Do NOT Blow Your Entire Budget on Two Channel Audio

All of this object based, immersive audio is firmly situated atop that 90 year old technology and wouldn't exist without it. You can't start with a clean slate just because you've figured out a way to extract even more money out of listeners with some better channel extraction techniques and massively hype the heck out of it.

The only way it can ever be construed as "high fidelity" is when the listener is completely unaware of sound emanating from other than directly in front of them, just like in real life. It's why none of the other, previous attempts failed to catch on: it's too fake sounding. Why anyone would want to hear the perspective of a chamber piece from inside the chamber group playing is way too weird for my tastes. 

So yes, it is all a matter of priorities, budget, preferences, tastes, etc. I've never been a lemming in the throes of flavor of the month and which cliff to merrily jump off of. It's gotten so that even hobbies like audio can become memes in and of themselves as we dumb down our culture.

All the best,
Nonoise

Speaking of replacing....

The OP should heed his own thoughts on the subject, literally and personally.

All the best,
Nonoise

This is the biggest putsch by the Philistines ever.

@thyname,

Time will tell....

All the best,
Nonoise

How many posts do you have responding to @kota1 on this? 7? 8?  All attempting to shoot down spatial audio. To what end?  This is the pot calling the kettle black. You are not the target market for ATMOS. It is not targeted to people set in their ways and looking for reasons not to change .

Nope. What I take issue is, is with his overbearing and pushy attitude. As for you, I see you joined on 7/11/23 and noticed you have the same cantankerous manner as one particular member who's been banned many times but yet continues to resurface under different handles. I hope it's not you, again.

All the best,
Nonoise

This is the "mass market" adopting which gives me a bit of a smile. 

the masses

The general population, especially the common or low-class portion thereof. Usually used to deride those seen ashaving unrefined tastes 
or intelligence.

And this makes you smile? Going for the lowest common denominator? I'll say it again: this is the cruelest joke ever perpetrated on A'gon. Providing links to ad copy promoting solutions looking for a problem is an old tactic. Like one idiot said of the people who adored him, "I love the poorly educated."

All the best,
Nonoise

This has to be the lamest of jokes ever perpetrated on A'gon, ever.

Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner,
Eating a Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said, "What a good boy am I!"

---Mother Goose

Audiophiles have been "wasting" great equipment long before room treatments became the next best thing to market to the insecure. Fear is a great incentive.

Getting so wrapped up in it to the point where one says "Toole has a room like mine", when it’s the other way ’round, and posting shots of recording studios that one has copied doesn’t make them one of the big boys of audio but just someone who now has invested so heavily into it he needs to have validation in his choices by forcing them on others as there’s comfort in conformity and herd mentality.

This constant, nagging insistence goes beyond congenial advice. Long ago I experimented with blankets over my TV screen and found better center stage focus and clarity. Mounting it 2’ further back on the wall bettered that, negating any need for a blanket. Trying quick ’n cheap fixes to see if results warranted anything else proved futile: no need for further investment. Having a recording engineer physically check out my listening space (not looking at a graph) and pronouncing my space good enough was all I needed to hear.

There’s plenty of online and in print discussion of improving the sound of your system simply by moving closer to it. Get your speakers a bit further out into the room and/or move your listening position a bit closer. If your room is on the smaller side like mine is, you’re most of the way there by listening in the near field.

Speaker placement and toe in can do wonders to improving things. This is age old advice that’s worked for... ages. The acoustics in the room can be as much as 50%, not at least that amount. Nothing would work if that were the case. There’d be no great systems of the past or memories of hearing them. Again, fear sells. With all the links the OP provides, it makes me wonder if he’s getting some kind of kickback for it and his constant, hard sell approach.

All the best,
Nonoise

When it comes to great audio reproduction, it's not a matter of age. For punks to use ageism as their rational for elevating what amounts to a glorified PA system is laughable. 

Why is it when someone gets the better of someone else, they attribute it to anger when they are the ones flying off the handle, handing out insults to well reasoned arguments? Lots of projection going on here, especially with the use of "audio karens".

Let no one forget who was banned for most of a day for his virulent attacks on members for not seeing things his way. That is what an "audio karen" is.

All the best,
Nonoise

There's another way to look at this. Some are happy taking cheap shots, thinking themselves clever. Others are perfectly content with what others do without raising any animosity over what is basically a non issue. Others are just angry about those that could care less so they attack them on spurious claims about system costs wrapped in premises of jealousy. Live and let live and let others go about tilting at their windmills.

All the best,
Nonoise

In this Darko podcast, John talks to Jason Stoddard of Schiit Audio about the Urd CDT and the Syn Surround Sound generating Preamp/DAC (the discussion on the Syn is at the 38:00 mark).

Turns out, Jason is not a big fan of surround, immersive, object (take your pick) Dolby Atmos sound processing and goes on to explain why, giving examples of set ups where some found they preferred it to Dolby and considered their expenditures on it a waste of money. YMMV but it's something else to consider.

All the best,
Nonoise

Well, he did say he used to get an allowance....

The idea I am championing here is not to have to choose, it is to budget to have both.

This idea of yours sounds just like another one of your dictums (we haven’t forgotten your badgering of members to post their system photos for you to admire or criticize). Your advocacy for "object", "immersive" sound has gone overboard into the realm of proselytizing, which seems to be your wont.

All the best,
Nonoise

If I had 5.1 or 7.1 ears, I might agree, but I only have 2. 
All you can do is dissuade. 😄

All the best,
Nonoise

That dog won't hunt.