Is Atmos a scam?

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Scam is probably the wrong word here, maybe more aligned with upping the k size in TV resolution that is imperceptible to the human eye in almost all cases.

I had a friend who worked for Dolby and a common joke inside their offices was “Bose: better sound through marketing.” Now decades later it seems that is what Dolby is doing with Atmos. After watching several deep dive videos on the current state of Atmos the conclusion is you’d first have to drop an insane amount of money on hardware (Dolby gets a cut from the included technology) for an ideal experience along with calibration and then find content that correctly takes advantage of the technology which is less than you would think. At the end of all that it’s not exactly a life changing experience, although people will probably try to convince themselves it is.

Another marketing scam is music “the way the artist intended it to be heard.” No, it’s not, at least with recordings from the past. Generally old music remastered for this format is a mess. It sounds different but not in a good way. It’s like if you spread a bunch of musicians across a city block and they just happened to start playing the same song from far-off distances. Neat if that actually happened in person, not so much for a home listening experience.

Anybody on here buy into Atmos? What has your experience been?

 

[Nycturne]

At least in principle, something like Atmos does have some clear benefits for folks producing content, such as being able to place sound "objects" in a 3D space, rather than just raw channels. But as you point out, to get the most out of this, the system needs to know where the speakers are and how they are firing in order to know how much volume to give each channel to place that "object" in the sound stage. It mimics a lot what video games can do with dynamic surround, but for film/TV.

I'd consider this different than folks saying you need 96+kHz as if Nyquist-Shannon is wrong, or you need 24-bit when so many DACs are barely transparent for 16-bit CD-quality audio.

At the same time, is it worth chasing? Eh. I generally don't care, I just went all in on a nice 2.0 system and called it good. I don't really even feel the need for a center speaker because the setup is good enough that you get a clear "virtual center speaker" effect from the soundstage. Even just finding space for surround is a bit of a mess in the space I have.

I also really like my 4K TV, but you'd have to pay me to take an 8K. 4K is already in diminishing returns territory for me, and I kinda wish they'd stop shoe-horning HDR into films that weren't captured in HDR.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

At least in principle, something like Atmos does have some clear benefits for folks producing content, such as being able to place sound "objects" in a 3D space, rather than just raw channels. But as you point out, to get the most out of this, the system needs to know where the speakers are and how they are firing in order to know how much volume to give each channel to place that "object" in the sound stage. It mimics a lot what video games can do with dynamic surround, but for film/TV.

I'd consider this different than folks saying you need 96+kHz as if Nyquist-Shannon is wrong, or you need 24-bit when so many DACs are barely transparent for 16-bit CD-quality audio.

At the same time, is it worth chasing? Eh. I generally don't care, I just went all in on a nice 2.0 system and called it good. I don't really even feel the need for a center speaker because the setup is good enough that you get a clear "virtual center speaker" effect from the soundstage. Even just finding space for surround is a bit of a mess in the space I have.

I also really like my 4K TV, but you'd have to pay me to take an 8K. 4K is already in diminishing returns territory for me, and I kinda wish they'd stop shoe-horning HDR into films that weren't captured in HDR.

I had a 5.1 setup at one point. Probably because I didn't really calibrate it, most of the time I just put it in stereo mode for even the rear speakers because I was getting a lot of weird delay issues. Now I'm more than happy with 2 stereo paired HomePods.

As somebody who dabbles in music production from time to time I appreciate the ability to place sound in a 3D space but it's not really needed, especially if the end listener can't take advantage and in some cases will make it worse because they can't. Proper mixing already has enough issues without throwing that curveball in there.

 

[Herdfan]

At our old house we had a full theater with 7.1 surround sound. It was powered by a Denon X5200 and all i ever did was use the Denon's internal processor and microphone to "set up" the room.

Was it perfect, probably not. But for 99% of the people who watched a movie in there, it was good enough and better than what they had at home.

And the correct saying is "All highs and no lows, must be Bose".

 

[Yoused]

I had a friend who worked for Dolby and a common joke inside their offices was “Bose: better sound through marketing.”

The guy in the high-end stereo store said to us "No highs, no lows, must be Bose."

 

[rdrr]

After spending my teenage years with headphones over my ears at very loud volumes, I'll be the first to admit that I can no longer discern between good and bad audio. I am just happy to hear anything over the ringing from my tinnitus...

However, I did go to the Johnny Cash museum back when my hearing was much better, in Nashville and they had an audio interactive station where you could listen to some of his hits on the original LPs vs. tape vs CD vs digital. Some of the older mediums (even tape at times) sounded better than the digital remastered songs.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

However, I did go to the Johnny Cash museum back when my hearing was much better, in Nashville and they had an audio interactive station where you could listen to some of his hits on the original LPs vs. tape vs CD vs digital. Some of the older mediums (even tape at times) sounded better than the digital remastered songs.

In music production there are a lot of plugins dedicated to artificially degrading sound away from digital to the imperfections and limitations of analog because for whatever reason most people agree music sounded better decades ago. It's kind of fascinating. I don't really know what the science is behind that.

 

[Yoused]

most people agree music sounded better decades ago

Many years ago, I synced a Japanese pressing of one of my favorite prog albums to a criterion CD and switched the input selector back and forth. The vinyl sounded better than the CD: it had body to it that the digital format was lacking. Now, vinyl is comparatively too damn much effort and too limiting if you are, like most of the time, not paying rapt attention to the music. But it most certainly sounds better.

The real heart of that complaint, though, is that contemporary music is, in large part, just not worth listening to (a few exceptions noted).

 

[Nycturne]

In music production there are a lot of plugins dedicated to artificially degrading sound away from digital to the imperfections and limitations of analog because for whatever reason most people agree music sounded better decades ago. It's kind of fascinating. I don't really know what the science is behind that.

It's messy because it's almost impossible to compare like-for-like. A recent remaster is going to be processed differently than it was back then. It's extremely common to heavily compress the dynamic range these days for the noisy environments music is played: cars/transit, and so on. And on top of that, much like movies, labels have turned music production into a skill where you do X and receive money. So there's a big difference in what type of music is available today, how it's produced, and how it's delivered.

Then you have to get through the different ways music is colored by various components in the chain. A pure comparison of digital vs analog formats is very tricky. So it can be any number of variables, and to my knowledge, studies haven't really been done to understand what really makes the difference.

That said, I'm kinda disappointed by the resurgence of vinyl records, as its so cynical. I can grab a vinyl record from an artist decades ago for 50 cents because nobody cares, but the work put in to master and press it was done well. But get anything recent and it's a gamble. I've run across multiple recent releases where they clearly didn't care and the whole batch of pressed discs aren't worth listening to. And those recent releases are all pressed from the CD master anyways, soooo...

Many years ago, I synced a Japanese pressing of one of my favorite prog albums to a criterion CD and switched the input selector back and forth. The vinyl sounded better than the CD: it had body to it that the digital format was lacking. Now, vinyl is comparatively too damn much effort and too limiting if you are, like most of the time, not paying rapt attention to the music. But it most certainly sounds better.

And this is an example. The stylus itself can add color to the audio (I've listened to enough finding one I liked), and a vinyl LP will need a pre-amp stage the CD doesn't. However, digital audio needs a DAC stage, and there can be all sorts of fun there if DSP or the like is employed that can color the result. So a comparison like this is really comparing the pressing + stylus + phono amp to a CD master + DSP(?) + DAC. Different stylus/amp combos will compare differently to different DSP/DAC combos, and sound differently.

With how I like my setup, I wouldn't be surprised if you'd consider my vinyl setup as lacking in body to be honest.

The real heart of that complaint, though, is that contemporary music is, in large part, just not worth listening to (a few exceptions noted).

Eh, I refuse to comment on the whole taste in music thing. The stuff I grew up with and keep going back to is trashed by my parents generation, and I wholly expect the same to be true when I'm much older. I also stay away quite a bit from popular music.

 

[Herdfan]

After spending my teenage years with headphones over my ears at very loud volumes, I'll be the first to admit that I can no longer discern between good and bad audio. I am just happy to hear anything over the ringing from my tinnitus...

However, I did go to the Johnny Cash museum back when my hearing was much better, in Nashville and they had an audio interactive station where you could listen to some of his hits on the original LPs vs. tape vs CD vs digital. Some of the older mediums (even tape at times) sounded better than the digital remastered songs.

Older mixes sound better to my ears as well. In fact, I rarely listen to anything digital, specifically iTunes, because it gives me a headache in a few minutes. No idea why.

I can listen to Spotify via Sonos for longer, but still not like I could when I was younger and would play an entire album over and over.

No idea how old you are, (I'm 57) but I had a cranking stereo in my car from age 16 to mid-20's. And I played it loud. Just beginning to notice some hearing loss, but mainly when there is background noise. It all just blends together and I can't always tell what was said. Started using subtitles years ago because CBS's Dolby mixes were horrible, but now I miss when I don't have them. You pick up so much more of the dialog.

As for the Tinnitus, have you asked your doctor about Minnears Disease? It is triggered by sodium intake and one of the symptoms is Tinnitus.

 

[Nycturne]

Older mixes sound better to my ears as well. In fact, I rarely listen to anything digital, specifically iTunes, because it gives me a headache in a few minutes. No idea why.

I can listen to Spotify via Sonos for longer, but still not like I could when I was younger and would play an entire album over and over.

iTunes in particular has a problem: They leave things at the same level as the master before encoding to AAC. This mixed with the fact that everyone seems to set their peaks at -1dB or so means you get clipping once encoded in a lossy format. Peaks change a bit when lossy encoding is used, and I’ve got a number of iTunes releases where peaks are 1.0 to 1.5dB vs the -1dB they are on the CD release. But when talking about digital audio 0dB is max (CD‘s ~96dB of dynamic range is 0dB down to -96dB, but many modern tracks sit from -1dB to maybe -15dB it’s kinda nuts). So anything above 0dB represents digital clipping, and you want to avoid 0dB as well as any DSP could introduce clipping. It can cause all sorts of unpleasantness in the sound. For me I get listening fatigue.

Spotify, Tidal and others are smart enough to account for this by lowering the “volume” slightly on all tracks, which gives additional headroom for what the lossy encoding does to the peaks, avoiding clipping.

I have a number of albums from less well-known groups where I cannot listen to the iTunes releases very long. Yet when I started grabbing CDs again, those same releases were fine. A bit loud due to the range compression, but fine. It’s also why my digital music collection is all ripped from CDs when possible and ripped using ALAC/FLAC rather than using MP3/AAC. I haven’t had issues with the above since.

It’s a bit easy to forget in the pounding of the “it’s CD quality” drum that lossy encoding is not CD quality, and so small things can still creep in and cause problems that are hard to identify.