to do AVR i'm sure theres some of you who are gonna wanna tell me to go that path but it's like my last resort.


the room in question has about a 9 foot ceiling 15 feet deep 12 foot wide. I can't use all the space behind the couch because theres a computer desk on the back wall but theres enough room to pur 2-4 surrounds 2-3 feet away from the sides and back.

Thoughts? What would you do in my situation or what do you think i should do since i'm probably much more casual than some.