Now That Atmos Is Everywhere… Real vs. Phantom Center in a 5.1 Music-Focused Setup

[Sal1950]

It probably will, Sal, it probably will. But it might not be the same price. And then the point of it comes into question, are you just lining the pockets of the middlemen for no perceptual reward?

Could be, but I remember when brussel sprouts were $0.19 cents a pound.

I note that AC4 lossy codecs are now out, that halve the bitrate for the same quality. So, without changing to lossless or increasing their Atmos bitrate above 768 kbps, Apple could deliver audio quality comparable to 1500+ kbps AC3 audio. The 'odd moments' of perceptual differences would be very rare indeed.

All kidding aside, I thought that tiered music streaming was all but gone. I know Apple Music only has the single level, "Student for $5.99/month, Individual for $10.99/month, and Family for $16.99/month." That includes everything in their catalog including 5.1 and Atmos.
Marketing will rule eventually, it only took a few months after the first 2ch streamer went lossless before most of the rest fell in line. Only Spotify kept their customers dangling with 4 years of promises.
Video is a whole screwy world of it's own. LOL