Evolving to Dolby Atmos for music, but is it better?

[EthicalEar]

My set up is currently 7.2.4. I love the movies but this post is about the Music. I have a big collection of 5.1 surround sound discs. I don’t collect them, I got them to play them. When I compare my receiver’s Dolby surround logic or Neural X upgrade from stereo, to an actual 5.1 disc, there is a huge difference to me. The 5.1 mix was always better. Now I’ve listened to 5.1 discs digitally upgraded to 7.2.4 through Dolby surround. To me a few were better, but most were not. Aerosmith Toys in the Attic SACD 5.1 was worse. I won’t name everything, but softer things like The Carpenters and Tchaikovsky sounded better. Dream Theater was worse. YES Close to the Edge, better. I've yet to try my Fragile DTS 5.1. Rush Signals in Atmos from disc didn’t seem any better than the 5.1 Signals disc. So is it the type of music that just isn’t good for Atmos? Some Atmos songs from Apple music aren’t impressive and sound like a digital upmix gone wrong. Some are perfect. I don’t think anything can beat Heart Barracuda in Atmos. It tops my list as the best Atmos music I’ve heard. In one YouTube video, Steve Guttenberg says music should only be Stereo. I do know good stereo can be better than 5.1. Some songs where guitars or vocals pan from Right to Left and back, present a key emotion of the song. Then 5.1 versions often remove that, but are good to get more detail from instrument separation from different areas and more emotion when it's purposefully done, like "On Air" from Alan Parsons. which blew me away. So now we have ATMOS! I do feel with Atmos there is nothing better when it's properly panned. It is sometimes indistinguishable where some sounds are coming from, which makes it less about finding the sound and more about the experience. I guess there is good and bad in everything. I would love to hear your thoughts on The Best of Atmos and then why some are just "quick change it to something else!" Again, listen to Heart Barracuda in Atmos!

 

[lovinthehd]

You might check this thread https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/the-best-of-atmos-music-execution.127353/

 

[TLS Guy]

My set up is currently 7.2.4. I love the movies but this post is about the Music. I have a big collection of 5.1 surround sound discs. I don’t collect them, I got them to play them. When I compare my receiver’s Dolby surround logic or Neural X upgrade from stereo, to an actual 5.1 disc, there is a huge difference to me. The 5.1 mix was always better. Now I’ve listened to 5.1 discs digitally upgraded to 7.2.4 through Dolby surround. To me a few were better, but most were not. Aerosmith Toys in the Attic SACD 5.1 was worse. I won’t name everything, but softer things like The Carpenters and Tchaikovsky sounded better. Dream Theater was worse. YES Close to the Edge, better. I've yet to try my Fragile DTS 5.1. Rush Signals in Atmos from disc didn’t seem any better than the 5.1 Signals disc. So is it the type of music that just isn’t good for Atmos? Some Atmos songs from Apple music aren’t impressive and sound like a digital upmix gone wrong. Some are perfect. I don’t think anything can beat Heart Barracuda in Atmos. It tops my list as the best Atmos music I’ve heard. In one YouTube video, Steve Guttenberg says music should only be Stereo. I do know good stereo can be better than 5.1. Some songs where guitars or vocals pan from Right to Left and back, present a key emotion of the song. Then 5.1 versions often remove that, but are good to get more detail from instrument separation from different areas and more emotion when it's purposefully done, like "On Air" from Alan Parsons. which blew me away. So now we have ATMOS! I do feel with Atmos there is nothing better when it's properly panned. It is sometimes indistinguishable where some sounds are coming from, which makes it less about finding the sound and more about the experience. I guess there is good and bad in everything. I would love to hear your thoughts on The Best of Atmos and then why some are just "quick change it to something else!" Again, listen to Heart Barracuda in Atmos!

I think evolving is the correct word right now.

I also have an AV room, that is 7.2.4 Atmos. All the speakers are very good, and located precisely to Dolby specs. It is a custom room of optimal dimensions. So it is ideal for evaluating this technology.

First the Dolby up mixer from stereo sources. On most sources this works well for classical music well recorded. It does not work well for music in the popular domain. This is because the latter sources are almost universally poorly engineered. When you analyze them in wave lab, it is awash in phasing errors and clearly derived from single mono mixes panned from the mix panel. In addition the majority of the information is center with limited left right information. You can tell most of the ambience is artificial and created. Just awful rubbish. Classical productions on the whole, are carefully produced, with natural stereo mike placement and subtle use of spot microphones in naturally ambient environments. This allows the Dolby upmixer to work very well indeed.

Now in terms of Atmos discs and streams a lot, and I think most, are old two channel recordings upmixed to Atmos, and usually badly. What is available on Apple Music is awful. The Dolby up mixer does a better job.

I now have two Dolby Atmos discs on BD. One is audio only. It is the of the new organ in St. Stephens Cathedral in Vienna. It is on the DGG label. This is stunningly good. It sounds as if you are literally transported to the cathedral. The other, again on DGG, is from the university of Oxford with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, with his orchestra and Monteverdi Choir. This has the video on the Atmos disc. In the main, it is excellent. One of the huge advantages of Atmos is a realistic 3D perspective. Unfortunately the engineers turned up their spot mics too high, and in these numbers the perspective is lost. I note in the most recent BPO productions they have dispensed with spot mics with improved results. I note they are now using the modified Decca Tree. This is rapidly gaining acceptance as the optimal way to record in Atmos.

That brings me to the Berlin Digital Concert Hall, and what they call immersive audio. It got off to a rocky start, mainly I think because they were up mixing. Now they are definitely offering true Dolby Atmos. Many of the recent offerings are superb. A recent Mozart concert was stunningly good.
I will post later about this, but recently there was a fantastic performance of Olivier Messiaen's Tulangalalia Symphony. The result stunning. This allowed this extraordinary work to be heard in the home for the first time as it needs to be heard. This work is in many ways an extended concerto for Piano and especially the electronic Ondes_Martenot.

This work is truly extraordinary and there is nothing remotely like it in the history of music. I have never heard such an ovation after this extended 10 movement piece. If any work was written to show off Atmos, that is it.

One big issue is that for streaming Dolby insistence on adherence to an unusually low acoustic level at least 8 db. lower then usual audio streams. I have posted about this before and Dolby's reasons for the spec. with which I disagree vehemently.

So, there is enough out there to validate the technique, and I hope things develop. The big problem that I see that will be a barrier, is that it really does take a custom build, in a custom room. That will not be possible for the many.

To end, I just want to mention the issue of front wide speakers. I know our illustrious leader is sold on the idea, but I'm not. I think the issue goes away if you properly position the front right and left speakers. They need to be as far apart as you can get them in the room, and about 14" from the side walls and no more.

Wide speakers will be problematic in placement, and inevitably inferior to the right and left mains. The last thing you need is inferior speakers anywhere near the front soundstage. In my room the soundstage is wide, and bigger than the room. I really doubt adding a couple of extra speakers up front would be a benefit.

As you say, this is evolving, so stay tuned!

 

[EthicalEar]

I think evolving is the correct word right now.

I also have an AV room, that is 7.2.4 Atmos. All the speakers are very good, and located precisely to Dolby specs. It is a custom room of optimal dimensions. So it is ideal for evaluating this technology.

First the Dolby up mixer from stereo sources. On most sources this works well for classical music well recorded. It does not work well for music in the popular domain. This is because the latter sources are almost universally poorly engineered. When you analyze them in wave lab, it is awash in phasing errors and clearly derived from single mono mixes panned from the mix panel. In addition the majority of the information is center with limited left right information. You can tell most of the ambience is artificial and created. Just awful rubbish. Classical productions on the whole, are carefully produced, with natural stereo mike placement and subtle use of spot microphones in naturally ambient environments. This allows the Dolby upmixer to work very well indeed.

Now in terms of Atmos discs and streams a lot, and I think most, are old two channel recordings upmixed to Atmos, and usually badly. What is available on Apple Music is awful. The Dolby up mixer does a better job.

I now have two Dolby Atmos discs on BD. One is audio only. It is the of the new organ in St. Stephens Cathedral in Vienna. It is on the DGG label. This is stunningly good. It sounds as if you are literally transported to the cathedral. The other, again on DGG, is from the university of Oxford with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, with his orchestra and Monteverdi Choir. This has the video on the Atmos disc. In the main, it is excellent. One of the huge advantages of Atmos is a realistic 3D perspective. Unfortunately the engineers turned up their spot mics too high, and in these numbers the perspective is lost. I note in the most recent BPO productions they have dispensed with spot mics with improved results. I note they are now using the modified Decca Tree. This is rapidly gaining acceptance as the optimal way to record in Atmos.

That brings me to the Berlin Digital Concert Hall, and what they call immersive audio. It got off to a rocky start, mainly I think because they were up mixing. Now they are definitely offering true Dolby Atmos. Many of the recent offerings are superb. A recent Mozart concert was stunningly good.
I will post later about this, but recently there was a fantastic performance of Olivier Messiaen's Tulangalalia Symphony. The result stunning. This allowed this extraordinary work to be heard in the home for the first time as it needs to be heard. This work is in many ways an extended concerto for Piano and especially the electronic Ondes_Martenot.

This work is truly extraordinary and there is nothing remotely like it in the history of music. I have never heard such an ovation after this extended 10 movement piece. If any work was written to show off Atmos, that is it.

One big issue is that for streaming Dolby insistence on adherence to an unusually low acoustic level at least 8 db. lower then usual audio streams. I have posted about this before and Dolby's reasons for the spec. with which I disagree vehemently.

So, there is enough out there to validate the technique, and I hope things develop. The big problem that I see that will be a barrier, is that it really does take a custom build, in a custom room. That will not be possible for the many.

To end, I just want to mention the issue of front wide speakers. I know our illustrious leader is sold on the idea, but I'm not. I think the issue goes away if you properly position the front right and left speakers. They need to be as far apart as you can get them in the room, and about 14" from the side walls and no more.

Wide speakers will be problematic in placement, and inevitably inferior to the right and left mains. The last thing you need is inferior speakers anywhere near the front soundstage. In my room the soundstage is wide, and bigger than the room. I really doubt adding a couple of extra speakers up front would be a benefit.

As you say, this is evolving, so stay tuned!

I loved your recommendations and comments. I don't have a lot of classical but I do occasionally HAVE TO to listen to my favorites. Your enthusiasm of Olivier Messiaen's Tulangalalia Symphony is they way I feel when really moved no matter the format or genre. Your mentioning of Berlin reminded me of an old DVD that was one of my favorites. Scorpions Moment of Glory. They were at home in Germany and were accompanied by Berliner Philharmoniker. The audience seemed to be the Orchestra's season ticket holders. The combination of familiar rock backed by a great orchestra was very well done and brought me to tears with some laughter seeing the Orchestral crowd enjoy the Scorpions! Regarding our leader's Wide Fronts - I hear you. I just accomplished 7.2.4 and now that's not good enough? I have no room for wide fronts anyway. Not even in the ceiling.

 

[Hobbit]

My set up is currently 7.2.4. I love the movies but this post is about the Music. I have a big collection of 5.1 surround sound discs. I don’t collect them, I got them to play them. When I compare my receiver’s Dolby surround logic or Neural X upgrade from stereo, to an actual 5.1 disc, there is a huge difference to me. The 5.1 mix was always better. Now I’ve listened to 5.1 discs digitally upgraded to 7.2.4 through Dolby surround. To me a few were better, but most were not. Aerosmith Toys in the Attic SACD 5.1 was worse. I won’t name everything, but softer things like The Carpenters and Tchaikovsky sounded better. Dream Theater was worse. YES Close to the Edge, better. I've yet to try my Fragile DTS 5.1. Rush Signals in Atmos from disc didn’t seem any better than the 5.1 Signals disc. So is it the type of music that just isn’t good for Atmos? Some Atmos songs from Apple music aren’t impressive and sound like a digital upmix gone wrong. Some are perfect. I don’t think anything can beat Heart Barracuda in Atmos. It tops my list as the best Atmos music I’ve heard. In one YouTube video, Steve Guttenberg says music should only be Stereo. I do know good stereo can be better than 5.1. Some songs where guitars or vocals pan from Right to Left and back, present a key emotion of the song. Then 5.1 versions often remove that, but are good to get more detail from instrument separation from different areas and more emotion when it's purposefully done, like "On Air" from Alan Parsons. which blew me away. So now we have ATMOS! I do feel with Atmos there is nothing better when it's properly panned. It is sometimes indistinguishable where some sounds are coming from, which makes it less about finding the sound and more about the experience. I guess there is good and bad in everything. I would love to hear your thoughts on The Best of Atmos and then why some are just "quick change it to something else!" Again, listen to Heart Barracuda in Atmos!

IMO, is this really any different for any format? A lot has to do with how the music produced. With regular stereo CDs, some sound amazing and others,,,,, well not so much. I'll bet some were run through a generic program that ups them to Atmos and others were done with care from the original tracks.

Also, I'll add that I remember some of the early 5.1 DVDs. Many were made unnatural overemphasizing that's it's 5.1. There was no subtly. That WAS a loud noise coming from the left rear speaker. It's like they wanted to show off that they can make a loud noise from that speaker.

 

[EthicalEar]

IMO, is this really any different for any format? A lot has to do with how the music produced. With regular stereo CDs, some sound amazing and others,,,,, well not so much. I'll be some were run through a generic program that ups them to Atmos and others were done with care from the original tracks.

Also, I'll add that I remember some of the early 5.1 DVDs. Many were made unnatural overemphasizing that's it's 5.1. There was no subtly. That WAS a loud noise coming from the left rear speaker. It's like they wanted to show off that they can make a loud noise from that speaker.

I agree the original production does seem to mean a lot.

 

[EthicalEar]

I edited my original post because I just listened to Rush Signals Atmos disk again. First time was right after I installed the new focal ceiling speakers and I was tired and I hadn't balanced the sound perfectly yet. Tonight was a new experience and Signals in Atmos is great! The Weapon, Losing It and Countdown were my favorites tonight.
To Hobbit's credit, I can hear they spent a lot of time getting this to be very enjoyable without loosing the original spirit of the songs. Especially Countdown. Wow!

I also listened to my DVD Audio 5.1 Fragile YES disc. Used the Dolby Surround to up mix to 7.2.4 and Rick Wakeman's keys flew over my head in Roundabout. Listening to all the layers build from everywhere in The Fish was amazing and I can see how Geddy Lee was so much influenced by Chris Squire. Heart of the Sunrise was just as cool. Lastly, bonus Track America was much better to me up-mixed. I hope I'm not boring anyone with my excitement over listening to old favorites in a new way.

One Question. Not sure if this is covered in any other posts. Rush Signals disc Plays Atmos at 48kHz.-24 bit. It also has a Dolby True 5.1 track at 96kHz 24 bit. I switched it around and enjoyed the Atmos more but heard Geddy's voice better with the 96kHz as well as some other things. Question is why is the Atmos a lower kHz? I believe my I phone and Apple TV play some music Hi-Res but Atmos is not Hi-Res. Is there a reason why Atmos can't be 96kHz?

 

[TLS Guy]

I edited my original post because I just listened to Rush Signals Atmos disk again. First time was right after I installed the new focal ceiling speakers and I was tired and I hadn't balanced the sound perfectly yet. Tonight was a new experience and Signals in Atmos is great! The Weapon, Losing It and Countdown were my favorites tonight.
To Hobbit's credit, I can hear they spent a lot of time getting this to be very enjoyable without loosing the original spirit of the songs. Especially Countdown. Wow!

I also listened to my DVD Audio 5.1 Fragile YES disc. Used the Dolby Surround to up mix to 7.2.4 and Rick Wakeman's keys flew over my head in Roundabout. Listening to all the layers build from everywhere in The Fish was amazing and I can see how Geddy Lee was so much influenced by Chris Squire. Heart of the Sunrise was just as cool. Lastly, bonus Track America was much better to me up-mixed. I hope I'm not boring anyone with my excitement over listening to old favorites in a new way.

One Question. Not sure if this is covered in any other posts. Rush Signals disc Plays Atmos at 48kHz.-24 bit. It also has a Dolby True 5.1 track at 96kHz 24 bit. I switched it around and enjoyed the Atmos more but heard Geddy's voice better with the 96kHz as well as some other things. Question is why is the Atmos a lower kHz? I believe my I phone and Apple TV play some music Hi-Res but Atmos is not Hi-Res. Is there a reason why Atmos can't be 96kHz?

Atmos does support 96 KHz. However, you don't need 96 KHz, as 48 KHz is already overkill. The voice change you heard had nothing to do with the lower rate. This was just a different mix. As I noted, turning up spot mics in rendering Atmos spoils the result. Atmos is quite unlike any other system we have had before. Previously everything was intensity based. Atmos is much more complex technology that is object based. So the rendering, which is very complex technology, allows the precise steering of objects. It is a construct and system developed for the cinema. Its place in music recording needs to be determined. My feeling is that it has a definite place. On the good productions I have heard, the precise location of musicians and singers, is something I have not experienced before. But these are early days. I still think the limiting factor is going to be implementation at recording, production and reproductive ends of the chain. This is clearly a system that requires precision from start to finish. So I don't expect to see good systems on very block. I just can't see this happening. Even now most are experiencing Atmos via sound bars, which is lunatic, and headphones. I have never heard Atmos headphones, but that is how I understand most BPO members availing themselves of the Atmos stream are listening to them. So this may all be a bust in the end, apart from cinemas, due to logistics and economics.