Anyone remember the DTS 5.1 albums from back in the day?

[drummertime]

After researching some Dolby Atmos albums, I went into a time warp!! Totally forgot about the older DTS 5.1 albums released back in the early 2000's. Those had some amazing sound, one of my favs was Dark Side of the Moon and Sting Fields of Gold. I'll have to compare but it seems like these DTS albums sounded better then what I've heard on Amazon Music for Atmos? Or am I imagining things?!

 

[Trebdp83]

Yup, still play Steely Dan's "Gaucho" album on DTS CD often. DTS on laserdisc back in the day was also amazing.

 

[isolar8001]

Dire Straits "Brothers In Arms" was and still is reference quality in 5.1. Atmos not required.

 

[drummertime]

Yup, still play Steely Dan's "Gaucho" album on DTS CD often. DTS on laserdisc back in the day was also amazing.

Oh yeah the old laser disks... Gold disk the size of an vinyl record, looked like something they'd send with a Voyager mission

 

[Trebdp83]

The DTS tracks on DVD couldn't touch laserdisc. Unfortunately, multiple discs were required for one movie on the CAV laserdisc box sets as each side of the disc showed thirty minutes of the movie. One revolution of the disc equalled one frame and still images were perfect. Using the spin dial on a machine's remote controller, one could go forward or backward in slow or fast motion with no degradation in image quality and stop on a single frame. It was quite a trick that is not available on any current streamer or disc player.

 

[ReverendSlim]

I still have like a hundred DTS music discs. Some were just homebrews done with ambisonic conversions, but back in the day, there was some pretty cool stuff being done with that. It has been interesting to compare Dark Side Of The Moon on DTS, SACD, and Atmos.

 

[isolar8001]

alt.binaries.dts was the holy grail 15 years ago...I still have most of the conversions and commercial offerings from there.

 

[Trebdp83]

Some DVD-AUDIO discs also had DTS 96/24 tracks as well as the MLP(basically DTHD) tracks. Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" on "The Game" album is insane.

 

[isolar8001]

Good source for multichannel sound. There is also a program called SpecWeb that lets you create your own 5.1 files.

QuadraphonicQuad Home Audio Forum

Multichannel sound community forum & for sale classifieds including quadraphonic. Home audio forums for DVD-A & SACD. Forums for label histories & discographies.

www.quadraphonicquad.com

SPECWEB (Now 2.2)

A very good stereo to surround upmixer called SPEC has been around for a number of years - today the developer of SPEC formally announced a new version called SpecWeb 2.2: SpecWeb 2.2 Download (for CPUs made after 2010): http://www.surroundbyus.com/sbu/download/SpecWeb 2.2 Release.zip SpecWeb...

www.quadraphonicquad.com

SpecScript 1.8 - 5.1 AND 7.1 upmix scripts and utilities

Here is the second public release of the next generation of my Spectral Upmix tools. https://surroundbyus.com/sbu/download/SpecScript%201.8%20Release.zip First (circa 2006) there was "Spec" in Plogue Bidule, Then "SpecWeb" standalone in windows, and now in 2022 a set of opensource windows...

www.quadraphonicquad.com

 

[drummertime]

Good source for multichannel sound. There is also a program called SpecWeb that lets you create your own 5.1 files.

QuadraphonicQuad Home Audio Forum

Multichannel sound community forum & for sale classifieds including quadraphonic. Home audio forums for DVD-A & SACD. Forums for label histories & discographies.

www.quadraphonicquad.com

SPECWEB (Now 2.2)

A very good stereo to surround upmixer called SPEC has been around for a number of years - today the developer of SPEC formally announced a new version called SpecWeb 2.2: SpecWeb 2.2 Download (for CPUs made after 2010): http://www.surroundbyus.com/sbu/download/SpecWeb 2.2 Release.zip SpecWeb...

www.quadraphonicquad.com

SpecScript 1.8 - 5.1 AND 7.1 upmix scripts and utilities

Here is the second public release of the next generation of my Spectral Upmix tools. https://surroundbyus.com/sbu/download/SpecScript%201.8%20Release.zip First (circa 2006) there was "Spec" in Plogue Bidule, Then "SpecWeb" standalone in windows, and now in 2022 a set of opensource windows...

www.quadraphonicquad.com

Thanks for the links! Thinking I can just look these links up while using my Xbox-X, via Edge?

 

[drummertime]

Its interesting you can still buy the 5.1 DTS cd's. But I don't see anywhere that you can purchase Dolby Atmos albums on CD. So it begs the question, are streaming services like Tidal and Amazon Music just using upmix software?

 

[Trebdp83]

Dolby Atmos albums are available on blu-ray with lossless Dolby TrueHD based Atmos tracks. Dolby Atmos tracks on streaming services are lossy Dolby Digital Plus versions.

 

[drummertime]

Dolby Atmos albums are available on blu-ray with lossless Dolby TrueHD based Atmos tracks. Dolby Atmos tracks on streaming services are lossy Dolby Digital Plus versions.

Oh okay, can you purchase through Amazon, Target, Walmart? Or are there specific sights? Streaming Dolby Atmos sucks IMO!! Matter of fact I could only hear out of my left, right, height speakers and sub?

 

[Trebdp83]

There are specific online retailers and they can be found on Amazon from various sellers.

 

[Trebdp83]

Oh okay, can you purchase through Amazon, Target, Walmart? Or are there specific sights? Streaming Dolby Atmos sucks IMO!! Matter of fact I could only hear out of my left, right, height speakers and sub?

From which service and device were you streaming Dolby Atmos music?

 

[isolar8001]

Not a huge fan of Atmos myself....but a lot of people go ga-ga at the mere mention of it. (I was around for quadraphonic!)
Good 5.1 or 7.1, especially for music...beats a poorly done Atmos mix any day.
(Most musicians don't factor in tambourines on the ceiling...usually.)

But, if you want the best Atmos music experience there is, get Kraftwerks 3D...it's all downhill from that.

 

[drummertime]

From which service and device were you streaming Dolby Atmos music?

From Amazon Music using the app via my Xbox-X.

 

[Trebdp83]

From Amazon Music using the app via my Xbox-X.

Yeah, don’t. Amazon Music and Apple Music do not support Dolby Atmos output on the XBOX Series X/S.

Here’s what happens. Both services only support two channel output on XBOX Series X/S. I’m not sure it’s even their lossless versions and could be AAC.

When you run the XBOX Series X/S in “Dolby Atmos for Home Theater” after downloading the Dolby Access app, all non Atmos signals will be up mixed.

Some receivers will display the incoming signal as Dolby Atmos. My Onkyo knows better and displays the signal as Dolby Surround.

But, isn’t Dolby Surround an up mixer and not a signal codec? Yes, but the signal has already been up mixed at the source.

So, I will have Dolby Surround as the incoming signal display and Dolby Surround as the selected sound mode when I select it.

So, when playing tracks from Amazon Music or Apple Music, the track will start in two channel PCM and then suddenly switch to Dolby but not deliver any audio to anything but the fronts and sub.

Microsoft needs its Dolby license revoked. They have really f#%ked it up with the up mixer. Dolby Atmos output works for games and videos with actual Dolby Atmos tracks but Amazon Music and Apple Music do not support Dolby Atmos on the XBOX Series X/S.

I purchased an Amazon Fire TV Cube 3rd Generation just a few days ago. Lovin’ it. It supports hi-res and Dolby Atmos playback from Amazon Music. Apple Music Dolby Atmos tracks are only supported on the Apple TV 4K.

 

[j_garcia]

The Porcupine Tree DTS CDs I believe are OOP, but they are also up there for some of the best 5.1 mixes, and are the main reason why I got interested in them. They've been replaced with the DVD-A versions containing MLP and DTS tracks, many of which are being reissued by Steven Wilson and sold on Burning Shed. In Absentia, Deadwing and Fear of a Blank Planet were all excellent. There are a number of Blu-ray versions with DTS and DTSHD MA tracks.

The Deadwing anniversary edition was just recently released and quickly sold out.

Brothers in Arms is still probably one of the best DVD-As I have heard. The price is going up, still only $25, but don't sleep on that one.

 

[ReverendSlim]

That Deadwing DTS CD was one of my favorites back in the day.