Been to all the pro demos, heard in a few environments. It’s just simply not good for music. It’s a theatre effect at best and a gimmick at worst.
Dolby Atmos - is it for Audiophiles?
A friend asked me over to his house this morning to audition Dolby Atmos on his pretty good 2 channel system.
Apparently - Apple are going to convert their entire streaming library to Atmos (please don’t shoot the messenger) and another well known streaming service is going to adopt it also.
Since this is my first exposure to Dolby Atmos, I came away a little confused
From the brief audition I experienced...
If you have first hand experience with Atmos, please share your thoughts/insights with the rest of us
Many Thanks - Steve
Apparently - Apple are going to convert their entire streaming library to Atmos (please don’t shoot the messenger) and another well known streaming service is going to adopt it also.
Since this is my first exposure to Dolby Atmos, I came away a little confused
From the brief audition I experienced...
- some tracks presented very well - better clarity, separation and dynamics with larger more articulate image
- other tracks were less impressive, especially the really old tracks
- some classical tracks sounded quite shrill and harsh
- and one of the more recently recorded tracks did not sound too much different from the regular stereo version - but then it was Taylor Swift - again, don’t shoot the messenger:-)
- it seems it may be targeting Airpod users - as opposed to 2-channel systems that use speakers
- from the description (i.e. diagrammatically ) it looks like surround sound for Airpods.
- does it work with existing surround sound systems?
- it seems it only works with Atmos enabled devices - how long before my Node 2i streamer becomes obsolete?
- violins sometimes sound quite harsh
- cellos sometimes sounded very "thin" - poor bottom end and poor timbre
- some orchestras sounded very unnatural in the top end and less bottom end than normal
If you have first hand experience with Atmos, please share your thoughts/insights with the rest of us
Many Thanks - Steve
- ...
- 25 posts total
I have a simple solution, don't stream. Streaming is for Lazy people. I takes effort and risk to build up an excellent collection of music. Dolby Atmos? Just a theater thing. Theater people will swallow anything that sounds cool. They want to argue about such worthless things as pixels, something you do not want to see. Amazon? Do I smell money changing hands, a little slap on he back? We'll force all those peons into getting new equipment with Atmos decoding? As Studebaker Hock, the new superhero of the current economic crisis would say, "Get the Picture?" |
The Atmos demonstrations that I have heard left me underwhelmed. It also left me wondering what the industry was up to. After all, surround sound has failed spectacularly in the market place (like Willie, don’t shoot me-I have two 5.1 systems in the home). Now they are asking people to place additional speakers angled at funky angles from the ceiling? It’s like seeing Ford Motor Co. crank up the assembly line for a revival of an enhanced Edsel. At first I figured the multi channel industry was doubling down on the true believers in surround sound, asking us to empty our wallets for one last thrill before we shuffle off to the Nursing Home. However, with Apple now trying to breathe life into the format, it makes me wonder. We all may sneer at Apples pretensions of Audiophilia, but as has been noted up thread, they have enormous clout, can influence demand and taste, and can’t be ignored. Will they breathe life back into Surround Sound? After all, with digital technology it should be easy to eliminate one of the major obstacles, which is that people don’t want wires running all over the house. So I for one will cheer Apple on, hoping that they and their competitors resuscitate both the demand and the implementation of what has been a dying field |
what is Dolby Atmos? basically it’s object based reproduction, as opposed to discrete channels. which means it uses dsp to steer objects through the soundfield instead of discrete separate channels. the benefit is that it scales really well to higher speaker counts really beyond 5.1 channel surround. i use 9.3.6 channels in my Home Theater room. but with 2 channels it’s benefit is marginal, to the point that it’s a negative. you are adding dsp to a 2 channel playback and the negatives of dsp are greater than the benefit in most cases. it is perceived as distortion. so how good can Dolby Atmos be for music? done all the way right (not trivial to execute) it can rival top level 2 channel music reproduction. i have a no holds bared 2 channel system, and a completely separate Home Theater system where i’ve just installed 15 surround speakers and 3 subwoofer (9.3.6). even not really tweaked it can do some wonderful things for music. and the room is not nearly as critical as what is needed for top level 2 channel. and until you have heard what the very top level software can do for multi-channel room optimization you cannot judge this approach to music reproduction. and i'm as committed to a pure 2 channel signal path as anyone on this forum. https://www.dolby.com/about/support/guide/speaker-setup-guides/9.1.6-overhead-speaker-setup-guide/ Audiogon is not a good forum for this discussion. if you really want to learn about Dolby Atmos and what is possible here is where you need to go. this is a Trinnov thread on the AVS forum. Trinnov makes the best multi-channel processor by far; they are the object based dsp sound reproduction experts.....up to 64 channels. https://www.avsforum.com/threads/trinnov-altitude.1516103/ these guys are as serious about object based music and movie sound as we are here with 2 channel. i mostly stream 2 channel with Tidal and Quboz in my 2 channel room. so Apple streaming Dolby Atmos is not relevant for me. i know Tidal does stream some Dolby Atmos and so maybe at some point i will connect Roon in my Home Theater room and check out Dolby Atmos multi-chnanel streaming. but my own view is that i have zero interest in 2 channel Dolby Atmos for my 2 channel room. my pure analog signal path is not getting corrupted with dsp. |
- 25 posts total