I did my first 11.1 atmos theater job recently. Pretty much just ran the test tone and made sure all speakers were correct and then played some stuff and saw “dolby atmos” indication on the Marantz AVR. I haven’t done much testing or calibration beyond that.

Next week I’m going back to look at some things and customer mentioned that he never hears the overhead speakers do anything. I don’t know what he’s listening to or if it’s a passage where he should hear anything.

He has the ES Sony BD model and both Roku and Apple TV. What all settings do I need to check that I may not have already? He said he was streaming Vudu and Disney+ on the Roku. Are there certain services that don’t support Atmos?

It may be similar to the fight that I've had since the beginning of surround. I set the surrounds to be natural and the customer immediately remarks "no surround". (-sigh-) I then set the surround to smack the listeners in the back of the head, then they are happy.

I thought about that too but I’m giving this particular client’s awareness of that the benefit of the doubt. He’s pretty sharp most of the time but who knows. He could be watching the local news and be expecting bullets flying surround effects during stories of shootings in N St. Louis.

Get your hands on an ATMOS demo disc, or grab a copy of Mad Max Fury Road and have a listen...
Make sure the speakers are set up correctly - ie in-ceiling ATMOS speakers need to be represented as being in-ceilings on the AVR's GUI... not upward firing ATMOS units. Check the crossovers / 'size' and levels too.
I'm assuming you ran Audyssey?

Make sure the Marantz sound mode is set to "Dolby Audio - Dolby Surround"

Yeah, I've pretty much set every one of my clients sound modes to 5 channel stereo over the years as I got tired of them asking why they can't hear anything in all of the speakers. Some of these people know better but they still complain about it. They all love it once I push the 5 Channel button.

I tend to add some db to the rears, sides and atmos just to make them happy. it works. Hell it makes me happy when i do it in my other theater set up. just works better.