Good article in the NewYork Times about Dolby Atmos

[Jeromeof]

I think there is a reasonable chance now that this format will take off:

Behind paywall:

Dolby Atmos Wants You to Listen Up. (And Down. And Sideways.)

True believers in the immersive audio format say it could restore a musical appreciation lost to a generation that has come up during the streaming era.

www.nytimes.com

For those without the subscription I believe you can use:

archive.ph

create a copy of a webpage that will always be up

archive.ph

 

[RayDunzl]

Behind paywall

Yes, I'd say Atmos itself is behind a bit of a paywall too, considering I'd have to buy and install a lot of stuff to make it happen here in the audiotorium.

Ain't gonna happen here.

 

[sergeauckland]

I may be wrong, but I can't see it becoming mainstream on this side of the pond where few people even have stereo 'speakers let alone 5.1 or 7.1 surround. Rooms are far too small, and listening to music as an activity just isn't wnat people do any more.

Nor can I see how a single 'speaker or sound-bar, however clever and DSPed can be anything other than a gimmick. As for headphones...

S.

 

[Jeromeof]

I may be wrong, but I can't see it becoming mainstream on this side of the pond where few people even have stereo 'speakers let alone 5.1 or 7.1 surround. Rooms are far too small, and listening to music as an activity just isn't wnat people do any more.

Nor can I see how a single 'speaker or sound-bar, however clever and DSPed can be anything other than a gimmick. As for headphones...

S.

I agree a single speaker playing Atmos is a joke, I did play around with 2 Apple HomePods with their example Atmos / spatial audio tracks and some of those tracks worked very well, but most tracks just sounded ordinary (that was a year ago) - but I see most of the big music labels as well as the major players in the music industry getting much more music available in this format. I could see a future with a nice home theatre setup providing an excellent music listening experience, but not with those crappy soundbars.

 

[teashea]

I think there is a reasonable chance now that this format will take off:

Behind paywall:

Dolby Atmos Wants You to Listen Up. (And Down. And Sideways.)

True believers in the immersive audio format say it could restore a musical appreciation lost to a generation that has come up during the streaming era.

www.nytimes.com

For those without the subscription I believe you can use:

archive.ph

create a copy of a webpage that will always be up

archive.ph

There is a substantial topic about this on Gearspace. In fact, Atmos is not taking off. Financially it is not working out well for the studios and music producers. Personally I have no interest in it for music.

 

[fieldcar]

or those without the subscription

Dolby Atmos Wants You to Listen Up. (And Down. And Sideways.) - The N…

archived 21 Jun 2023 13:04:54 UTC

archive.is

 

[fatoldgit]

To quote the article:

Over the past two years, Wood has been busy mixing old and new records in Dolby Atmos, an audio format that lets engineers create a listening experience more immersive than traditional stereo by placing sounds around and above the listener. Working for a variety of labels, Wood has done Atmos mixes for the Supremes, the Pogues, Jennifer Lopez, Modest Mouse, Gwen Stefani and Soul Asylum — some 300-plus tracks in total, the equivalent of two dozen albums.

So a guy thats busy can punch out 24 Atmos albums in 2 years.

Thats the issue for me. I go and spend a whole lot of cash to install a gazillion speakers then all I have to play is a trickle of albums (from artists I have no interest in).Then more cash to rebuy whatever albums I like in Atmos format.

I have 5000 albums, evenly split between Blues and Jazz with maybe 50 Rock albums from non-mainstream artists (Rory Gallagher, Roy Buchanan, Robin Trower etc).

How many Blues album will be remastered in Atmos.... maybe a few dozen.

The last Great Remastering occurred for SACD and according to the SACD Bible https://www.sa-cd.net, there are 85 Blues SACD's. Jazz is better served with 1436 but at least 70% of those are not of interest (i.e. they arent currently in my collection so never will be).

So what will happen is Atmos will attack all the usual suspects (DSOTM, Take Five, the usual gaggle of uninteresting breathy female lounge singers etc) but music lovers that arent main stream wont see any releases... so the ROI is basically zero.

Mono to Stereo was different..all the labels brought into that... Atmos... not so much.

Peter

 

[teashea]

To quote the article:

Over the past two years, Wood has been busy mixing old and new records in Dolby Atmos, an audio format that lets engineers create a listening experience more immersive than traditional stereo by placing sounds around and above the listener. Working for a variety of labels, Wood has done Atmos mixes for the Supremes, the Pogues, Jennifer Lopez, Modest Mouse, Gwen Stefani and Soul Asylum — some 300-plus tracks in total, the equivalent of two dozen albums.

So a guy thats busy can punch out 24 Atmos albums in 2 years.

Thats the issue for me. I go and spend a whole lot of cash to install a gazillion speakers then all I have to play is a trickle of albums (from artists I have no interest in).Then more cash to rebuy whatever albums I like in Atmos format.

I have 5000 albums, evenly split between Blues and Jazz with maybe 50 Rock albums from non-mainstream artists (Rory Gallagher, Roy Buchanan, Robin Trower etc).

How many Blues album will be remastered in Atmos.... maybe a few dozen.

The last Great Remastering occurred for SACD and according to the SACD Bible https://www.sa-cd.net, there are 85 Blues SACD's. Jazz is better served with 1436 but at least 70% of those are not of interest (i.e. they arent currently in my collection so never will be).

So what will happen is Atmos will attack all the usual suspects (DSOTM, Take Five, the usual gaggle of uninteresting breathy female lounge singers etc) but music lovers that arent main stream wont see any releases... so the ROI is basically zero.

Mono to Stereo was different..all the labels brought into that... Atmos... not so much.

Peter

Yes. Good perspective. I only listen occasionally to cd's and vinyl - mostly for the fun of dealing with something physical/mechanical. Not for special sound qualities. Ninety-five percent of my listening is streaming (Amazon Prime Music HD). I have multiple stereo systems in my studio and home. Music is the center of what I do each day (in addition to my doggies and kitty).

I have zero interest in listening to Atmos and less interest in producing music in Atmos. It is simply not relevant or attractive to me.

Each day Spotify adds about 20,000 songs to its catalog. How many are Atmos? Well, you know..................

 

[Dj7675]

I punches Has Zimmer Live In Prague (Bluray/Atmos). I wish more people could hear it on a proper Atmos setup. It is absolutely incredible. I had no idea what to expect as I generally watch a lot of movies in our theater but thought I would see what a well regarded concert Atmos mix sounded like. There are a lot of obstacles… need the right room, quite a few speakers, installing speakers in/on the ceiling, processing etc. But really well produced content can be a fantastic experience. I have heard some albums in Atmos via streaming that sounded odd to me so it certainly is, like most things, dependent on who/how it is made.

 

[Zensō]

The heavy marketing of Atmos for music is partially an attempt by the major labels to wrestle back some of the control they lost when digital media and desktop music production shifted a not insignificant portion of that control (and profit) to independent labels and artists. The big labels are pressuring the streaming services to require Atmos masters in place of stereo masters on their popular playlists, which is obviously problematic for independent labels and artists for a variety of reasons. Of course, Atmos for music is also being heavily promoted by the hardware manufacturers (Apple, Sonos, et al) who look to gain from the sales of specialized production and consumption devices all up and down the chain. None of this is creator or consumer friendly in the least. The good news is that the average person has little to no interest in the technology for music (how many people really want 12-14 speakers in their living room?!) My bet is that it will stay around primarily for movies and gaming, but will end up as only a tiny niche for music, like so many esoteric formats have in the past.

 

[teashea]

I punches Has Zimmer Live In Prague (Bluray/Atmos). I wish more people could hear it on a proper Atmos setup. It is absolutely incredible. I had no idea what to expect as I generally watch a lot of movies in our theater but thought I would see what a well regarded concert Atmos mix sounded like. There are a lot of obstacles… need the right room, quite a few speakers, installing speakers in/on the ceiling, processing etc. But really well produced content can be a fantastic experience. I have heard some albums in Atmos via streaming that sounded odd to me so it certainly is, like most things, dependent on who/how it is made.

I think your post is very interesting. A worthwhile Atmos system is about $50K. There is really no purpose in having a cheap Atmos system. The market is very very small.

 

[fatoldgit]

I have heard some albums in Atmos via streaming that sounded odd to me so it certainly is, like most things, dependent on who/how it is made.

For REAL Atmos, there can be no MQA'ish "bulk" producing of 1000's of albums.

Real Atmos requires remastering, which as noted above, takes time.

Whatever Apples is doing isnt remastering (as far as I know).

Peter

 

[Dj7675]

I think your post is very interesting. A worthwhile Atmos system is about $50K. There is really no purpose in having a cheap Atmos system. The market is very very small.

I have heard this type of thing before but it simply isn’t the case. 11 matching good quality mountable bookshelf speakers ($500-$600 each), couple of 12/15 inch ported subs , receiver of around $1000 and a display (projector or flat panel). Can you get better? Of course, in particular if you need to play at or near reference level. But yes you can do it for way, way less than $50k
$5500-speakers
$1000-Receiver
$1500-Subs
Gets us to $8k plus your display.

This is too much for many people to allocate for this purpose of course, but a nice sounding system can definitely be had for a fairly reasonable amount.

 

[Zensō]

For REAL Atmos, there can be no MQA'ish "bulk" producing of 1000's of albums.

Real Atmos requires remastering, which as noted above, takes time.

Whatever Apples is doing isnt remastering (as far as I know).

Peter

My understanding is that the major labels create the Atmos remixes/remasters and Dolby delivers the files to Apple. Warner’s specification doesn’t allow for upmixing, but some of the more recent content dumps appear to contain upmixed masters. This is reminiscent of what took place with MQA, where it’s obviously not physically (or financially) possible to remix every album in their catalog so the use of automation is inevitable.

 

[BJL]

I think your post is very interesting. A worthwhile Atmos system is about $50K. There is really no purpose in having a cheap Atmos system. The market is very very small.

50K for an Atmos system? In my dreams, maybe. To my 5.1 system, I added 4 SVS Elevation speakers for heights, at $200 each (open box, otherwise $250 each). Sold older electronics and bought an AVR for around $1300, for a net zero. I think my entire Atmos set up cost about $5,000. Calibrated with Dirac, sounds great. One of these days I'll add surround back.

I'm looking forward to new music mixed Atmos, In general, I don't care very much for old remixed albums (although I own a few good ones). I haven't yet tried Apple Music, but I do know that they have fairly strict requirements, such as that they require the mix to be done 7.1.4, Apple's requiements for spatial music and Atmos is published on their websites in the Logic support pages, also on Dolby's website.

Atmos may not become mainstream because of the effort involved in physically setting up all those speakers, as well as the cost, but I do hope that there is enough interest to sustain continued artistic work in the medium, for music, and rmovies and series.

 

[BJL]

To quote the article:

Over the past two years, Wood has been busy mixing old and new records in Dolby Atmos, an audio format that lets engineers create a listening experience more immersive than traditional stereo by placing sounds around and above the listener. Working for a variety of labels, Wood has done Atmos mixes for the Supremes, the Pogues, Jennifer Lopez, Modest Mouse, Gwen Stefani and Soul Asylum — some 300-plus tracks in total, the equivalent of two dozen albums.

So a guy thats busy can punch out 24 Atmos albums in 2 years.

Thats the issue for me. I go and spend a whole lot of cash to install a gazillion speakers then all I have to play is a trickle of albums (from artists I have no interest in).Then more cash to rebuy whatever albums I like in Atmos format.

I have 5000 albums, evenly split between Blues and Jazz with maybe 50 Rock albums from non-mainstream artists (Rory Gallagher, Roy Buchanan, Robin Trower etc).

How many Blues album will be remastered in Atmos.... maybe a few dozen.

The last Great Remastering occurred for SACD and according to the SACD Bible https://www.sa-cd.net, there are 85 Blues SACD's. Jazz is better served with 1436 but at least 70% of those are not of interest (i.e. they arent currently in my collection so never will be).

So what will happen is Atmos will attack all the usual suspects (DSOTM, Take Five, the usual gaggle of uninteresting breathy female lounge singers etc) but music lovers that arent main stream wont see any releases... so the ROI is basically zero.

Mono to Stereo was different..all the labels brought into that... Atmos... not so much.

Peter

I don't think that that, for the most part, there is any compelling artistic reason to remix old blues, jazz or rock in Atmos, especially where the artists are dead and cannot participate; and I doubt that I would personally purchase any of it. My hope is for new music composed and performed intentionally for immersive audio.

 

[TonyJZX]

you could set up a decent 7.2 atmos system with a mid range receiver, miles of cable, staple guns and some cheapo bookshelf speakers (i'm kidding)

but to me its about market dominance and the sheer force of company with decades of experience of this kind of behavior

notice every phone has atmos in it now... there's 'ATMOS" and then there's 'atmos'

we're getting auto atmos and BT pill atmos and soundbar atmos

this is an effort for them to get their 5c license fee for "atmos" on everything... now most of us would say real atmos blurays on a real 7.2 system is "something" but atmos matrix whatever on a phone to IEMs??? hmmm

 

[EJ3]

I have heard this type of thing before but it simply isn’t the case. 11 matching good quality mountable bookshelf speakers ($500-$600 each), couple of 12/15 inch ported subs , receiver of around $1000 and a display (projector or flat panel). Can you get better? Of course, in particular if you need to play at or near reference level. But yes you can do it for way, way less than $50k
$5500-speakers
$1000-Receiver
$1500-Subs
Gets us to $8k plus your display.

This is too much for many people to allocate for this purpose of course, but a nice sounding system can definitely be had for a fairly reasonable amount.

Plus the need to remove some walls & a chimney to combine the living room (which would also remove one of the few very necessary closets) and office space (because the current couch, love seat & stereo equipment cabinet (we haven't had a TV since 2007), the cost of remodeling. Then there would still not be office privacy both entrances to the office where made without doors and are wide enough for wheelchairs (I think that at one time it was the formal dining room).
This house is 2 bedrooms with 1 & 1/2 baths.
Then we would have to sell the house anyway & get a bigger one.
My wife & I will retire in January 2024 & unless we receive a couple hundred thousand $ from some unknown to us relative, there will be no Dolby ATMOS in our house.

 

[Dj7675]

Plus the need to remove some walls & a chimney to combine the living room (which would also remove one of the few very necessary closets) and office space (because the current couch, love seat & stereo equipment cabinet (we haven't had a TV since 2007), the cost of remodeling. Then there would still not be office privacy both entrances to the office where made without doors and are wide enough for wheelchairs (I think that at one time it was the formal dining room).
This house is 2 bedrooms with 1 & 1/2 baths.
Then we would have to sell the house anyway & get a bigger one.
My wife & I will retire in January 2024 & unless we receive a couple hundred thousand $ from some unknown to us relative, there will be no Dolby ATMOS in our house.

And yes... I guess I should have noted you need a space for the system. I thought that was a given but yes a room to have an Atmos based system in is where you have to start. I have seen many clever systems in small rooms and many in living rooms. Utilizing in wall/in ceiling is also a good option for main living spaces where you don't want speakers everywhere.

 

[EJ3]

And yes... I guess I should have noted you need a space for the system. I thought that was a given but yes a room to have an Atmos based system in is where you have to start. I have seen many clever systems in small rooms and many in living rooms. Utilizing in wall/in ceiling is also a good option for main living spaces where you don't want speakers everywhere.

The house that I lived in before, this whole house could fit in the combined living room, dining room & kitchen space. (I only had 2.2 stereo in the living room there & another 2.2 system in one of the 3 upstairs bedrooms) & that living room system is too big for here.