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Todays way to go for Dolby Atmos Preamp

Sancus

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Here's a funny thing: Amazon Fire Stick 4K *I'm getting one this x-mas just for testing.

This thing $35.00 gadget is advertised as "Dolby Atmos" ready -- even if it becomes obsolete in a few years, at least it's costs peanuts to replace. Complete opposite to those gigantic processors/receivers you actually have to plug them into -- not to mention all the speakers you have to figure out a way place properly in the room.

I'm honestly confused what this has to do with anything? Decoding Atmos on a chip isn't expensive, the whole point of Atmos is to distribute audio in a format that better scales between both stereo soundbars at the low end, all the way up to pretty literally as many channels as you can afford. Older audio formats couldn't do that.

Once you start adding niche, weird requirements like balanced outs, good room correction, a large number of output channels, etc is when the price starts going up, because not that many people are buying products for those features.

E: I should add, most good, current TVs decode Atmos and output 5.1 to optical out anyways if that's all you want. You don't even need any other device.
 

ernestcarl

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Is it really so farfetched to think that a barebones compact 11.1/11.2 output channel Atmos processor and preamp could not be made so cheaply? I think that was the whole point of the aforementioned post with my observation. I think it can be made to easily fit something twice the size of the Asus Xonar U7 II, for example. Why does one need 5-7 HDMI inputs, 5 stereo inputs, and several digital inputs etc... from an expensive home theatre processor/receiver? It’s pointless to advertise Atmos all over the place as a must have/selling “feature” when most folks are just going to downmix the audio to stereo or 5.1ch anyhows.
 

Sal1950

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Is it really so farfetched to think that a barebones compact 11.1/11.2 output channel Atmos processor and preamp could not be made so cheaply?
Yep, I think it just might be.
 

Krobar

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I think any proper Atmos support is niche these days. The mass market are buying "Atmos" sound bars and "Atmos" enabled headphones outputs whilst Dolby are happy to accept licensing fees from wherever.

If you weren't worried about HDMI 2.1 then a second hand Arcam AV860 could be a good buy (Although still expensive).
 

Sal1950

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I think any proper Atmos support is niche these days. The mass market are buying "Atmos" sound bars and "Atmos" enabled headphones outputs whilst Dolby are happy to accept licensing fees from wherever.
Silly applications for sure but a good thing for those of us with proper Atmos speaker installations. :p
 

ernestcarl

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I think any proper Atmos support is niche these days. The mass market are buying "Atmos" sound bars and "Atmos" enabled headphones outputs whilst Dolby are happy to accept licensing fees from wherever.

If you weren't worried about HDMI 2.1 then a second hand Arcam AV860 could be a good buy (Although still expensive).

I have tried atmos for headphones on several closed and open back phones. It’s okay. Not great. Sometimes downright bad and questionable. Certainly not worth spending around $20-30+ to buy a movie with “Dolby Atmos” sound. Happily the really old DVD with mch (e.g. Akira [1988]) sounds WAY BETTER on a properly set up mch speaker system. Same with gaming with surround sound.

I won’t even comment on atmos or simulated 3D sound for those junky smart speakers and HTIB soundbar options — not to mention the ceiling “bouncy” kind of height speakers.

First Amazon Music, and now Tidal is joining the Atmos bandwagon as well... see: https://tidal.com/partners/dolbyatmos

It feel that it’s going to take a really, really LONG TIME for this to become widely adopted — seems rather gimmicky at this point. I’d be more interested in the widespread adoption and streaming distribution of MCH music that’s already out there in existence first and foremost.
 

Sancus

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I think the real problem is that these are all niche products. Like it's silly to compare to a streaming dongle, those are manufactured by the millions. You could individually identify every single individual in America who wanted an Atmos -> 13 channel digital out device and get confirmed preorders from them at $200, say, and I'd be shocked if you could even sell 100,000 units. In the real world, with limited reach and marketing, you're probably selling a few hundred or thousand at the very most. So at that point, it barely even makes sense to go below $1000. How would you make any money? And if that's your price point, then you need to include features that will attract people to buy at that price...

Amir has mentioned once or twice that most AVRs are basically loss leaders. So it isn't too surprising that they represent the most cost effective option, even when you don't need all the features, because taking features out to make a separate version just loses you even more money unless you can make up a certain volume. After all, the parts cost of any electronic device is small compared to the design, marketing, and manufacturing startup costs.
 

ernestcarl

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I think the real problem is that these are all niche products. Like it's silly to compare to a streaming dongle, those are manufactured by the millions. You could individually identify every single individual in America who wanted an Atmos -> 13 channel digital out device and get confirmed preorders from them at $200, say, and I'd be shocked if you could even sell 100,000 units. In the real world, with limited reach and marketing, you're probably selling a few hundred or thousand at the very most. So at that point, it barely even makes sense to go below $1000. How would you make any money? And if that's your price point, then you need to include features that will attract people to buy at that price...

Amir has mentioned once or twice that most AVRs are basically loss leaders. So it isn't too surprising that they represent the most cost effective option, even when you don't need all the features, because taking features out to make a separate version just loses you even more money unless you can make up a certain volume. After all, the parts cost of any electronic device is small compared to the design, marketing, and manufacturing startup costs.

I do see your point. Perhaps not now, at least -- but in the future, I surely hope things improve with the market penetration of all things MCH.

It's rather odd that Dolby Atmos is the format being adopted (or planned in the future for) by most streaming services and not so much of DTS:X, hence my main interest in it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe DTS:X should be more flexible than Atmos with respect to the fact that height channels aren't required. I don't know enough about the complicated matter of the format wars in this arena, though it's clearly way more complicated and cutting edge in this space than almost anything in the stereo world where (still) most insane audiophiles insist clinging desperately on to... strange world we live in.
 

Sal1950

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe DTS:X should be more flexible than Atmos with respect to the fact that height channels aren't required.
Maybe, I've read the claims but take them with a grain of salt. It is possible with some fancy psychoacoustics to give a slight impression of sounds emanating from overhead, but it's in no way possible to do it as convincingly as with having actual speakers overhead. DTS-X should work well with real overheads but I only have one movie encoded with such, "EX MACHINA" and it only has a few scenes that make any real use of them.
 

Sancus

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I mean, you don't need height channels to use or benefit from Atmos... it's still going to be better in, say, 7.1 than a 5.1 recording, assuming the content itself is properly mastered. Which is always the hardest part. But AFAIK, DTS-X has and supports height channels in the same way Atmos does. They are both object-based with algorithms for the processor to convert that into actual sound for each channel. So talking about which one needs or doesn't need height channels doesn't really make sense to me. If they're there, you'll benefit from them, and if they're not, you won't.

Replacing actual speakers with psychoacoustic handwaving is always going to be challenging, and there are Atmos sound bars and speakers that do upwards pointing and reflect sound off the ceiling and that sort of thing. Even that is probably better than psychoacoustic prayers.
 

ernestcarl

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Replacing actual speakers with psychoacoustic handwaving is always going to be challenging, and there are Atmos sound bars and speakers that do upwards pointing and reflect sound off the ceiling and that sort of thing. Even that is probably better than psychoacoustic prayers.

This probably would largely depend on the actual equipment and room set-up one has... I presume the bouncy speakers would be much worse with some ceiling types.

Maybe, I've read the claims but take them with a grain of salt. It is possible with some fancy psychoacoustics to give a slight impression of sounds emanating from overhead, but it's in no way possible to do it as convincingly as with having actual speakers overhead. DTS-X should work well with real overheads but I only have one movie encoded with such, "EX MACHINA" and it only has a few scenes that make any real use of them.

I guess the only way to know would be to compare multiple short samples of the same video clips having each audio stream format. In other words, a proper A/B comparison in a standarized average(?), rectangular living room space. Dunno how common it is to have both object-based surround formats available, though, for the exact same video. We'll also remove the height channels for the DTS:X tracks and see how good its algorithm really is for synthesizing the illusion of height without actual height channels. For this test, I think I'd rather exclude the use of soundbars.
 

ernestcarl

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Yep, I think it just might be.

I've been looking around what people from other forums had to say, and it seems more and more likely going to be a while before we can totally eschew away the need for these large multichannel external processors -- just as you said.

Status of Dolby Atmos/DTS:X decoding

While it's not impossible... very likely not anytime soon.
 

carlob

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I cannot understand why it's not possible to have a basic, cheap pre/decoder for all the new formats. All I need is basically an input switcher, say 6 or maybe 8 HDMI inputs, two HDMI outputs (one for tv one for the projector) and 9 xlr preouts+sub for a 5.1.4 Atmos system. This is not going to be used for music but only in the home theater, no need for dac no need for analog inputs, no amplifiers, no nothing.

In my dreams that could be implemented directly in the tv, without the need for another box
 

Sal1950

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carlob

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Sancus

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I cannot understand why it's not possible to have a basic, cheap pre/decoder for all the new formats. All I need is basically an input switcher, say 6 or maybe 8 HDMI inputs, two HDMI outputs (one for tv one for the projector) and 9 xlr preouts+sub for a 5.1.4 Atmos system.

You're making the assumption that removing things(amplifier stages) from a current AVR makes it significantly cheaper. This is likely false. Then you're adding something that most people won't want(xlr preouts). So now there are no economies of scale, and the team who spent the time designing this probably wants to make money on it, unlike the makers of AVRs.

The previously mentioned Evolve HDMI DAC is missing multiple hdmi inputs, doesn't support ARC, only has RCA, and a limited number of outputs, and it's still the same price as a low end AVR.

I do think you can probably build a good(Supports Atmos, DTS:X, etc) 9 or 11-channel HDMI 2.0 eARC DAC for like $800-$1000US, the hard part would be convincing a maker that they will sell enough of them to bother.

How ridiculous is this product idea @March Audio ? :D
 
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deafenears

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Likely to do with various licensing costs (HDMI, Dolby Atmos, etc.; yearly? plus per unit)...
 

ernestcarl

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Yes but still I have no use for a receiver, slim or not. I think that there should be a market for a HDMI input switcher and decoder for folks like me using it only for the home theater.

There are already external HDMI 2.0 splitters and switchers available now if you really need it badly.

e.g.
HDMI 2.0 switch, 4 in 1 out
HDMI 2.0 splitter, 1 in 4 out

But the necessary line-outs for your active speakers will obviously still require you to add another device in the chain.

I don't know of any TV, Bluray player, or streaming box that has all of these functionalities fully built into it natively. No matter what, you are still going to be dealing with a whole mess of wires.

In the meantime, if you use a PC as your main playback source (like me), you could always use virtualization through headphones as an alternative! LOL :p Obviously... I prefer real speakers, but currently with limited equipment, you do what you have to do.

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If you buy some of your movies from evil Microsoft:
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(video image blocked from being captured by the OS)

Very likely you'll get the same result with Netflix Premium (I only use the standard plan right now).

Amazon Prime, iTunes and other providers via Windows OS... you just get plain stereo.

I presume Tidal Music's "Atmos" content has a MCH audio stream (can't really examine the file):
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Meanwhile, regular old Stereo content will be treated like the pleb that it is -- unless you do add DSP virtualization or upmixing processing yourself using something like JRiver:
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Hmmmn... I have to say that it's very much a mixed bag with Tidal Music's "Atmos" content (some original, others remixed).

IMHO, you get more benefit using this with theatrical movies and other video content than with the marketed "Atmos" music that's currently out there right now.
 

ernestcarl

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Some BD discs, games, and other streaming content come with a DTS:X audio formatting... and not Atmos.

While DTS:X streams do activate the "Dolby Atmos for Headphones" plugin in Windows, I'm not quite exactly sure if it's doing the virtualization processing adequately. In fact, DTS:X also has their own dedicated plugin in Windows:

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What I do wonder is if playback on a HTPC and external 5.1/7.1 speakers with these formats with the appropriate decoding still produces a slightly different (inferior?) effect to bitstreaming it directly to a dedicated external home theater processor (with 5.1/7.1 speakers only turned on) that's Atmos and DTS:X ready.
 
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