5 Reasons Dolby Atmos May Be DOA

[whatthedileo]

I agree with others who are concerned about the additional cost, specifically the extra money that will need to go into the low-end receivers for the 'overhead' speaker amplification. They just keep putting more and more features in the low-end receivers, and the quality of the components seems to suffer as they struggle to maintain $400 price-points while including ~6 HDMI ports, and include all the surround decoders, one or more USB ports, wifi enabled for Spotify/Pandora/SeriusXM (/Netflix someday?), and Bluetooth enabled because the competitor down the isle is giving it away.

Extruded aluminum heatsinks and metal-banded feet have given way to stamped, riveted fins and plain black plastic feet. Do those features affect the quality of the sound? No - but I feel it has an effect on the emotion of the owner, as the receiver goes from being 'gear' to being an 'appliance'. Check out the Pyle P1001AT - this is the future of AV - this $140 5.1 surround receiver has qty(4) HDMI inputs, SD Card and USB inputs, and the amp section outputs 350 watts of power... while consuming only 300 watts. Beware any receiver that has one or two microphone inputs, and neither of them is for a room correction system.

So, I'd rather have Dolby TrueHD only, than to have it AND Atmos at the same price... because the manufacturer has apparently cut a corner somewhere to maintain that price point.

 

[gene]

I agree with others who are concerned about the additional cost, specifically the extra money that will need to go into the low-end receivers for the 'overhead' speaker amplification. They just keep putting more and more features in the low-end receivers, and the quality of the components seems to suffer as they struggle to maintain $400 price-points while including ~6 HDMI ports, and include all the surround decoders, one or more USB ports, wifi enabled for Spotify/Pandora/SeriusXM (/Netflix someday?), and Bluetooth enabled because the competitor down the isle is giving it away.

Extruded aluminum heatsinks and metal-banded feet have given way to stamped, riveted fins and plain black plastic feet. Do those features affect the quality of the sound? No - but I feel it has an effect on the emotion of the owner, as the receiver goes from being 'gear' to being an 'appliance'. Check out the Pyle P1001AT - this is the future of AV - this $140 5.1 surround receiver has qty(4) HDMI inputs, SD Card and USB inputs, and the amp section outputs 350 watts of power... while consuming only 300 watts. Beware any receiver that has one or two microphone inputs, and neither of them is for a room correction system.

So, I'd rather have Dolby TrueHD only, than to have it AND Atmos at the same price... because the manufacturer has apparently cut a corner somewhere to maintain that price point.

Trading Amplifier Quality for Features in AV Receivers - A new Trend? | Audioholics

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

So ADTG, do I see another 29 SX-T2P/Rs in your future?

No. If I were a billionaire, I would have 34 Status Acoustics 8Ts, but not on the ceiling.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

The 2 opposing editorials are really cool. It reminds me of my high-school debate class where we had to defend a case even if we were personally against it.

The real question isn't whether ATMOS and DTS-UHD will last. No, they are here to stay. You won't even have a choice in 5 years when you buy a new AVR because they will all have ATMOS and DTS-UHD just like all the AVR now have TrueHD & DTS-HD.

The only question is, how many people will have 11 or more speakers in their 17' x 20' living rooms?

 

[Steve81]

The only question is, how many people will have 11 or more speakers in their 17' x 20' living rooms?

It probably won't be a huge number in the grand scheme of things. After all, how many people even make the leap from TV speakers? OTOH, if I were building a theater from the ground up, I'd at least wire for an X.X.4 setup, even with my other priorities (front speakers, subwoofers).

 

[RichB]

Another thing that may have gone unnoticed in the NY Atmos demo was an attendees home system had rears that were up high (as many may).
At home, the StarTrek clip was also deemed enveloping and satisfying.

With ear-level surrounds, height channels can add to the effect. But high surrounds may make the Atmos improvement subtle.

- Rich

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

It probably won't be a huge number in the grand scheme of things. After all, how many people even make the leap from TV speakers? OTOH, if I were building a theater from the ground up, I'd at least wire for an X.X.4 setup, even with my other priorities (front speakers, subwoofers).

Let's not even factor in people with TV speakers, Bose, and HTIBs. Let's just stick to most audiophiles with rooms that are no bigger than 20' x 20', probably smaller.

It is physically dependent on the room size, isn't it?

You can only fit so many speakers if the room is no bigger than 20' x 20'.

Now if you have a room that is 30' x 60', that would be a different story. And how many people have 30' x 60' rooms?

 

[Steve81]

Let's not even factor in people with TV speakers, Bose, and HTIBs. Let's just stick to most audiophiles with rooms that are no bigger than 20' x 20', probably smaller.

It is physically dependent on the room size, isn't it?

You can only fit so many speakers if the room is no bigger than 20' x 20'.

Obviously fitting a 24.1.10 system into a 20x20 space would be a challenge. 7.1.4 not so much since the .4 is going overhead (or if you're using Atmos enabled speakers, built into the front L/R and rear surrounds).

 

[Steve81]

The 2 opposing editorials are really cool. It reminds me of my high-school debate class where we had to defend a case even if we were personally against it.

As a side note, I'm not personally against Atmos in the home by any means. It's not workable for my particular situation at the moment, and as I mentioned in the article, it's not all sunshine and rainbows (Atmos HTIBs, soundbars, crummy looking Atmos speaker modules). OTOH, I don't have a problem standing by assessment.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Obviously fitting a 24.1.10 system into a 20x20 space would be a challenge. 7.1.4 not so much since the .4 is going overhead (or if you're using Atmos enabled speakers, built into the front L/R and rear surrounds).

Oh, yeah, I can see 7.1.4 in a 18' x 20' x 10' room. Probably not more than that.

And I still think most audiophiles (not Bose, TV speakers, and HTIB owners) would be reticent to go beyond 7.1.

Regardless of how many speakers you have, going from DTS-HD MA to Dolby ATMOS isn't even close to going from Dolby Pro-Logic to DTS-HD MA or from 480p to 1080p.

 

[Steve81]

And I still think most audiophiles (not Bose, TV speakers, and HTIB owners) would be reticent to go beyond 7.1.

Regardless of how many speakers you have, going from DTS-HD MA to Dolby ATMOS isn't even close to going from Dolby Pro-Logic to DTS-HD MA or from 480p to 1080p.

Hard to say at this point. I certainly am not inclined to install in-ceiling speakers with my existing setup, but if KEF had an Atmos module of respectable quality (which is rumored), I'd at least entertain the thought. Re: how much of an improvement it represents, I'll get to find out in a few weeks one way or the other.

 

[wiyosaya]

As I see it, what drives a product to success is that that product is widely adopted. Will theaters adopt this given that it will cost them extra for hardware?

From the conversation, it sounds like it might be questionable for the home except in the case of people with deep pockets and large HT rooms. If that is the case, then there might be a niche market for this rather like there was for SACD.

If this is adopted in theaters, perhaps that could be enough for the product to survive.

As for the home, the worst-case as I see it is that Bose comes out with tiny speakers for which they blitz the market and those who do not know better will buy.

I would be interested in knowing just home many people with systems that have 11.1 capability actually use all 11 channels in a single room for their HT. My bet is that those people are a small fraction of the people who actually own 11.1 capable setups.

It will be interesting to see where this goes, but right now, my opinion is that there is little more than a niche market for it even with the advantages it offers. In a way, this reminds me of the satire of a classic Doctor Who episode called "The Sun Makers" where the execution of a character was set to be televised with "duo-dodecaphonic sound."

 

[GranteedEV]

You know what?

Atmos is not even a possibility for me due to the restrictive speaker placement:

The concept operates on the base assumption of perfectly rectangular dedicated HT rooms. Which is almost the opposite concept to how it's being marketed to HTIB customers, who are going to put in a fraction of the effort I did to get satisfactory placement. Tom's point about placement is not only a commentary on the end-user, but of the conditions the end-user must deal with - inclusing us enthusiasts.

As far as improving my surround experience, i'm still thinking of upside down Constant Beamwidth Transducers as suggested by Floyd Toole. He suggests that the biggest thing for a successful surround immersion at more than just the sweet spot is to ensure similar SPLs from all surrounds, which can't be obtained with any traditional setup where SPL drops significantly as distance increases. Four CBTs become a huge investment, but to me it's like " why add more speakers when I still have room for improvement"? You might recall that I ended up giving away my EMP e5Ci center because despite being a discrete center channel, I never successfully got sound half as satisfactory as a simply phantom center made by the two towers flanking it. It's the same deal here. I'm someone surprisingly impressed by well-implemented MONO and disgusted by poorly implemented 5.1. The problem is that ATMOS seems to make implementation itself restrictive.

 

[ColinJR]

I'm hopeful...

Atmos=atmosphere.

This is the core of what what has me excited about Dolby Atmos. If you can divorce yourself from seeing atmos as even more audio channels, but rather a way to enhance the realism of a film's atmosphere, then maybe some of the seemingly ridiculous speaker configurations proposed by Dolby might make more sense.

I am a little disappointed that the speaker room positions proposed by Dolby to utilize Atmos seem so limited. To me, you should be able to be more free to position your effects (surround & height) speakers and have Atmos do the math to put the sounds in the correct spots. This would allow a tremendous amount of freedom for consumers instead of being limited to putting cheesy looking "ceiling-bounce" speakers on top of their existing speakers, or having to install ceiling speakers.

For example, my room (and decor tastes) don't allow for stand or even wall mounted rear channels— yet Dolby doesn't have any (recommended) Atmos configurations for folks who utilize in-ceiling speakers as normal surrounds. Atmos gives sound designers much more freedom, why not figure out a way to pass some of that freedom on to consumers?

 

[gene]

As far as improving my surround experience, i'm still thinking of upside down Constant Beamwidth Transducers as suggested by Floyd Toole. He suggests that the biggest thing for a successful surround immersion at more than just the sweet spot is to ensure similar SPLs from all surrounds, which can't be obtained with any traditional setup where SPL drops significantly as distance increases. Four CBTs become a huge investment, but to me it's like " why add more speakers when I still have room for improvement"? You might recall that I ended up giving away my EMP e5Ci center because despite being a discrete center channel, I never successfully got sound half as satisfactory as a simply phantom center made by the two towers flanking it. It's the same deal here. I'm someone surprisingly impressed by well-implemented MONO and disgusted by poorly implemented 5.1. The problem is that ATMOS seems to make implementation itself restrictive.

This is a great point about the CBT suggested by Dr. Toole. I've spoken to him many times about this. Also as I stated in my first Atmos video, most people have their surrounds on a wall elevated a few feet above ear level making Atmos elevation speakers unusable as they are currently being implemented. How much more height you would need in this type of scenario is open to debate. You're already getting good envelopment with the reflections, at least I do in my theater room that uses diffusion on the ceiling near the listening area.

 

[Kevin M Combes]

Price is a temporary argument.


"Stupid speakers" is subjective. Atmos won't work for everyone, but neither does 5.1.


I am an ardent supporter of Dolby Atmos. I will go to the theatre to see films I wouldn't normally see JUST for Atmos. When it's done right, it does have the wow factor. If you don't think it does, then you must not have heard Gravity in Atmos. It was pure nirvana.


I'm one of the people who never bought into the height speakers. Why? Because it's not a native format. I don't really find it prudent to invest in a lot of equipment just for upmixing. Atmos is a format that has been fully embraced by the industry. I believe that the ability to play back Dolby atmos is going to push even more films to be release in the format, since they will now be playing for (tens of) thousands of rooms rather than hundreds.

 

[vqworks]

Define DOA

Tom's 5 Reasons are compelling and you can't argue with them. But I don't think they will clearly spell doom for ATMOS.

Since the dawn of the home theater days, Dolby has been able to cash in on its home theater products. For consumers who don't embrace the latest flavor of Dolby ATMOS, they will be buying it if they're either upgrading or investing in home theater in the next several years (when Dolby ATMOS trickles down to bare bones receivers) because hardware manufacturers all know it will be a "throw in" feature.

Regardless of how consumers set up (or don't set up) their HTIB systems, Dolby Labs knows that they'll buy into them. There's clearly a large market of uninformed but quality-conscious consumers who give up on their self-installations as soon they unpack their hardware. In fact, they can't even explain specifically what the latest surround format does. The point is they'll pay for them.

Most popular theaters will invest in Dolby ATMOS because they've always invested in new surround formats in the past. The newer logos do attract a good portion of the viewing audience at the opening of the movies and the theaters know this.

Movie studios will enthusiastically invest in Dolby ATMOS because it saves audio mixing time during post production (and time is money). The engineers don't need to worry about fussing over each channel; object-based mixing is a Godsend to them. The result: the process of churning out another action flick with endless explosions will be faster. I'm still waiting for a movie with a scene of a deadly fart explosion since every subsequent action movie needs to outdo the last in explosions.

My take on the movie industry and consumers' adoption is somewhat more optimistic.

Personally, I won't be going beyond my existing 7.1 set up. If there's a sonic benefit to upgrading to ATMOS whole hog (using the extra ceiling channels), I see it as a very marginal one because my home theater room does not span an acre and my listening experience is already very immersive. There's a point when you do have something that is "good enough".

 

[RichB]

This was posted on AVSForum.



"Reflected Sound Simulated Height Speakers"

Clearly created by an engineer.

A marketer would have used "psycho-acoustics".
Psycho-acousticsis what happens when physics does not permit actual acoustics

- Rich

 

[gene]

This was posted on AVSForum.

View attachment 13864

"Reflected Sound Simulated Height Speakers"

Clearly created by an engineer.

A marketer would have used "psycho-acoustics".
Psycho-acousticsis what happens when physics does not permit actual acoustics

- Rich

What happens when you stand up or move your seat? LOL.

 

[RichB]

What happens when you stand up or move your seat? LOL.

The Atmos psycho-acoustics processing induces paralysis which eliminates that possibility.

- Rich