Dolby Atmos Critique Video

[Zensō]

An interesting critique of Dolby Atmos from a professional musician’s perspective. I pretty much agree with his position, though I’m sure some won’t.

 

[FriedChicken]

I just got Dolby Atmos working on my home theater: 7.4.2. I installed ceiling speakers since I had attic work to do anyway.

For music listening: Pure stereo is king. It can't be beat. I think the Stereo decoded/extended by Atmos sounds better than other surround decoders, but pure direct stereo still handily beats it out.

For movies: Atmos decoded by Atmos (as opposed to DTS-HD or Dolby Digital decoded by Atmos) is actually amazing. It feels like a professional theater.

 

[amirm]

I like to meet the product planner at Dolby who knowing full well that the industry has failed to get people to install 5.1 systems, that they will somehow go and stick speakers in their ceiling. I suspect the clever engineer convinced him that by bouncing the sound from down below it would do the trick. Given how much of a niche this solution is, they sure have created a lot more buzz about it than it deserves when it comes to music.

 

[FriedChicken]

I never tried Atmos before installing the in-ceiling speakers, although apparently I could have very easily. I thought my WDTV couldn't send the Atmos signal, but I was wrong! The venerable, the powerful, the timeless, the amazing WDTV soldiers on.

 

[Kvalsvoll]

By coincidence, I just watched this from Benn Jordan (It's the Flashbulb guy) now today. And he has some good points about atmos and also how music and sound in general is enjoyed by most people.

The 14-speaker atmos system idea was dead on arrival, people do not want to install all those speakers all around the room, not even thinking about cost. Even 7.1 was more than most would want to cope with. Too many speakers.

A solution would be to render to 2-channel stereo. Then producers can utilize the object technology and place sound as desired, and the consumer can play it on 2 speakers, with variable results, depending on the systems ability to reproduce sound coming from different locations.

 

[jhenderson0107]

^^^ Luddites.

Surround adds to the music experience. Atmos adds to the movie experience. These are incontrovertible facts and I can't prove it!

 

[robwpdx]

The video commenter is knowledgable.

Dolby is an about $1.2 billion US company with a 95% gross margin and few competitors. They have a patent portfolio which is in the video compression patent pool everyone has to license. They don't have many competitors, but several TV makers have refused to license DolbyVision and rely on open standards for extended video dynamic range. They would have an initial licensing fee plus per device royalties.

With that gross margin, they hire good people, conduct good research, and support professional societies.

ATMOS is moving into music in automotive and Apple Music.

Automotive is just about the most terrible listening environment in the world. As noted by Donald Norman, all the noise and vibration are cues that allow us to pilot the vehicle. Maybe in 10 years we will have fully autopilot sound proof ATMOS listening rooms?

No idea why Apple decided to go down that route. Apple does have their own headphone/IEM business to bring spatial audio to the masses. They can differentiate those by adding software to maintain their hardware gross margin. https://www.techtimes.com/articles/271694/20220210/apple-airpods-beats.htm

To master for ATMOS you have to mix for ATMOS. We are at an early period to do that tastefully. For the music listener, very few will have acousticly designed all-walls-dead for the full ATMOS experience. The average consumer will do with up-firing speakers/soundbars for novelty.

Friends have done AV startups, a predecessor to the video iPOD. I tried to get a Fortune 100 company to adopt it, but they wanted to partner with Philips who is out of that business. What I learned from that is that you either have to write your own compression and get it adopted in the end to end ecosystem, or you have to pay to license compression. It's not free. ATMOS locks in object-oriented compression in a world where we are going uncompressed using open standards which are free.

I have not read the spec, but as an object-oriented format, it should be playable in stereo. The engineers will be checking their stereo mix. Personally, I try to hear live music in a good room for ear training.

So ATMOS music is just an unnecessary evil. We do not know how it will end.

There is disgruntlement - Google wants to push royalty-free alternatives to Dolby Vision & Atmos -
https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1663826226

And like any IP company, they have to navigate China.

Dolby annual report https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1308547/000162828022030390/dlb-20220930.htm#i13d725f3f1364fc097a88b31c75ef71a_46

 

[valerianf]

Ben Jordan video was very informative.
Audio systems are moving from a channel base decoding to an object base.
Not a big deal: it is just a technical evolution.
For now my system is only channel based: one day I will have to upgrade it.
As listening music is a personal hobby, there will always be some people listening to vynil, CD in stereo.
This solution will always be possible with an option "Atmos downmixed to Stereo".
We are just missing one button on our equipments.

 

[jhaider]

For the music listener, very few will have acousticly designed all-walls-dead for the full ATMOS experience. The average consumer will do with up-firing speakers/soundbars for novelty

You don’t need “all walls dead” at all. I bet that would sound as bad in immersive as in 2ch.

And I read a lot of kvetching that seems to come mostly people who haven’t heard an immersive setup geared to music.

 

[Andysu]

dolby labs atmos is just boring it doesn't have multi discrete below surround channels for actual floor its just a waste of my listening time , i can walk around my home , switch a light on i hear it ear level , i hear my feet below me on the floor , can atmos do that ? of course it can't dolby labs , sigh ten no years of wasting my time and well they may have brainwashed millions of others but not me , i would have expected a mkII atmos version within 5 or 6 no years , but no or maybe ? maybe if they trade off some of those overhead surrounds and use them for actual in-floor or speakers smaller size what ever on the floor and then maybe i might be bit more interested in atmos again ,

i not played atmos disc movie in over 5 or 6 weeks now , actually Dolby Stereo with my own CIC/UCI tower park " experimental overhead surround "

gamount/odeon had overhead surround installed 1969 , cinerama70 for ice station zebra so the audiance would have heard overhead surround , mono discrete via the x6 in-ceiling , i heard star wars day one in same screen feb 1978 in Dolby Stereo with star destroyer not that sound interested me back then

CIC/UCI tower park , uk 10 plex used EV cinema speakers x8 attached to ceiling in #6 one of two larger screens

screen #? well one of the smaller screens they all look the same so could be screen 1 could be screen 7 ? smaller screens used x7 overhead surrounds , so overhead surround it is , is there any other name for it ? purpose get better overall surround coverage and yes it worked very well , uncommon as usually surrounds are located sidewall back wall , left/right halve surrounds

surprised dolby labs don't mention the other overhead surround uses since all those screens at tower park was Dolby Stereo CP55 SRA5 in all ten screens

 

[Curvature]

dolby labs atmos is just boring it doesn't have multi discrete below surround channels for actual floor its just a waste of my listening time , i can walk around my home , switch a light on i hear it ear level , i hear my feet below me on the floor , can atmos do that ? of course it can't dolby labs , sigh ten no years of wasting my time and well they may have brainwashed millions of others but not me , i would have expected a mkII atmos version within 5 or 6 no years , but no or maybe ? maybe if they trade off some of those overhead surrounds and use them for actual in-floor or speakers smaller size what ever on the floor and then maybe i might be bit more interested in atmos again ,

i not played atmos disc movie in over 5 or 6 weeks now , actually Dolby Stereo with my own CIC/UCI tower park " experimental overhead surround "

gamount/odeon had overhead surround installed 1969 , cinerama70 for ice station zebra so the audiance would have heard overhead surround , mono discrete via the x6 in-ceiling , i heard star wars day one in same screen feb 1978 in Dolby Stereo with star destroyer not that sound interested me back then

View attachment 290706

CIC/UCI tower park , uk 10 plex used EV cinema speakers x8 attached to ceiling in #6 one of two larger screens

View attachment 290707

screen #? well one of the smaller screens they all look the same so could be screen 1 could be screen 7 ? smaller screens used x7 overhead surrounds , so overhead surround it is , is there any other name for it ? purpose get better overall surround coverage and yes it worked very well , uncommon as usually surrounds are located sidewall back wall , left/right halve surrounds

View attachment 290708

surprised dolby labs don't mention the other overhead surround uses since all those screens at tower park was Dolby Stereo CP55 SRA5 in all ten screens

That's not in the same ballpark is it? Older surround systems are very different from current ones.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I rather agree with the whole temperament shown in this video. Maybe in time it will be better. 5.1 has some music where it benefits considerably.

I also have thought like Amir, who went and sold the idea 14 speakers with some in the ceiling was going to be worth doing. Very few people have 5.1 and yet the idea has been sold so heavily by Dolby people always want a soundbar with Dolby surround even though it at best only sort of kind of works. Same with Atmos soundbars. The setup woes are dead on the money too.

One obvious take away from the market response is people only want speakers over on one side of the room. Not all over. What probably would have over time been accepted and beneficial for movies and music would have been a front only 3.1 system. No money in that however.

 

[Andysu]

That's not in the same ballpark is it? Older surround systems are very different from current ones.

listen to how flawed that centre sounds with dsu , whooshy phasy noise , the pro-logic doesn't do that , its firmware dolby messed up labs , dts neural x and even um , auro doesn't do that on centre ( the up mixer or matrix decoder ) not the native decoder , got switch the other channels off , the dsu is unusable , i use proper pro-logic for 4.2.4 mixes

 

[Sancus]

Meh, boring video with nothing new.

It's already been proven that you can have genuinely excellent immersive audio on headphones, it just hasn't been translated into a cheap consumer product yet. But since this is just a computation and sensor problem, it'll happen sooner(I hope) or later. I'd much rather music be mixed and mastered for future capabilities than current capabilities, because it tends to stick around for a very long time.

 

[Andysu]

Meh, boring video with nothing new.

It's already been proven that you can have genuinely excellent immersive audio on headphones, it just hasn't been translated into a cheap consumer product yet. But since this is just a computation and sensor problem, it'll happen sooner(I hope) or later. I'd much rather music be mixed and mastered for future capabilities than current capabilities, because it tends to stick around for a very long time.

i do't care to get creative atmos dolby music content it would be boring if it doesn't have supports discrete below surround multi speakers , enough said , atmos , only one decent mix out of ten no years is gravity 2013

 

[Blumlein 88]

This is an even better video on brand loyalty. Or actually human decision logic or lack thereof. By the same fellow.

 

[theREALdotnet]

So ATMOS music is just an unnecessary evil. We do not know how it will end.

It’ll be fine. Remembering that I can always downmix to 2-channel cuts off my ATMOS fear.

 

[GXAlan]

Automotive is just about the most terrible listening environment in the world.

And like FM, it is probably one of the most widely listened environments. I have fancy home gear but I spend more time listening in the car during my long commutes.

Research shows how stereo playback overcomes the frequency response irregularities that can be noticed in mono. Surround gets takes that a step up.

Atmos is the one place where soundstage isn’t as critical and height effects are somewhat predictable.

As people move from FM to streaming in their cars, I can see a Atmos getting more popular.

listen to how flawed that centre sounds with dsu , whooshy phasy noise , the pro-logic doesn't do that , its firmware dolby messed up labs , dts neural x and even um , auro doesn't do that on centre ( the up mixer or matrix decoder ) not the native decoder , got switch the other channels off , the dsu is unusable , i use proper pro-logic for 4.2.4 mixes

Remember that Atmos and DSU are completely unrelated except for the licensing business. DPL-II costs Dolby royalties to Jim Fosgate, and when DSU came out, Dolby let companies license both algorithms (which Yamaha did for the CX-A5100)

 

[Andysu]

It’ll be fine. Remembering that I can always downmix to 2-channel cuts off my ATMOS fear.

fear of atmos . actually its easily heard in front channels , the side and rear channels a bit faint and not sure how much of the actual sound hearing ? until its been decoded and can then switch off all the other channels and listen to the actual atmos , its just another decoder , actually can do better than upmixer i mean matrix decoder in all these products , get some cheap onkyo avr x3 of them connect the outputs from main avr to the left right rca input , getting the idea so far ? easy and can sort of have kinder of atmos overhead , i didn't mention the rest , you should be able to figure out , but i know you ain't as what's point of that ? point is the upmixer as they call it is flawed useless lol


even Sooty knew dolby atmouse bouncy speaker was utterly useless

 

[napfkuchen]

For music listening: Pure stereo is king. It can't be beat. I think the Stereo decoded/extended by Atmos sounds better than other surround decoders, but pure direct stereo still handily beats it out.

To me, at least, most of the time Atmos feels very unnatural with music, but it can also be fun (especially with electronic music). A nice gimmick, nothing more.

For movies: Atmos decoded by Atmos (as opposed to DTS-HD or Dolby Digital decoded by Atmos) is actually amazing. It feels like a professional theater.

I recently upgraded to a 5.2.4 surround system for Auro3D/Atmos. In my experience, that's too general. In order for Atmos to be convincing, several points must come together:
- a surround system with dedicated speakers for each channel
- an Atmos mix that adequately uses the possibilities of the new format
- market penetration of the format
In the case of the former, the conditions are usually not met. An Atmos-certified soundbar is used for convenience and all effects are supposed to be generated via the magic of reflections. Which of course doesn't work...
Many Atmos mixes are also created with little dedication/effort. For example, you have to wait more than 80 minutes for the first Atmos effect in "Baby Driver". Before that, only music is played via the height channels.
The providers are also disappointing on the last point. The number of films with Atmos sound available on Netflix is negligible. If you want to buy Blu-Ray discs with an Atmos soundtrack, you are forced to buy the overpriced 4K version from Sony, for example. Sorry, but that's not going to work (unfortunately).