Dolby Atmos - is it for Audiophiles?

My limited, (non) audition of Apple’s Spatial Audio left me (1) disappointed that the feature would seem to be wholly dependent upon one’s having access to Atmos equipment or a handful of non-audiophile-centric devices (I.e., AirPods, Beats, etc.) and (2) highly curious to hear said Spatial Audio on a full on Dolby Atmos setup.

in any case, I’m hearing VERY little difference, either in general SQ or any hint of any enhanced “immersive” effect on my recently purchased, 5.2 home theater system (which is not Atmos equipped) between Tidal (sourced from a Node 2i) and Apple Spatial Audio offerings (coming from an Apple TV 4K device) into the same 5.2 system.

I suspect that if Spatial Audio is all it’s cracked up to be, it’s going to be somewhat of a “mono to stereo” moment.  As in this earlier, watershed moment it doesn’t appear as though any of the new tech will be backward-compatible.

A great example of how "sound effects", EFFECT US..

Nothing more.. You'll get a belly full pretty quick BECAUSE of the inconsistency alone. One is great the next is bad.. Heck I use a stereo for everything.

I've never used surround. Only 3 channel trinauraul (analog) SST or Mac with bass bins and subs. All the bass stuff is processed now.. For me anyway.. A lot easier to control..

ALL the rest is sound effects.. Puff Puff Pass!! :-)

Regards

You nailed this one, +1👍

Back in the day the sound track ran alongside the film, in the form of squiggles, literally the analog signal. It was the visual analog of magnetic tape, read by photo-cell instead of a tape head.

Movie sound tracks were then all analog, and to this day sound great.

But we didn’t know it, because most movies back then were watched in movie theaters with usually something like one or maybe two 15" speakers behind the screen. Crap amps too.

Hardly anyone remembers, but a big reason Star Wars was the huge hit it was, it was one of the first movies to be released with George Lucas sound quality, the results of experiments done with Tomlinson and Holman: THX.

Not ones to miss out on easy money they started adding speakers, and needed a new format for getting all those channels off the little bit of space running alongside the film. Probably a few old cinephiles will recall the wars between Dolby Digital and Sony, etc.

The public face of this was all sound quality. In reality it was all about the Benjamin’s. Always has been, always will be. The winner was the one with the best financial moves. Well, why not? Film is a visual format.

Yeah sure the Foley guys win Academy Awards, but let’s face it, they win them basically for making The Terminator sound menacing, not for anything really to do with sound quality.

Dolby might not be the furthest thing from audiophile. That is still reserved for the AVR. But man is it ever a close call.

Its for movies....two channel is two channel and should be left that way.