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An audio engineer explains why Dolby Atmos Music is “definitely going to supersede stereo”

lashto

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Looks like some top-notch honey to me:

View attachment 247228
Lower one is the Atmos stream. I trust Jeremy won’t mind me posting this.
the diffs are very clear and huge. And great!

There is just absolutely nothing Atmos about those difference. What you see is the diff between a retarded-loud stereo mix (top) and a good stereo mix (bottom).

That screenshot shows a standard editor for standard stereo recordings.
(mere mortals do not have Atmos software, that stuff costs $xxxxxx and Dolby will not give it to you anyway.)

Atmos surround is indeed a different animal. But stereo-Atmos is not, it's only 'honey' is the encryption.
Atmos Stereo = the usual stereo music-bits + Atmos encryption. Put those stereo music-bits in a FLAC and it will sound 100% the same

P.S.
maybe Jeremy wouldn't mind telling us who sponsored his 'stereo Atmos amazement' ...
 
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abdo123

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Yes, of course you are correct. A 5.1 is a more appropriate dip you toes level. Then go up to Object height speakers. My apologies. Had a Senior moment ;)

You don't really get to ''Objects'' territory till you go above 7.1.2. The below 2 hour interview is WELL worth the time.

 

kongwee

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Compress every object on the Atmos you can get the same shit back.
 

lashto

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It really depends how it's achieved. Various after the fact 'declipping' or 'dynamic range restorer' plugins have been available to consumers for awhile now.
plugins written but people who were fed up with the industry's loudness. And again, absolutely nothing Atmos about those de-crapper plugins (guess you knew that, just worth repeating)
They kind of work.
Some amazing code there but yes, it cannot do wonders.
The diffs we see/hear are so big and so good, it is highly likely to be remixes/remasters of the original recordings. Good ones this time. A lot of that (re)work was already done to promote MQA.

Those beautiful remixes can also be sold as plain old stereo FLACs. But why should you have fun without paying Dolby/Apple/studios/etc? That would be unacceptable!
So it would not be a huge deal if that's all Atmos is doing. But if Atmos is doing the real thing ...providing or auto-generating stereo mixes that were never stomped on with loudness wars compression in the first place...that would be a big deal.
you guys keep posting about Atmos doing 'stereo miracles'. Is there any proof or trace of that 'Atmos stereo magic' anywhere? Any documentation, any examples .. anyfreakinthing ...
 
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abdo123

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plugins written but people who were fed up with the industry's loudness. And again, absolutely nothing Atmos about those de-crapper plugins (guess you knew that, just worth repeating)

Some amazing code there but yes, it cannot do wonders.
The diffs we see/hear are so big and so good, it is highly likely to be remixes/remasters of the original recordings. Good ones this time. A lot of that (re)work was already done to promote MQA.

Those beautiful remixes can also be sold as plain old stereo FLACs. But why should you have fun without paying Dolby/Apple/studios/etc? That would be unacceptable!

you guys keep posting about Atmos doing 'stereo miracles'. Is there any proof or trace of that 'Atmos stereo magic' anywhere? Any documentation, any examples .. anyfreakinthing ...

When you buy any kind of device do you just look at the Hardware sheet and decide based on that or do you get the device with the better customer support, the better quality control, the longer warranty, the device with the better feel, the device that looks better, the device that feels better, the device with longer after-purchase support .etc .etc .etc

You can argue all day that Atmos is not doing anything special, but at the same time no one in the entire industry is forcing any sort of standards or quality controls or basically anything. They literally have a monopoly now over good sounding music, and by refraining from listening to Atmos music you're experiencing an objectively worse product.

It's just what it is at the moment.

Also Stereo Atmos is not a thing.
 

lashto

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abdo123

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Excellent Question. Worth repeating 100x on every page of this thread

P.S.
and you should ask youtube-Jeremy not me. He is heavily promoting:
  • "Jeremy's take on the revelation that is Dolby Atmos music downmixed to STEREO"
  • "Atmos STEREO Audiophile revelation"

He probably means a Dolby Atmos Stereo Downmix that he either illegally ripped or someone illegally shared and he doesn't want to get into trouble.
 

lashto

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He probably means a Dolby Atmos Stereo Downmix that he either illegally ripped or someone illegally shared and he doesn't want to get into trouble.
don't know what he means, may be what you say. But not sure if it matters.

Problem is that people seem to be convinced that Atmos Stereo is a thing. And it does magic worth paying for. o_O
 

abdo123

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don't know what he means, may be what you say. But not sure if it matters.

Problem is that people seem to be convinced that Atmos Stereo is a thing. And it does magic worth paying for. o_O

Remove stereo from that sentence and i would agree.
 

theREALdotnet

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No need to speculate, if you watch the video.

He’s talking about Dolby Atmos tracks streamed from Apple Music that are down-mixed and played back through a regular stereo USB DAC – if you knew this was possible with the Music app and have a recent enough Mac to do it.

What’s magic is the outcome, compared to lossless streamed versions of the same tracks.
 

lashto

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You can argue all day that Atmos is not doing anything special, but at the same time no one in the entire industry is forcing any sort of standards or quality controls or basically anything. They literally have a monopoly now over good sounding music, and by refraining from listening to Atmos music you're experiencing an objectively worse product.
definitely a "damn if you do, damn if you don't" position for the consumer.

The music industry robbed all consumers once with the retarded-loud mixes. And robbing them again now with the 'fix'. Classic EEE strategy.

And it's probably going to succeed because of the reasons you mentioned
 

theREALdotnet

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don't know what he means, may be what you say. But not sure if it matters.

Problem is that people seem to be convinced that Atmos Stereo is a thing. And it does magic worth paying for. o_O

Atmos tracks down-mixed for playback over a stereo system is a thing. And yes, it is worth paying an additional $0.
 

abdo123

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No need to speculate, if you watch the video.

He’s talking about Dolby Atmos tracks streamed from Apple Music that are down-mixed and played back through a regular stereo USB DAC – if you knew this was possible with the Music app and have a recent enough Mac to do it.

What’s magic is the outcome, compared to lossless streamed versions of the same tracks.

I did that with my iPhone and i got the binaural down mix and that sounds horrible on stereo speakers.

I hope it works differently on MacOS based on what your setup is.

With the Apple TV you get the full Atmos bitstream with all the objects and stuff.
 

lashto

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No need to speculate, if you watch the video.

He’s talking about Dolby Atmos tracks streamed from Apple Music that are down-mixed and played back through a regular stereo USB DAC – if you knew this was possible with the Music app and have a recent enough Mac to do it.

What’s magic is the outcome, compared to lossless streamed versions of the same tracks.
yep, that was also my point (sorry if it was not particularly clear).

That Atmos downmix is just pure plain old stereo. It'll work on any regular stereo device.
The only 'Atmos honey' is the encryption which hides the stereo-bits from you
 

theREALdotnet

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I did that with my iPhone and i got the binaural down mix and that sounds horrible on stereo speakers.

I hope it works differently on MacOS based on what your setup is.

Yep, that’s the entire point of the video. But I sure can’t make you watch it…
 

abdo123

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yep, that was also my point (sorry if it was not particularly clear).

That Atmos downmix is just pure plain old stereo. It'll work on any regular stereo device.
The only 'Atmos honey' is the encryption which hides the stereo-bits from you

Do you know how Dolby Atmos Works? There are no encrypted stereo bits, they’re generated at playback.
 

lashto

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Remove stereo from that sentence and i would agree.
hm, shall I ask again? What is the 'magic' that Atmos does and stereo can't !?
(I am only talking about stereo music)
 

theREALdotnet

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The only 'Atmos honey' is the encryption which hides the stereo-bits from you
Not sure what you mean by that. All tracks (in all formats) streamed from Apple Music are encrypted. It’s a subscription service.
 

lashto

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Do you know how Dolby Atmos Works? There are no encrypted stereo bits, they’re generated at playback.
Does it matter? There are only two points here:
  1. those plain-stereo-bits are 'hidden' in an Atmos package.
  2. the stereo-bits can be easily extracted and sold as 'plain' FLAC/CD/SACD/etc.
Those stereo-bits are the actual, real 'honey'. The one we will never get.

I would also be very suspicious of the claim that the stereo-bits are 'generated'. That's exactly the kind of proprietary format detail that nobody can confirm or infirm.
And the kind that marketing will heavily promote!
 
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