atmos is stereo overheads are basic stereo pairs of heights 1 2 3 sounds can be panned diagonally around in square like circle unless they are actually positioned on or within flush of the ceiling in arrays of speakers to make circle . no this is all , sorry to say , Dolby BsMos . i never buy music Atmos discs or even stream unless a mixer can swear that it is a serious listening for myself personally . i would rather listen to my cats running around meowing or listen to just 10 seconds of traffic outside with maybe the odd jet airliner and i know , and some mostly know its all sound impulses and reflections and time delays that create this , stereo sound illusion and just 10 seconds is way better than 3hr Dolby Atmos movie . where only few i have noticed out of the , ten years , 10 years of it only tiny fraction % is decent enough , still not perfect by any means at least Gravity used the overheads for the full 90 mins unlike some other rubbish movie that is over 2hrs and only uses few minutes of overhead surround .
Dolby Atmos doesn't have a true discrete below surround with timings and textures and sound continuity to match the off screen sound to the on-screen sound with panning . i can do a matrix version of below surround but would rather have true discrete rather than all this , 3d Atmos snake oil of branding Atmos on old movies with the promise and yet just another rubbish Atmos that doesn't have any true sense of overhead they sound just like the regular channels , may as well just have used the rubbish upmixer DSU which is utterly rubbish , why matrix decoder attached to front L R ? that is so easy i tried this myself over 10 years ago with 5.1 to spread matrix surround ambience onto the stereo surrounds of , i think , " forrest gump " as the rain effects mostly mixed on L C R in 5.1 . when downmix 4.2.4 the rain is all around or partly due to crosstalk nature of the matrix 4.2.4 decoder . but easy to put matrix decoder connected to front L R and then feed the outputs into audio mixer with stereo surrounds and then combine say the . . .
. . . combine the output rear matrix surround decoder connected to front L R , connect S output into one line input on the mixer , where i have fader slider to adjust align it to the 5.1 or ( stereo split surrounds L R ) into two line inputs and combine and balance levels with pink noise , and bingo ! i now have the rain effect all around so easy that was and i did that over 10 years ago .
^ thinking about it i may try it again . but it does have crosstalk issues , which is what Dolby DSU is . Dolby use there own matrix decoder could be side surround decoder or rear surround decoder of that say like PLIIx and they won't use the front part of the decoder that would be a . dead giver away to non trained listener it would stick out like red sore thumb . so they cheat , you and even cheat you over there , yes Dolby labs cheat us all . they even cheat themselves .
dts use there own version matrix decoder have done for years which has different surround victor steering . i fact i prefer dts neural x .it has better fake stereo overhead matrix decoder of its own dts matrix . i can hear the crosstalks of where that sound originated from , front L R .
now Dolby DSU when used with 5.1 oh what a mess ! it even adds on to the rear back surround serious listening distraction of front L R crosstalk so bad i have to switch Dolby labs rubbish DSU off ! remember Dolby PLIIx that did great for 5.1 mixes as would have switching inside to add extension only to the surround channels to give a scene , say " mission from mars " where there is dialog pan that moves slowly around the speakers or in cinema with Dolby surround - EX ( my 1989 idea shared on phone dolby labs new york the guy stolen my idea i get 0 credit for the idea shared that in 1998 full one year before public knew of it being used for star wars the jar jar binks story ) sigh .
so the dialog pans with voice and connects with back surrounds of that voice which is phantom mono signal that would commonly hover or float between L R surrounds for few seconds before panning onto left surround and then mixed back into centre channel .
PLIIx gives the dialog pan stereo like freedom effect on the rear back surrounds as it slowly pans and in my listening personal experience i think the PLIIx is by far better .
how ever thou PLIIx for laserdisc Dolby Stereo 4.2.4 mixes its not so good . fake stereo surrounds for star wars and i think it adds on error of extra crosstalk that i found distracting and that is by listening to ( each channels one by one with other channels muted so i can closely examine )
Dolby DSU has thrown away PLIIx ? oddly so when using dts neural x with " mission to mars " i swear it sounds like PLIIx when the dialog pans around onto the surrounds with no front L R crosstalk . it has another function of maybe logic switching circuitry i guess ?
most on ASR don't listen the way i listen . they do say everyone listeners differently . i wonder how Dolby labs trained engineers back when i think Dolby Stereo was the most decent sound format that i heard or was listening to that wowed me at regular cinemas with 4.2.4 , while other cinemas was geared up for 35/70 and when showcasing 70 was a bigger deal . Dolby Atmos at regular substandard no THX just substandard sound bass that hardly even presses on my body with just plain middle to high range DEAFENING where i have no choice to using earplugs fearing HF hearing loss ! yeah , sure Dolby labs Atmos is natural sounding , may have brainwashed the people in there 30's with your BsMos , but doesn't fool me single bit . may fool people in another 20 years if Dolby Atmos is still around , while other sound formats have been slowly phased out and everyone has been , Dolby BrainwashedMos
