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deleted (wrong thread)
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People kind of demand an Atmos track now. Though ironically those people also insist the original mix is included.
Most average consumers don't even own anything greater than a 2.1 soundbar so Atmos is going to go straight over their heads figuratively on top of literally.
As for me... I rent. 5.1 is good enough.
Yes, while ATMOS is neat in principle, I personally do not find it practical for home use.
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Yes, while ATMOS is neat in principle, I personally do not find it practical for home use.
You can get Atmos soundbars now. Though I head a demo and appreciated the "effort" but my brain can't get around "virtual" surround.
5.1 is actually fine. It positions the bulk of the right audio in the right place. Everything beyond that is a nice to have, but not something I, personally, need.
Yes, in fact, I looked into and considered surround, but in the end, I decided against it for various reasons. When I buy speakers, my main focus is on music, not on movies, so many of the cheaper soundbars and systems just don't sound good when listening to a Mahler symphony or piece of chamber music. That's my benchmark, not movies. So I decided on higher quality stereo speakers, even if its only two. But they fit my purposes much better. So I listen to everything at home in 2.0.
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ATMOS is excellent for movies on bluray if you have a home theater. I got a living room.
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First, the techies take over the thread; presuming that no one gets the fact that Dolby Atmos involves more extensive software and greater numbers of individual speakers.
Then the philistines, angered that no one is accounting for them specifically and probably jealous that they can't afford Dolby Atmos in the Home, start carping about how all this is going way over their heads and budgets.
America 2020 in miniature: two sides arguing past each other, and having little understanding of the issues to begin with.
Now, can we get back to those original Star Trek: The Motion Picture score multitrack tapes and what Dolby Atmos could do for the score's future fidelity? Perhaps ensure the popularity of the score for a long time to come?
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America 2020 in miniature: two sides arguing past each other, and having little understanding of the issues to begin with.
I did not even notice anyone was arguing?
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Posted: |
Jul 20, 2020 - 12:59 PM
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By: |
Spymaster
(Member)
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Basically Atmos boils down to one of those gimmicks like Dolby EX and 3D that studios throw out there expecting it to trickle down and then it never does because only internet forumers give a crap.
As with most home entertainment developments, home cinema has to try and keep up with cinemas in order to present that "genuine cinema experience" in the home. Widescreen, surround sound, bigger wider screens, many more channels of surround sound, 3D - it's all just one environment keeping up with the other. But where large cinema screens benefit from 199 channels of sound, I don't get that normals homes do. Bonefide home cinemas, maybe. But how many people actually have the space, money, etc. for that?
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Posted: |
Jul 20, 2020 - 1:52 PM
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By: |
LordDalek
(Member)
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Basically Atmos boils down to one of those gimmicks like Dolby EX and 3D that studios throw out there expecting it to trickle down and then it never does because only internet forumers give a crap.
As with most home entertainment developments, home cinema has to try and keep up with cinemas in order to present that "genuine cinema experience" in the home. Widescreen, surround sound, bigger wider screens, many more channels of surround sound, 3D - it's all just one environment keeping up with the other. But where large cinema screens benefit from 199 channels of sound, I don't get that normals homes do. Bonefide home cinemas, maybe. But how many people actually have the space, money, etc. for that?
Yeah now you're expected to not simply put a stereo system inside your house, you're expected to build your house around a stereo system. And that means drilling holes in ceilings, making your walls out of specific acoustic materials, investing in a $1,000 4k overhead projector, etc. etc.
I own a cheapo 4kTV that does HDR and not much else, I own a HDCP 2.2 lossless receiver that can do DSD (which BTW can only do up to 5.1 because its a tech standard from 20 years ago so that's why it would have to be BD-Audio if you wanted Dolby True HD), I own an entry level UHD player. Ultimately Atmos is the LEAST RELEVANT thing to this release for me if and when it materializes.
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I expect Mr. Botnick is remastering for Atmos only the film-edit sections of score.
If anyone knows whether CBS/Viacom/Paramount would spring for an Atmos remaster of the entire La-La Land Records program, I'd love to be contradicted here.
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LordDalek: I own an entry level UHD player. Ultimately Atmos is the LEAST RELEVANT thing to this release for me if and when it materializes.
You might consider a bump up on your 4K player, as the Panasonic players have custom-engineered image processors and tone-mapping/HDR that can be set to accomodate low, mid and high-end 4K TV's.
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But what is "better" is a matter or preference and highly subjective. Most people were happy with 128kbps MP3s and preferred them for their smaller size, so they were "better" for them.
And audiophiles find the most comprehensive possible sound information "better", so they'd rather have files ten times as large to include 0.00786% of extra audible information that was not there before. That is why for "high resolution" tests, what "most people" prefer or find better is actually rather unimportant.
Another thing is, while one may discuss whether high-res files offer much of an actual audible advantage (they may, or may not, some people may hear it, some may not), one thing that is indisputably true is that they offer no disadvantages at all. So one might as well go for it. (Unless you consider the larger disc space a disadvantage, but personally I don't find that relevant anymore.)
There are some who claim LPs sound "better" than CD because CDs are lacking certain information. (Ironically, well, they then should turn to high-res, not to LPs, obviously. (Though I suspect they just like all the stuff LPs add to the sound. :-) )
But that's the thing: "better" is subjective. If somebody prefers the sound of a scratchy old LP to a 24/96 high resolution sound of the same recording, that's just what he thinks is "better".
One can of course study scientifically what kind of sound large groups of people find "better", but that has more to do with psychology, less with technology.
BTW, in case anyone thinks Nick and I are arguing, if we are it is a very friendly argument 
There have been large scale, peer reviewed and replicated studies showing that the subjective assessment of what sounds better all converges on the accurate reproduction of sound. In large scale listening tests conducted at the Canadian NRC and at Harman, thousands of listeners of varying age groups, nationalities, and ethnicities listened to literally hundreds of different speaker models under controlled, double blind scientific conditions. The results overwhelming showed that people preferred the speakers that most accurately reproduce sound, without emphasis on any particular part of the sound spectrum. The top ranked speakers all had not only flat response on axis, but flat response off axis as well. There was a huge correlation between speaker accuracy and listener preference - 86% in the case of tower (full range) speakers, 99% in the case of bookshelf (smaller) speakers. This research has stood up so well to peer review that its now become part of a whole new standard from the Consumer Technology Association, CEA2034 (https://speakerdata2034.blogspot.com/2019/02/spinorama-cea-2034-2015-ansi-data-format.html). Using the speaker measurement system developed from this research, it can now be predicted with the same 86% confidence level which speaker will win a controlled listening test.
Test subjects included audiophiles, audio reviewers, audio salespeople, trained professional mixers, high school students, marketing people (!), and volunteers of all stripes. Tests were conducted in the USA, Japan, the Netherlands, and Germany. Same results. You can read about much of the research on Dr. Sean Olive's blog, often with links to the actual papers submitted to the AES (Audio Engineering Society) - this is a good place to start: http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2009/01/
My side gig is running a home theater company called "The Screening Room." Our tagline - "Scientifically Justified High End." We have an open challenge for anyone to bring in a speaker of any price range or brand, and we will shoot it out against a comparably priced Revel model under double blind conditions. We chose Revel as it is a brand that follows the research, with their design goal being complete sound neutrality both on and off axis. They follow the recommendations of CEA2034 as closely as possible, and as a result, their speakers consistently win blind listening tests (in fact, it's part of the design process - a Revel model won't get released until it is able to demonstrate its superiority against competitors in the double blind speaker shuffler at Harman).
Back in 2017, we did a large scale speaker shootout that involved people flying in from all over the country to my home here in Colorado Springs (we had someone come in from Switzerland, in fact). We put this research to the test - over two dozen people attended the listening sessions, and the resulting thread about the listening test on AVS Forum became one of the most popular threads of all time (which is kinda cool, since the AVS Forum is one of the busiest Forums on the internet, period)): https://www.avsforum.com/forum/89-speakers/2907816-speaker-shootout-two-most-accurate-well-reviewed-speakers-ever-made.html
Since then we've had that open challenge I mentioned - bring in any speaker, and we will shoot it out double blind with a Revel model. In the ensuing three years, we've had people bring in B&W, Paradigm, Klipsch, Martin Logan and other brands and the results are always the same - the Revel wins. If you were ever able to come visit Colorado, I'd love to host you so you can see what we do
BTW, Sean Olive also did a scientific test to see if younger people did in fact prefer MP3 to CD quality as was widely reporting in the (BS) audiophile press. They do NOT, in fact - most preferred CD quality: http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2010/06/some-new-evidence-that-generation-y.html
Back to high-rez. Chris Montgomery - inventor of FLAC and Ogg Vorbis - did a long breakdown of why having higher sampling rates can sometimes stress existing speakers and DACs and create negative - and audible - problems in playback. Now, I do think that those technical challenges can be overcome and probably already have in most modern gear. But my objection to high rez - even though it goes against my own financial interest, since I run a high end A/V company - is that the science seems to be revealing that it's almost completely a marketing ploy. The best science we have right now suggests that any possible benefit is barely detectable and could just as easily be attributed to filtering issues with various DACs. And the top recording engineer who produced probably the best quality native high rez recordings on the market has concluded that it's not worth the time and expense. On the positive side, he has definitively concluded that good recording practices in the studio can result in spectacular sounding recordings, regardless of whether its played back at 44/16, or 192/24.
My stance - and that of my company - is strongly anti-snake oil. I could make TREMENDOUS profits touting high rez or fancy speaker cables. I choose not to because I think I am not working in the customer's self interest. We have the ability to test all of this stuff here on state of the art gear, and we only stand behind gear that can actually be demonstrated to perform better.
I've been in this industry since the mid-80s and could go on and on about bogus marketing claims, and how as salespeople we were incentivized to push high end cables and extended warranties. In fact, if you did not push those products, you could get fired. The reason? They are HUGELY PROFITABLE for the retailer. My problem was that they were also hugely wallet-draining for the consumer. I quit the retail side and started my own company, which now has an international reputation and a large following as a result of those philosophies.
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