5 Reasons Dolby Atmos May Be DOA

[Grassy]

Because most people can't and won't install ceiling speakers. Now I do agree there might be some home cinemas where it might work, probably dedicated rooms.

It will work in a lot of home cinemas. A home cinema is a cinema as it is what it is and dolby atmos has the potential to work in every home cinema that is dedicated for atmos.Why should it be for the pulbic cinema only(if that's what you refer to in your original post).

 

[Scott M]

After my rant about DTS-X not really delivering on their promises, I think I have to say something on this one too.

people really like what Dolby Atmos is doing and on the dozen or so home systems I have heard, it really works and works well. And yes, even the up firing speakers can do wonders when setup in an appropriate room. I was invited over to checkout the DTS-X on a Denon 7200 last night, and I came away laughing. It did not offer any advantage over what Dolby Atmos has been doing so well for over a year. I was worried I was going to upset the owner of a very nice room, but he was actually relieved when what I told him fit with his feelings as well. But we then sat down and I watch "Mocking Jay 1" again on his system, in Dolby Atmos and I just loved the audio mix. Dolby Atmos is far from dead, it is amazing. I helped this guy put his 4 in ceiling speakers about 9 months ago. It was a serious pain as there was no attic space to work with. It took 3 days with long drill bits and fish tapes to get the wires through. When we were done and tuned it, we ended up moving the seating a bit because the rear overheads were a bit too hot over your shoulder, but once we went 18 inches forward, we all loved it. This time, I did not even think about his speakers and just loved the entire soundtrack. The overhead sound just felt correct and natural. Guess what? He is not using the ceiling speakers we busted our asses to install. His front and rear speakers were replaced.

Talk about going over the edge. He put in 4 of the RP-280FA Dolby Atmos enabled tower speakers for his front mains Left and Right, and also the Back Surround Left and Right. Those are some totally serious back surround speakers. He also got a pair of the matching RP-280F for the side surround, just without the upfiring part int he top. And to make it the best timbre match you will ever hear, yes, another RP-280F in the front center behind his acoustic transparent screen. 7 identical speakers around and great up firing units. Once I knew we were using the Dolby up-firing, I did make him go back to the DTS-X on "American Ultra", we stored the setting on his system, and we re-connected the true TF and TR speakers, and re-ran the room tune. Sorry, still no match. We eve tried them set as FH/RH and still, it was not bad sound, and we did not hear the niss noise issues, but the separation was only, ok. We played a bit of "Mocking Jay" again with the true top speakers, and we both agreed, to our surprise, with only an 8 foot high ceiling, the Klipsch up firing units actually sound better. His top speakers are from Niles Audio, and are from from poor speakers, I think they were CM8PR, or something close to them, they have the pivoting tweeter, and we had them aimed across the room as far as they would go. Don't count out Dolby Atmos Enabled speakers when they are used correctly.

Too bad he sold his old 7.1 speakers, They would have been a nice upgrade for my surrounds, but I like my screen speakers better.

Dolby Atmos is well and alive and has no sign of dying anytime soon.
DTS on the other hand....
They may need some life support to make it out of this mess they are in with DTS-X

 

[sterling shoote]

I'm wondering if there's some way to mount small speakers on ceiling in the manner of trac-lighting. Wouldn't that be effective, easy, as well as attractive?

 

[avliner]

^^

Quite an interesting idea Sterling!

 

[KenM10759]

>>Once I knew we were using the Dolby up-firing<<

For reference, how high is the ceiling in that room and what's the distance from speakers to listening position?

I'm asking because I have a 7'4" (yes, that's low) ceiling and I am hesitant to put ceiling speakers in if I can get very close to or exceed that performance level with Atmos toppers (KEF R50 on top of my R500 and R100.)

 

[Scott M]

His ceiling is a little over 8 foot. The room is about 18 feet long and 13 feet wide. The MLP is about 12 feet back from the 110 inch screen. The left and right front speakers are just outside the width of the screen. Maybe 2 feet inside of the side walls. The rear ones are a mirror image from the front. They are all aimed right at the center of his front couch. There are 2 more 2 seat units behind the main couch with a small table in the middle. That is too close to the rear speakers, and he is thinking of doing some adjusting. For now the front couch is the ideal seats and it works great. He said he is thinking of raising the front speakers a bit more to get better sound to the back row, but with the built in up firing part, he has to watch all the angles.

From what I have seen, on a low ceiling, the up firing seem to give a better feeling of immersion, but at the cost of a little precision. At under 8 foot, I think you will like the up firing ones better.

 

[KenM10759]

Interesting because my room is almost the exact same size at 13-1/2' x 19', though it open for more than half of the left side rear. I would still need to run wires, though my thought is to simply use the one existing wire to pull a pair of new ones. This could be easier than I imagined, though low priority right now. I'd need to up the game in my receiver to something capable and with son getting married later this year I may have to wait a bit.

 

[Bob.ciccio]

Sorry I might sound blasfeme... what if you connect the ceiling speakers that you would have on a separate channel if Atmos available, using the rear channel? Meaning having 4 speakers connected on the rear channels? Would I get a similar effect to Atmos (considering that it would cost only a couple of hundreds)?
Thank you!

 

[BlwnAway]

Sorry I might sound blasfeme... what if you connect the ceiling speakers that you would have on a separate channel if Atmos available, using the rear channel? Meaning having 4 speakers connected on the rear channels? Would I get a similar effect to Atmos (considering that it would cost only a couple of hundreds)?
Thank you!

No, would you have sound coming from above, yes... would it be the same, absolutely not... My speaker layout is exactly the same as before Atmos, I simply duplicated my ear level speakers into height speakers, the discrete nature of Atmos makes it a night and day difference.

 

[michael langham]

i attached a small wireless speaker to my ceiling fan...man the sound effect is awesome. bullets flying around...cars wheezing in circles! so was my dog. try changing the fan speed during an action scene...totally mesmerizing!

 

[michael langham]

i am planning to install a few more ceiling fans and attach more wireless speakers! WOOT!

 

[andyblackcat]

I guess the dog was chasing its tail in circles then.

 

[Dan Madden]

I'm sticking to my 'legacy' (legacy?? hehehe......now I feel old!) 5.2 channel system.

Poor me....I'm feeling so poor and disadvantaged !!

 

[Joruli]

I know this article is three years old now. But would like to point out I disagree with all five points. Got my awesome 11.2 Onkyo receiver for $1300. In ceiling speakers were $100 a piece if I remember right. I have a theater room with not 11 but 13 speakers. I can do the full 11.2 with height and width speakers and I can do 7.2.4 with the 4 ceiling speaker curtesy of a second receiver with A/B channels. You don't think the sound is worth it? Your kidding yourself. It's f-ing amazing. EveryONE that comes over is amazed when I throw on some Dolby Atmos clips or watches a movie with me. Basement is a work in progress.

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[Verdinut]

I think that the same thing is going to happen to Atmos in home systems, as is happening to 3D television this year. It's just a question of time.

The DVD-Audio format can be considered as dead now. That is unfortunate to a certain degree because it is a better format than the CD. It can allow up to 24bit-192 kHz sampling rate and it can contain up to 9 Gb of info for longer soundtracks.

The SACD format, which was developed by Sony and Philips was abandoned by both labels. This is the recording process with the highest definition ever put on the market. When it is well recorded, it is the best sounding recording available. No, not all SACDs are well recorded. I have heard a few with a harsh sound.
Some disc companies are still putting out SACDs. I heard that SONY lends them the equipment to produce them, they cannot own it.

What has not helped both the SACD and the DVD-A formats, is that they require a special player to play them.
The SACD format could have been more accessible if major record companies had decided to only produce hybrid SACDs and stopped making the ordinary CD. Audiophiles would eventually have replaced their standard CD player by a SACD drive or player, since the SACD player also reads CDs.

That is my opinion.

 

[Dan Madden]

I think that the same thing is going to happen to Atmos in home systems, as is happening to 3D television this year. It's just a question of time.

The DVD-Audio format can be considered as dead now. That is unfortunate to a certain degree because it is a better format than the CD. It can allow up to 24bit-192 kHz sampling rate and it can contain up to 9 Gb of info for longer soundtracks.

The SACD format, which was developed by Sony and Philips was abandoned by both labels. This is the recording process with the highest definition ever put on the market. When it is well recorded, it is the best sounding recording available. No, not all SACDs are well recorded. I have heard a few with a harsh sound.
Some disc companies are still putting out SACDs. I heard that SONY lends them the equipment to produce them, they cannot own it.

What has not helped both the SACD and the DVD-A formats, is that they require a special player to play them.
The SACD format could have been more accessible if major record companies had decided to only produce hybrid SACDs and stopped making the ordinary CD. Audiophiles would eventually have replaced their standard CD player by a SACD drive or player, since the SACD player also reads CDs.

That is my opinion.

I agree with your opinion. All the formats discussed above are niche markets and owned by only a very small market of people. So why would it continue to be supported over time?

 

[Joruli]

I think that the same thing is going to happen to Atmos in home systems, as is happening to 3D television this year. It's just a question of time.

The DVD-Audio format can be considered as dead now. That is unfortunate to a certain degree because it is a better format than the CD. It can allow up to 24bit-192 kHz sampling rate and it can contain up to 9 Gb of info for longer soundtracks.

The SACD format, which was developed by Sony and Philips was abandoned by both labels. This is the recording process with the highest definition ever put on the market. When it is well recorded, it is the best sounding recording available. No, not all SACDs are well recorded. I have heard a few with a harsh sound.
Some disc companies are still putting out SACDs. I heard that SONY lends them the equipment to produce them, they cannot own it.

What has not helped both the SACD and the DVD-A formats, is that they require a special player to play them.
The SACD format could have been more accessible if major record companies had decided to only produce hybrid SACDs and stopped making the ordinary CD. Audiophiles would eventually have replaced their standard CD player by a SACD drive or player, since the SACD player also reads CDs.

That is my opinion.

I'm not sure if you are making a comparison for these formats to the future of ATMOS and therefore because these will vanish so will ATMOS?

DVD-A and SACD are like BETA in the BETA vs VHS era. BETA was clearly better. They are dead because they don't appeal to the mainstream and required special equipment. Speakers are not special. Receivers are not special. They almost all decode ATMOS now. At least the decent ones. Anyone can now buy upward firing speakers and bounce the sound off their ceiling now. I don't recommend this but it's an option. Dolby is not going anywhere. Because they developed this tech for movie theaters I highly doubt its going to disappear. Could producers drop the ATMOS decoding from Blu-ray discs? Sure. I don't believe they will.


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[Joruli]

Oh and by the way about 3D televisions...Sony's flagship $50,000 USD built to order short throw projector.......still includes 3d.


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[RichB]

ATMOS is niche product that is here to stay.

At this point, it is low or no cost to include and helps sell to the uninformed that desire the latest and greatest. More and more virtual surround soundbars are including virtual height.

ATMOS is backward compatible, doesn't require buying a different copy so it is benign. I recently bought Star Trek Into Darkness UHD which came with a new Atmos sound mix. It was a better mix than the original. I noticed it first in the spear throwing chase scene when comparing the SDR BD and UHD version. My system if 5.1 and I benefited

There is a brouhaha on AVS concerning DTS:X. It is unclear when DTS:X is and is not lossless. Even though this may not be a significant to most, the mere fact that the sound quality could be "degraded" upsets the constituency.

- Rich

 

[BlwnAway]

ATMOS is niche product that is here to stay.

At this point, it is low or no cost to include and helps sell to the uninformed that desire the latest and greatest. More and more virtual surround soundbars are including virtual height. View attachment 20476


ATMOS is backward compatible, doesn't require buying a different copy so it is benign. I recently bought Star Trek Into Darkness UHD which came with a new Atmos sound mix. It was a better mix than the original. I noticed it first in the spear throwing chase scene when comparing the SDR BD and UHD version. My system if 5.1 and I benefited

There is a brouhaha on AVS concerning DTS:X. It is unclear when DTS:X is and is not lossless. Even though this may not be a significant to most, the mere fact that the sound quality could be "degraded" upsets the constituency.

- Rich

Correct,
Plus, whether it be called Atmos, DTS-X or down the road another name, the format is based on Object Based Audio, which is now the standard for most sound mixers (yes even those who don't offer it on their consumer discs) and until something better in the mixing phase of the industry comes along, it's here for the long term.