Dolby Atmos For Home Theater Explained

[RichB]

Not all Atmos speaker demos have been peaches and ice-cream:

Just returning from my first Dolby Atmos demonstration from the IFA and hell did Onkyo do a bad job there. They used as a sound processor the 5530, as Dolby Atmos enabled speakers a very cheap looking prototype from Elac and as ceiling speakers 4 Magnat units.
First we were shown two Dolby Atmos trailer with the Atmos enabled speakers. It was just loud and the soubd reflecting from the ceiling did not really create a homogenous sound cloud from above. It seemed like parts of the reflections hit you whilst other just vaporized. Not convincing at all for the Dolby Atmos speaker!

The official Dolby Atmos thread (home theater version) - Page 220 - AVS Forum

However, the poster was impressed with Auro-3D:

PS: Afterwards I had a chance to listen to an Auro 3Dpresentation. A little booth maybe a little bit bigger then the Atmos booth was used. The speaker setup was only 5.1 and four height speakers above the Front Left and Front Right and Surround Left and Right. Height speakers were slightly tilted towards the listening position. Receiver was the Auriga from Stormaudio. Several demos were played. Standing on an open space in Amsterdam, a tractor passing by on a field road and a plane flying overhead. Finally a sequence from Dreamwork Turbo was played. That demo really blew me away! The sound was so realistic that you had the feeling of actually experiencing the individual situations. Unfortunately we did not have enough time to listen to their upmixer Auromatc but I heard from several people that this is superior to Dolby Surround!
When asking the Auro guy that currently no Auro products are availabke for less then $10k he told me to keep my feet still for some weeks as there will be more products available soon. (Appeaently D&M is working on a cobtract with Auro).
My final conclusion for today is, no proccessor without Auro 3D and speaker layout so it works for Atmos & Auro! how this can be achieved will follow in a later entry.

- Rich

 

[macddmac]

Words from B&W rep over on AVS forum:

 

[gene]

Not all Atmos speaker demos have been peaches and ice-cream:



The official Dolby Atmos thread (home theater version) - Page 220 - AVS Forum

However, the poster was impressed with Auro-3D:



- Rich

Be careful, a criitical comment or negative impression of an Atmos upfiring speaker will bring out a witch hunt among its most passionate supporters

 

[RichB]

Be careful, a criitical comment or negative impression of an Atmos upfiring speaker will bring out a witch hunt among its most passionate supporters

Just quoting, I have quite a few arrows in my back already.

- Rich

 

[gene]

Just quoting, I have quite a few arrows in my back already.

- Rich

The Atmos police are watching

 

[cpp]

Actually, I'm in the "who cares about Atmos" camp.

You would be

 

[cpp]

The Atmos police are watching

ya know gene and Rich its like who cares, these vendors are pushing sound bouncing Betty speakers to suck a few dollars from those that follow some half way solution just to say they have some new "thing". Might as well mount Bose cubes to the tops of your towers and have the same thing, heck it might actually be better . After all it's the processor that does the work, if its underachieving then it's not going to really matter about your speakers.

 

[macddmac]

ya know gene and Rich its like who cares, these vendors are pushing sound bouncing Betty speakers to suck a few dollars from those that follow some half way solution just to say they have some new "thing". Might as well mount Bose cubes to the tops of your towers and have the same thing, heck it might actually be better . After all it's the processor that does the work, if its underachieving then it's not going to really matter about your speakers.

Finally, a good use for Bose cubes

 

[gene]

ya know gene and Rich its like who cares, these vendors are pushing sound bouncing Betty speakers to suck a few dollars from those that follow some half way solution just to say they have some new "thing". Might as well mount Bose cubes to the tops of your towers and have the same thing, heck it might actually be better . After all it's the processor that does the work, if its underachieving then it's not going to really matter about your speakers.

You know I was thinking the same thing when I saw the Onkyo Atmos module. A Bose cube certainly seems like it would fit the bill and like you said, it would blend in nicely aesthetically. Heck get a few on brackets and angle them up towards the ceiling while you're at it!

Just don't put the Atmos label on it unless you pay the licensing fee to do so

 

[AV_Nut]

My 1st demo with Atmos was at the D&M's suite during CES (I'm a Denon and Marantz dealer). The Dolby PHD gave us the rundown on the technology. Before they hit play, I too was wondering if this was going to be a worthwhile demo. After all, they did NOT use in-ceiling speakers (I suspect the hotel room might of had a problem with that). But rather they used some prototype speakers with an angled driver facing upwards on the 9 foot ceilings. They played a few different demos and I was VERY impressed. I suspect it won't work so well for guys with the wrong angled ceilings or especially tall ceilings.

Like every home theater, room and speaker layout will dictate how impressive the sound will be. But rest assured everyone walking out of that CES D&M demo was impressed (with speakers aimed toward the ceiling). Even with lousy room acoustics, the CEDIA Lyngdorf overhead speaker demo was mind-numbing.

Forgetting speakers bouncing against the ceiling or more overhead speakers for a moment.... Atmos and object based rendering will result in a better sounding system even for traditional 5.1 and 7.1 systems. I want it for my 7.1 system simply because of that. Software please! I also plan on putting in 2 pair of inceiling speakers on my larger system.

Steve with Sound Video in MN

P.S. Gene. I was looking for you by the "highend Audio Demo" area at CEDIA. I wanted to say hi.

 

[gene]

My 1st demo with Atmos was at the D&M's suite during CES (I'm a Denon and Marantz dealer). The Dolby PHD gave us the rundown on the technology. Before they hit play, I too was wondering if this was going to be a worthwhile demo. After all, they did NOT use in-ceiling speakers (I suspect the hotel room might of had a problem with that). But rather they used some prototype speakers with an angled driver facing upwards on the 9 foot ceilings. They played a few different demos and I was VERY impressed. I suspect it won't work so well for guys with the wrong angled ceilings or especially tall ceilings.

Like every home theater, room and speaker layout will dictate how impressive the sound will be. But rest assured everyone walking out of that CES D&M demo was impressed (with speakers aimed toward the ceiling). Even with lousy room acoustics, the CEDIA Lyngdorf overhead speaker demo was mind-numbing.

Forgetting speakers bouncing against the ceiling or more overhead speakers for a moment.... Atmos and object based rendering will result in a better sounding system even for traditional 5.1 and 7.1 systems. I want it for my 7.1 system simply because of that. Software please! I also plan on putting in 2 pair of inceiling speakers on my larger system.

Steve with Sound Video in MN

P.S. Gene. I was looking for you by the "highend Audio Demo" area at CEDIA. I wanted to say hi.

The D&M demo used in-ceiling speakers not reflective speakers.

I wasn't at CEDIA this year as I stayed behind to take care of my wife's recovery but I will be there next year so I will keep a lookout for you. Thx.

 

[AV_Nut]

We may be talking about two different demos. During CES 2014 on an offsite hotel suite, I was sitting 3 feet from the (ugly) reflective speaker prototype speakers in the back room of the D&M's suite. Now I had a couple of wines before the demo, but I remember watching the angled speaker vibrate. We must be talking about 2 different demos or the wines clouded my judgement!

 

[gene]

We may be talking about two different demos. During CES 2014 on an offsite hotel suite, I was sitting 3 feet from the (ugly) reflective speaker prototype speakers in the back room of the D&M's suite. Now I had a couple of wines before the demo, but I remember watching the angled speaker vibrate. We must be talking about 2 different demos or the wines clouded my judgement!

Ah very possible. The D&M demos our guys went to where in the HIPER room area of CEDIA which featured Marantz electronics, Snell speakers and Boston Acoustics ceiling speakers for the 4 height channels.

 

[gene]

Atmos and object based rendering will result in a better sounding system even for traditional 5.1 and 7.1 systems. I want it for my 7.1 system simply because of that.

It's unclear if that is true since at least Gen1 Atmos implemented in AV receivers is based on 7.1 TrueHD plus at least 2 or 4 height channels to extract the objects. We plan on digging in deeper about this issue with our up coming formal interview with Dolby.

 

[RichB]

It's unclear if that is true since at least Gen1 Atmos implemented in AV receivers is based on 7.1 TrueHD plus at least 2 or 4 height channels to extract the objects. We plan on digging in deeper about this issue with our up coming formal interview with Dolby.

If the Atmos objects are encoded lossy and placed within a bed with metadata, then technically, the result may no longer be fully lossless as it was in a traditional 5.1/7.1 mix.

- Rich

 

[AV_Nut]

Scott Wilkinson with Home Theater Geeks did a detailed formal interview with two Atmos guys (I can post a link if you are o.k. with it). They mentioned that a 5.1 or 7.1 would sound better via Object based rendering. The PhD that I met at CES said the same thing (I have his business card somewhere). But the proof is in the pudding. Lots of things are superior on paper yet yield no advantage to my ear.

By the way Gene, you did an exceptional write-up on Dolby Atmos 101. You have a gift for boiling it down to the lowest common denominator. I plan on sending off a link my 1450 (past 18 year) prepro buyers. Expect some additional web hits inside of the next week. Well done!

Steve w/ Sound Video in MN

 

[GranteedEV]

Question about object based rendering:

How is this different from the way video games process surround localization? Because games have been doing that for like a decade.

 

[gene]

Scott Wilkinson with Home Theater Geeks did a detailed formal interview with two Atmos guys (I can post a link if you are o.k. with it). They mentioned that a 5.1 or 7.1 would sound better via Object based rendering. The PhD that I met at CES said the same thing (I have his business card somewhere). But the proof is in the pudding. Lots of things are superior on paper yet yield no advantage to my ear.

By the way Gene, you did an exceptional write-up on Dolby Atmos 101. You have a gift for boiling it down to the lowest common denominator. I plan on sending off a link my 1450 (past 18 year) prepro buyers. Expect some additional web hits inside of the next week. Well done!

Steve w/ Sound Video in MN

I saw that episode of HT Geeks where Dolby also didn't provide any fixed requirements for distance between elevation speakers vs their companion speakers. Oddly at the Dolby Press conference at CEDIA, my understanding is they didn't agree with a unified speaker layout Auro was proposing where front/rear height channels instead of in-ceiling or reflective speakers. Odd that there is so much flexibility with reflection speakers but not placing discrete speakers

Not sure I buy the claim about the benefits for standard 7.1 but only time will tell I guess.

BTW Steve Munz wrote most of our Atmos 01 overview article, he deserves the credit.

I wrote the one on Dolby Atmos Elevation speakers most recently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gThmBqKY4oc&feature=youtu.be

Thanks for your compliments.

 

[shadyJ]

Question about object based rendering:

How is this different from the way video games process surround localization? Because games have been doing that for like a decade.

Computer games have been doing this for much longer than a decade. The advantage with an object mix over a regular bed five or seven channel mix is the soundtrack must be mixed perfectly for precise panning. With something like Atmos, it can't help but to be done perfectly. A great mix is easier to accomplish. What is disappointing to me is that Atmos does not measure the speakers' location and calibrate for it like trinnov. That would have been a huge advantage, and massively beneficial even for a simple two channel setup. Theoretically it should have been a lot more doable in an object based mix as well. That is a big missed opportunity and would have made the rationale for upgrading to Atmos much more compelling.

 

[AV_Nut]

I saw that episode of HT Geeks where Dolby also didn't provide any fixed requirements for distance between elevation speakers vs their companion speakers. Oddly at the Dolby Press conference at CEDIA, my understanding is they didn't agree with a unified speaker layout Auro was proposing where front/rear height channels instead of in-ceiling or reflective speakers. Odd that there is so much flexibility with reflection speakers but not placing discrete speakers

There normally are compromises in real world situations when laying out discrete speakers OR reflected speakers. Dolby would be the 1st to admit that. But I predict you will be asking them that question during your Q&A session.