The Dolby Atmos, DTS-X, and Auro-3D Discussion Thread

William Lemmerhirt

William Lemmerhirt

Audioholic Overlord
That's when I love it the most is when it just makes the room dissapearm. It's not always about the effects for me it's more about the immersion. Until I get the new room in the new place built its just 5.1 in my ol bedroom I'm kind off missing atmos right now :oops:
I feel ya. I have 5.1 in my BR too. I would love a pair of speedwoofers(cause they’d fit and be badass little ported subs) and 5.2.2. It would be perfect for my bedroom. Maybe if I ever upgrade my sr6012, I’ll move it to the bedroom. Hope you get your room up n running soon. I love atmos and really, the upmixers are great so I’m loving my system right now.
Get going!!! Lol jk.
 
D

Danzilla31

Audioholic Spartan
I feel ya. I have 5.1 in my BR too. I would love a pair of speedwoofers(cause they’d fit and be badass little ported subs) and 5.2.2. It would be perfect for my bedroom. Maybe if I ever upgrade my sr6012, I’ll move it to the bedroom. Hope you get your room up n running soon. I love atmos and really, the upmixers are great so I’m loving my system right now.
Get going!!! Lol jk.
I'm racking my brain deciding if I should just buy more RSL speedwoofers or get a couple of SVS PC 2000's for the bedroom. I've always always wanted to try those cylinder subs out from SVS

The Theater Room is coming In going all out on this so it's going to take awhile. We're going to seal that room off, solid core doors insulate it properly do a proper HVAC treatment with the AC, custom trim, carpets, theater seats 4k projector screen of course all my beloved JBL's the list goes on and on I'm getting a final bid from the contractor I'm going to use so it will take probably 2 to 3 months to complete

I will start a thread and post pics of the entire process once it begins all the way to the end. Hopefully others will learn from the journey I'll be going through on this

I'll send you pics of the room setup tommorow I think you'll like what I came up with!
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
I believe we've discussed this many times already, but it's cool to refresh it.

Atmos/DTSX have great potential. All of us here who have actually experienced Atmos/DTSX in our homes have seen the great potential.

But it is up to the sound engineers who does the mixing for the home BluRay Atmos/DTSX.

I was rewatching "Jurassic World" and "JW Fallen Kingdom" in 4K/DTSX this weekend.

Now that I have my JVC NX5 4K PJ, I have to rewatch a lot of things. :D

For some reasons, I noticed a lot more overhead sound effects this time around. I mentioned previously that I was "disappointed" in the 1080p/DTSX mixes. But this time around I was a lot more impressed since (for some reasons) I heard a lot more overhead sound effects.

The great potential is there. I heard dinosaurs breathing and roaring above me, flying above me. When the characters were underwater, I heard the water above me. The great potential is there.

But the problem is again the human factor. These sound mixers can be inconsistent. One scene, the overhead sound is awesome. The next scene the overhead sound is nonexistent.

The sound mixers are definitely not created equal. :D

Those of us fortunate enough to have ACTUALLY experienced Atmos and DTSX at HOME are greatly enjoying Atmos/DTSX.

The people who NEVER experienced Atmos/DTSX at home continue to be doubters and haters based on the reports of some bad sound mixers. :D
 
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VonMagnum

VonMagnum

Audioholic Chief
I believe we've discussed this many times already, but it's cool to refresh it.

Atmos/DTSX have great potential. All of us here who have actually experienced Atmos/DTSX in our homes have seen the great potential.

But it is up to the sound engineers who does the mixing for the home BluRay Atmos/DTSX.

I was rewatching "Jurassic Word" and "JW Fallen Kingdom" in 4K/DTSX this weekend.
Jurassic Word, eh? Hmmm. I must have missed that one. It wasn't a religious movie was it? :D

And the Word became scales (or feathers as it were) and HE was among us! T-Rex!

For some reasons, I noticed a lot more overhead sound effects this time around. I mentioned previously that I was "disappointed" in the 1080p/DTSX mixes. But this time around I was a lot more impressed since (for some reasons) I heard a lot more overhead sound effects.
Did you have the overheads turned up +6dB the first time? :D

I actually heard quite a bit overhead in Fallen Kingdom. I heard jack squat in the original overhead. I just watched Tokyo Drift and not much overhead there either. I put on Crimson Peak or Harry Potter and tons of stuff overhead. The problem, as you say, are the film mixing guys. There seems to be this notion that surround sound shouldn't be "distracting" and therefore while you are I might find it odd that there's birds making noises only in the front of the room in Annihiliation, they think it would be utterly devatstating to the plot of the movie if you heard birds all around you in those scenes as it would distract you from the non-dialog in those scenes to the point where you are taken out of the movie.... Um. Yeah, that didn't sound right to me either. I'm actually taken out of the movie when I see a forest scene and birds are only coming from the screen and NOTHING around me. Am I watching the scene from inside a building? Why isn't the forest making sounds all around me? Oh, it's because the sound guy didn't bother.... :rolleyes:

The funny thing is there's a sound guy or two on AVS and if you question a word the guy says (and let me tell you some of the things he says aren't always coherent... "When I'm going to the ceiling..." (uh) (I don't want to quote out of context, but the guy basically seemed to be saying that the difference between 75% mix to the ceiling and 100% isn't a big deal. Um...yeah, it kind of is when you want it to truly sound overhead and not "sort of" overhead.

Meanwhile, I asked him why the sound mixing stages have the side surrounds 2/3 up the wall (and at Atmos cinema setups) while the home version says they need to be at ear level. He basically implied with DSP, they can sound wherever they need them to and that the difference is no big deal between that setup and your home setup.

When I then implied something about the DTS:X layout at home being flexible and the 45 degree angle shown for "heights' (not tops) was only their studio layout and NOT what they implied to be used at home, he then rather rudely says that IS *THE* official DTS:X layout and it IS always 45 degrees (utterly and totally contrary to DTS:X's own written formal position; in fact they said they wished they never released the diagram as it implies a 'fixed' layout they don't want to imply as oddly enough, moving the speaker from 45 to 30 degrees really doesn't change the effect all that much, particularly if you have a top middle or TS speaker in place to bridge the speakers). Well, yippee-ki-yay. It's OK to have studio mixing setups that don't reflect Dolby or DTS's actual recommendations for speaker layouts, but you can't move the DTS:X "height" speakers from 45 degrees to 30 degrees because some photo or diagram shows it at 45. :rolleyes:

There are actually people there that save two sets of Audyssey settings so that when they watch DTS:X they can use the assignment as "heights" but use "tops" for Dolby Atmos. I hear no real difference here using a top middle bridge and can't imagine doing that "just in case" as it's a royal PITA. It's like trying to tell audiophiles maybe that Shakti stone isn't actually doing anything. They get livid as they can "easily" hear it (yet ask them to prove that with a DBX box and watch them start yelling).

Oh well. I'm despised by several know-it-all regulars there anyway (they just literally ignore everything I say even when it's accurate and they keep spouting the same nonsense, particularly lately about 2-in, 4-out 'rear' decoding (i.e. invert a channel, input it into a Pro Logic II decoder and extract sides and rears from the signal and invert again to get the sides back out) and with IIx yet another set the signal has to 'pass through' to get all kinds of extra rear speakers from a 5.1 output) where they don't acknowledge the issues it causes. I try to point them out and they just keep going on and on about it as if I don't exist. Well, they're possibly throwing out the out-of--phase information sometimes found in discrete 5.1 side surround channels plus you can't pan across the L/R width of the room at 'any' point like in 'true' discrete Atmos. It can only go around the back when it pans left/right as it has to pass through all the speakers to pan that direction. In other words, with Gravity (in Atmos), at 23 minutes in or thereabouts, Clooney's voice pans from the front around just behind me (through the side surrounds, not the rear surrounds) and back around to the front. It can do that because the sides are totally discretely rendered from the rears. With say 5.1 expanded to 7.1 with PLIIx, you cannot do that because it's panning through the rears when it pans left/right, not the sides (as it steers left/right panning through the rear channels along the way). That's great for getting more channels out of less, but compared to discrete panning, it's night and day WRONG and means a bird flying around the room (like in the AMAZE demo) can't just go anywhere in the room, it has to pan around the back and can't cross the room until it gets to the back (like 5.1 expanded to 7.1, which is basically EXACTLY what they're proposing doing). If you use center extraction only or even matrixed active mixer instead, it can cross anywhere in the room as a pan to the back halfway and then across would cross in-between, for example. Thus, I judged the 2-in, 4-out method flawed and unusable for Atmos/X as it defeats the ability to image anywhere in the room from a single vantage point.

I might as well not have even said a word. They just kept right on talking about how great the idea was. You can get 7.1 from 5.1 and thus use Front Wides instead without using up the extra channels that prevents DTS:X from working in all of them! Yeah, except now Clooney floats around the rear of the room instead of the center of it.... :rolleyes:

The great potential is there. I heard dinosaurs breathing and roaring above me, flying above me. When the characters were underwater, I heard the water above me. The great potential is there.

But the problem is again the human factor. These sound mixers can be inconsistent. One scene, the overhead sound is awesome. The next scene the overhead sound is nonexistent.
I love the Auro-3D demo disc as it uses dual-quad microphone recordings. It's just surreal sounding. Old fashioned panning style mixing doesn't come close, IMO. To get consistent "immersive" sound, you'd almost need to record the real environment to get it right 100% of the time. But that's just not realistic to do with movies made on fake CGI green screen stages. But if you had a trained pro that paid attention to every scene, you can do it 'right' with panning, but I'm afraid the 'old school' guys are doing in the 'old way' even with new tools (The surround is DISTRACTING notion).

I liked Groundhog Day not due to overhead sounds, but that it sounded so much more immersive than the original stereo and then 5.1 mix that did NOTHING with it. This Atmos mix showed the mixing guy was really trying to make it immersive with what he had to work with (i.e. there wasn't much overhead to use in the movie, but damn did it sound like I was outside in the outside scenes, almost to the point of actually being distracting for a comedy). Really, they should offer an old fashioned 2-channel or 5.1 channel soundtrack for that 'older method' and let Atmos/X do what it's actually designed to do, IMMERSE you in three dimensional sound instead of being hamstrung with mixing guys that think dialog is the only thing you need to hear most of the time.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
Did you have the overheads turned up +6dB the first time? :D
Probably not. Haha. :D

Yeah, these sound mixers can be inconsistent.

I had to turn my overhead trims down when watching "Firefly DTSX". But for most movies, I have to turn it up.

So I guess the moral to the story is that we have to adjust our overhead trim levels based on the movies!
 
panteragstk

panteragstk

Audioholic Warlord
Probably not. Haha. :D

Yeah, these sound mixers can be inconsistent.

I had to turn my overhead trims down when watching "Firefly DTSX". But for most movies, I have to turn it up.

So I guess the moral to the story is that we have to adjust our overhead trim levels based on the movies!
+6 for the overhead? I may have to play around with that. I can hear them fine, but it's not obvious.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
+6 for the overhead? I may have to play around with that. I can hear them fine, but it's not obvious.
Yeah, pretty soon Yamaha will be putting the Overhead trim level on the remote app for easy access just like the Center speaker trim.

Just like the Center channel levels, the Overhead channel levels can vary so much from movie to movie.

If you don't have the OH trim levels adjusted for your individual HT room, you are probably missing out on some cool overhead sound effects.
 
panteragstk

panteragstk

Audioholic Warlord
Yeah, pretty soon Yamaha will be putting the Overhead trim level on the remote app for easy access just like the Center speaker trim.

Just like the Center channel levels, the Overhead channel levels can vary so much from movie to movie.

If you don't have the OH trim levels adjusted for your individual HT room, you are probably missing out on some cool overhead sound effects.
I just did my normal 75db at the listening position for all channels.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
I just did my normal 75db at the listening position for all channels.
That's always the best starting point as we all know too well. :D

But the more experience you have with watching Atmos/DTSX BluRay, the more you realize that you may have to adjust the OH trim levels.
 
panteragstk

panteragstk

Audioholic Warlord
That's always the best starting point as we all know too well. :D

But the more experience you have with watching Atmos/DTSX BluRay, the more you realize that you may have to adjust the OH trim levels.
Cool. Figured as much. I may do a 3db bump and see what that gets me. I've been considering it so now I'll just do it.

Thanks!
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
Cool. Figured as much. I may do a 3db bump and see what that gets me. I've been considering it so now I'll just do it.

Thanks!
Just don't increase the OH trims if you're watching Serenity DTSX BluRay because that OH is loud. :D
 
Trell

Trell

Audioholic Spartan
The people who NEVER experienced Atmos/DTSX at home continue to be doubters and haters based on the reports of some bad sound mixers. :D
Nah, I've replaced my towers with larger ones, and the old subwoofer with two new bigger ones as well. Trying to pass two overhead speakers past my wife in our small living room is probably pushing it too far :D

In another thread a poster was encouraged to take a stand against his wife for better audio, but one has to choose ones battles wisely :D
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
Nah, I've replaced my towers with larger ones, and the old subwoofer with two new bigger ones as well. Trying to pass two overhead speakers past my wife in our small living room is probably pushing it too far :D
It's understandable that not all situations call for ceiling speakers.

Standard 5.1 HT can still sound great.

I will say that even if you don't have Atmos or ceiling speakers, these newer Atmos/DTSX AVR can still be beneficial for 2Ch contents.

The reason is because the newer DTS NeuralX and Dolby Surround Upmixer can take 2Ch contents and turn it into 5.1 (and 5.1.4, etc.) a lot better than the older Dolby ProLogic II and DTS Neo decoders.

How is the newer NeuralX and DSU better than the old ProLogic II and DTS Neo? The Center dialogue is much cleaner/clearer and sounds more "discrete". The surround channels also seem more active and immersive.

Seriously, for years I abhor ProLogic and DTS-Neo for 2Ch contents. Never ever want to use them.

Now, when I'm watching 2Ch contents like Handmaid's Tale or Castle Rock, I use DTS NeuralX. It sounds like I'm watching Dolby Atmos contents. If I only had a 5.1 system, it would sound like I'm watching DD or DTS 5.1 contents. DTS NeuralX can be THAT good.

In conclusion, not all situations call for ceiling Atmos/DTSX speakers and 5.1.4 systems. But your 5.1 system can still benefit from the newer Atmos/DTSX AVR for 2Ch contents.
 
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E

Erod

Audioholic
I believe we've discussed this many times already, but it's cool to refresh it.

Atmos/DTSX have great potential. All of us here who have actually experienced Atmos/DTSX in our homes have seen the great potential.

But it is up to the sound engineers who does the mixing for the home BluRay Atmos/DTSX.

I was rewatching "Jurassic World" and "JW Fallen Kingdom" in 4K/DTSX this weekend.

Now that I have my JVC NX5 4K PJ, I have to rewatch a lot of things. :D

For some reasons, I noticed a lot more overhead sound effects this time around. I mentioned previously that I was "disappointed" in the 1080p/DTSX mixes. But this time around I was a lot more impressed since (for some reasons) I heard a lot more overhead sound effects.

The great potential is there. I heard dinosaurs breathing and roaring above me, flying above me. When the characters were underwater, I heard the water above me. The great potential is there.

But the problem is again the human factor. These sound mixers can be inconsistent. One scene, the overhead sound is awesome. The next scene the overhead sound is nonexistent.

The sound mixers are definitely not created equal. :D

Those of us fortunate enough to have ACTUALLY experienced Atmos and DTSX at HOME are greatly enjoying Atmos/DTSX.

The people who NEVER experienced Atmos/DTSX at home continue to be doubters and haters based on the reports of some bad sound mixers. :D
That's not even supposed to be what Atmos is. What your describing is the bare bones of immersive sounds. Hearing things above you is cool, and I get that from several discs, but again, that's not what Atmos is truly supposed to be.

Atmos is supposed to make a bird fly around your room three-dimensionally by triangulating the sound of that bird by multiple speakers simultaneously at different levels so as to "place" that bird within the prism of your room. Not in a speaker. It should be able to fly slightly to the right and above your head, then around your head until it's four feet in front of your nose. Not just in the right speaker.

Or so the theory goes. Sound mixers either don't apply the format to that detail, or perhaps don't have the material in their hands to do so. Not sure.

Perhaps one day soon.
 
panteragstk

panteragstk

Audioholic Warlord
That's not even supposed to be what Atmos is. What your describing is the bare bones of immersive sounds. Hearing things above you is cool, and I get that from several discs, but again, that's not what Atmos is truly supposed to be.

Atmos is supposed to make a bird fly around your room three-dimensionally by triangulating the sound of that bird by multiple speakers simultaneously at different levels so as to "place" that bird within the prism of your room. Not in a speaker. It should be able to fly slightly to the right and above your head, then around your head until it's four feet in front of your nose. Not just in the right speaker.

Or so the theory goes. Sound mixers either don't apply the format to that detail, or perhaps don't have the material in their hands to do so. Not sure.

Perhaps one day soon.
I think you're describing a lot of what I've noticed with Atmos in particular. Sound is just there. I guess I'm trying to hear it above when I think that's where things should come from, but I do hear what I'd describe as much higher levels of immersion than I ever did with my 7.1 setup. Higher end speakers and a better room helped this, but I think the audio processing that Atmos and DSU offer are MUCH better than I expected. Now, a good mix sounds better than ever and a bad mix is much more obvious.
 
E

Erod

Audioholic
I think you're describing a lot of what I've noticed with Atmos in particular. Sound is just there. I guess I'm trying to hear it above when I think that's where things should come from, but I do hear what I'd describe as much higher levels of immersion than I ever did with my 7.1 setup. Higher end speakers and a better room helped this, but I think the audio processing that Atmos and DSU offer are MUCH better than I expected. Now, a good mix sounds better than ever and a bad mix is much more obvious.
Agreed. DSU exceeds expectations while Atmos falls short. So far.
 
VonMagnum

VonMagnum

Audioholic Chief
Agreed. DSU exceeds expectations while Atmos falls short. So far.
I'd say Neural X exceeds expectations while DSU sucks (two mono channels overhead even with 10 speakers overhead? Blah.)

Atmos is supposed to make a bird fly around your room three-dimensionally by triangulating the sound of that bird by multiple speakers simultaneously at different levels so as to "place" that bird within the prism of your room.
Well, we have a bird supposedly doing that (Amaze demo) and the thing is with any remotely "normal" home setup (i.e. 5.1.2 -> 7.1.4) the bird isn't doing anything NEW or special (maybe internally it is, but the render across 7.1 is IDENTICAL to 9.1.6. Why? The bird doesn't fly in the overhead speakers AT ALL (well maybe just a hint of it). I know this because I tested it with and without bed and/or overhead channels. It's just a 7-channel flyby. It COULD have flown "up" or something but it didn't. Now if you had a 22.1.10 setup, YES, it might be impressive as it tracks through so many speakers as an object, but only because the room would have to be large enough for it to do something it couldn't do with just 7.1.4. If you CRAM 22 bed speakers into say a 12x16 room, is it going to sound ANY different from 7.1.4 from the MLP? Probably not. That room would be small enough to pull the effect off easy with phantom imaging with just 7 bed speakers. Thus, the precision of Atmos as objects is far more valuable in a typical cinema theater than a home theater for that very reason (large rooms with Trinnov excepted).

What I'm getting at is I have 6 overhead speakers. It doesn't sound right with 4 because I use height channels and the room is 24' long. That's too far apart to adequately image in-between with a strong phantom image. It creates an "eye in a hurricane" effect. The extra two overheads aren't there to image more "precisely" per se (although in practice that just means if you're sitting off-center you get a more 'correct' effect with more speakers being used, particularly 'center' speakers, which Atmos only uses in the front (and with Trinnov, perhaps the very back whereas lowly Auro-3D has a VOG speaker middle and center so 'overhead' means over in the center of the room for EVERYONE (it also uses the heights so it tracks forward/backward if you only have one VOG). I think Dolby wasn't thinking too well about such things, but then they seem to position their overhead speakers towards the middle of the theater (Lc/Rc) rather than the L/R positions perhaps for that very reason. I've certainly noticed with my side heights that Atmos tends to image off to the sides a lot whereas if they were further in overhead they'd probably seem more centered up there, but then that's relative too given where you seat is in a real theater. If you're near the left/right aisle, it's just going to sound monophonic towards the center anyway.

Now the bird in the "Conductor" demo does fly overhead on the ceiling from the left bed (or just above it) to the right high ceiling (in my room at least which has them one above the other). It really does sound like it took off from a small tree and flys across the ceiling. I would have preferred to hear a bird fly as you say up and down and around as it goes to show the three dimensional precision off, but even the Atmos demos don't seem to show off the true capability very well, IMO. In fact, they seem to use the ceiling speakers for things like thunder/rain in most of the demos when they could have done some whacky stuff to really show off the new ceiling speakers, which in a home environment is going to be the "big" difference with Atmos.

I've got TEN Auro-3D movies and seven of them I have in Atmos also. Auro-3D in 10.1/11.1 is pretty much akin to Atmos 5.1.4 and 13.1 is closer to 7.1.4, but since I extract my top middles if I put the auro speakers as rears and then extract to top middle, it actually sounds very close to Atmos 7.1.4 (minus the rear beds). I can also do 'true' Auro-3D with side heights only (speaker selector switch) or mirror the rears with the sides like an Auro 11.1 theater would do (they also mirror the sides as rears). Comparing movies in both formats, the 'exteneded' Auro-3dD version of say Blade Runner 2049 sounded extremely similar to Atmos. And if I shrunk Atmos down to 5.1.4 (easy to do here as well using the speaker selector, moving rear heights to side height with no rear beds), it sounds oddly JUST like the Auro-3D presentation (I mean like identical as I don't have CH/TS).

So at home in a smallish setup, is Atmos really doing anything "different" from a channel based system? IMO, no it's not. It's only when you go to larger rooms with more speakers does it start to become apparently beyond the ceiling speakers. But then even DTS:X Pro can image 32.2 speakers with a mere 7.1.4 channel input (by extracting channels in-between the far corner limits) thus proving that Atmos didn't 'need' to be object based either. They could have split channels and achieved the same thing at home. The theater versions would probably need objects as there are twice as many channels, but then it could have driven 14.1.8 and split it just as easily for 64.x.20 or whatever).

I guess I'm saying that the CONCEPT of objects is cool, but the effect is still rendered to channels and since you can split channels in the middle evenly, you get the identical effect as long as you have enough discrete channels to begin with.

Now if Atmos could adapt itself to "odd speaker arrangements" then yes, objects would both be 'needed' and obvious how they're cool. But Atmos doesn't go that far. It EXPECTS a symmetrical layout with boundaries that are still basically a rectangle with all the additional speakers at even mid-points between. So is it really any different in practice than DTS:X at the theater? Not really.
 
E

Erod

Audioholic
I tend to agree. These days I either use 1. NeuralX, 2. Atmos, or 3. DTSX.

I don’t use DSU.
I'm the opposite.

DSU seems accurate and appropriate. DTS NeuralX is overtly aggressive and puts sound in the wrong channels at times.
 
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