The Dolby Atmos Home Theater Paradox

[William Lemmerhirt]

I'm ordering a mic from Mark Seaton, if it's good enough for him then it's good enough for me.

Couldn't agree more!

 

[yepimonfire]

Below about 100hz I wouldn't trust a laptop mic, or it's orientation. Klipschead, seems to me you investing in your gear is a priority, and accuracy is what you're after. Buy a mic, it's 50 bucks.
http://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-emm-6-electret-measurement-microphone--390-801
Btw, room looks great.

I would. I've had good results with pretty much any laptop so long as enhancements are disabled.

 

[William Lemmerhirt]

I would. I've had good results with pretty much any laptop so long as enhancements are disabled.

Ok. We'll agree to disagree then. If you're happy with the results keep going. My opinion is just different than yours.

 

[Auditor55]

I would say 99% of receiver owners don't use 50% of the features, doesn't mean they don't improve the experience. You are so focused on your opinion that you fail to recognize others. In mid to larger sized movie room it enhances my experience, it is not over the top. Smaller rooms it doesn't make sense, neither does 7.1 or 5.1 in some cases. It is all relative.

I know its been awhile, but I wanted to check back to take the temperature of Atmos and see if it has caught on as others have said it would.

To my observation, here over the midpoint of 2017, Atmos still remains an ultra-niche format as far as the home market is concerned. I strongly believe that is where it will remain at least until the next technological "superfluous" audio format is introduced to the home market and we all know that's going to happen.

Again, I would say, Atmos would probably be pretty cool set up in a dedicated theater room where there is space for all the speakers and amps to do Atmos right, especially for someone just deciding to get into home theater. However, that's the few, the ultra-niche.

 

[Cos]

I know its been awhile, but I wanted to check back to take the temperature of Atmos and see if it has caught on as others have said it would.

To my observation, here over the midpoint of 2017, Atmos still remains an ultra-niche format as far as the home market is concerned. I strongly believe that is where it will remain at least until the next technological "superfluous" audio format is introduced to the home market and we all know that's going to happen.

Again, I would say, Atmos would probably be pretty cool set up in a dedicated theater room where there is space for all the speakers and amps to do Atmos right, especially for someone just deciding to get into home theater. However, that's the few, the ultra-niche.

You are a master of redundancy LOL, you are definitely entitled to your option and I will choose to disagree with you. Btw, Atmos is pretty cool in a dedicated home theater room.

 

[RichB]

Atmos is attractive to those with real home-theaters, many with projectors.

Dolby Vision is emerging and as an OLED owner, I can say it is a great addition. There is no Dolby Vision for projectors since the luminance varies with lamp age. Laser should change that.

In the meantime, there is something for everyone

- Rich

 

[yepimonfire]

Atmos is attractive to those with real home-theaters, many with projectors.

Dolby Vision is emerging and as an OLED owner, I can say it is a great addition. There is no Dolby Vision for projectors since the luminance varies with lamp age. Laser should change that.

In the meantime, there is something for everyone

- Rich

At the same time, new 7.2 receivers come standard with atmos, and more and note blurays are being released with it. Add on modules, while not quite as good as overhead speakers, still work, especially ones with good directivity. In the same way first reflections across the front stage make the sound stage wider, reflections off the ceiling make it higher, especially when the SPL of those reflections is higher than the direct sound. I really don't see it being a niche.

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[RichB]

I am not a fan of up-firing bouncing speakers that use analog crossover notch filters. IMO, this was a low point for Dolby.

Star Trek Into Darkness UHD came with a new Atmos track which sounds better on my 7.1 system. For example, when chased by spear throwing natives, the spears whoosh sound moves better from front to back on the new mix.

- Rich

 

[panteragstk]

I think some have a bit of a misconception when it comes to Atmos. This thread has a lot of talk about dedicated theaters and using more speakers, but Atmos is a audio codec that happens to support more speakers. I'm pretty sure every or 90% of new receivers support Atmos at this point.

Just because you have Atmos doesn't mean you have to have tons of speakers. So it isn't really a niche product unless you're referring to the tons of speakers aspect, then yes it is. So are dedicated theaters.

Atmos as a whole isn't going anywhere.

 

[Auditor55]

I think some have a bit of a misconception when it comes to Atmos. This thread has a lot of talk about dedicated theaters and using more speakers, but Atmos is a audio codec that happens to support more speakers. I'm pretty sure every or 90% of new receivers support Atmos at this point.

Just because you have Atmos doesn't mean you have to have tons of speakers. So it isn't really a niche product unless you're referring to the tons of speakers aspect, then yes it is. So are dedicated theaters.

Atmos as a whole isn't going anywhere.

Bottomline, Atmos was planned obsolescence, but I don't believe it worked. I would like to see some hard numbers. I don't believe that many people junked their existing receivers for Atmos equipped receivers.

Atmos was introduced to the consumer market to get people buy new equipment, plain and simple. Why even bother with Atmos if you're not going to do it right.

Yeah, Atmos might not be going anywhere, however it will remain as an ultra niche format.
I prefer that A/V receivers have better amps than some new, unnecessary sound format, remember, sound is only 50 percent of the movie experience, however Dolby is trying make sound the primary reasons for going to see a movie.

 

[panteragstk]

Bottomline, Atmos was planned obsolescence, but I don't believe it worked. I would like to see some hard numbers. I don't believe that many people junked their existing receivers for Atmos equipped receivers.

Atmos was introduced to the consumer market to get people buy new equipment, plain and simple. Why even bother with Atmos if you're not going to do it right.

Yeah, Atmos might not be going anywhere, however it will remain as an ultra niche format.
I prefer that A/V receivers have better amps than some new, unnecessary sound format, remember, sound is only 50 percent of the movie experience, however Dolby is trying make sound the primary reasons for going to see a movie.

I think you're mixing up what I said. Atmos isn't one thing, it's two.

One is the audio codec found on blu-ray and UHD blu-ray discs (as well as digital theater mediums). This is what all new and upcoming receivers support. This is agnostic to speaker layouts and isn't going anywhere. It is Dolby's new codec and will probably be used quite a bit. It is also backward compatible with Dolby TrueHD so older equipment can still get high quality audio.

The second part is Atmos speaker layouts. This is the niche you are referring to, and I agree. Very few people including movie theaters are going to adopt this speaker format. It's a gimmick to an extent, but is supposedly very cool. My theater will have a full Atmos speaker installation.

Those that don't feel the need to go beyond 5.1 can still enjoy Atmos if they want. Those that have older equipment that doesn't support Atmos are still good as well. So the codec side isn't going to go anywhere. We may see receiver manufacturers stop making 11ch capable receivers, but I doubt it. It's not like DSX. That was a gimmick at best and almost no receiver includes it any longer.

 

[2channel lover]

Bottomline, Atmos was planned obsolescence, but I don't believe it worked. I would like to see some hard numbers. I don't believe that many people junked their existing receivers for Atmos equipped receivers.

Atmos was introduced to the consumer market to get people buy new equipment, plain and simple. Why even bother with Atmos if you're not going to do it right.

Yeah, Atmos might not be going anywhere, however it will remain as an ultra niche format.
I prefer that A/V receivers have better amps than some new, unnecessary sound format, remember, sound is only 50 percent of the movie experience, however Dolby is trying make sound the primary reasons for going to see a movie.

Ultra niche...I agree.

Dolby...I think they're trying to enhance the audio experience of movies...the 3D visual format was kind of a bust, 3D audio as an option I think will stick...will it become as mainstream as 5.1? I think we'll see the Atmos chip on lower priced AVRs in the future, but it will most likely continue to be a niche. The bar has been raised for high end HT and imo that's what this is all about...pushing the envelope.

 

[Auditor55]

The bar has always been raised high for the high end, sometimes ridiculously too high.

I see the quality of A/V receivers going down in exchange for new fangled technologies.

I remember my old B&K A/V receiver, it was built like a tank, you didn't need separate amps with it. Now todays receivers are like toys, however they do have Dolby Atmos, Hi-Res, DTS-X, etc. with the exception of Dolby Atmos, the other two are virtually useless, yet they drive up the price of receivers.

Again, I rather pay extra for better amps and more advanced auto-calibration than usound modes.

 

[panteragstk]

The bar has always been raised high for the high end, sometimes ridiculously too high.

I see the quality of A/V receivers going down in exchange for new fangled technologies.

I remember my old B&K A/V receiver, it was built like a tank, you didn't need separate amps with it. Now todays receivers are like toys, however they do have Dolby Atmos, Hi-Res, DTS-X, etc. with the exception of Dolby Atmos, the other two are virtually useless, yet they drive up the price of receivers.

Again, I rather pay extra for better amps and more advanced auto-calibration than usound modes.

Agree on the quality aspect. I used an Onkyo 805 back in the day at work and that sucker was 7ch and weighed close to 60 lbs. My 809 weighs 47 with the same number of channels. My new denon 4300h is something like 37 with two extra channels. They are skimping on the PSU for sure.

 

[yepimonfire]

99% of HT receivers were already capable of playback at 24/192 anyways, so it's not really a new feature.

Just going based off bench tests from AH and sound and vision, it seems denon and Yamaha are probably the worst offenders as far as lousy amp performance, I have yet to see an onkyo fail to meet its specifies rating, even in multichannel tests within 80%, but then again, they dropped audyssey in favor of their disastrous accueq, allowing them to use less powerful processing chips (both atmos and audyssey are fairly taxing).

I don't know if atmos is the cause of lousier power supplies, receivers have been going downhill way before atmos.

The major gripe I have is $2k+ flagship receivers showing crappy bench results on the amp section, that's just inexcusable. Makes you wonder where that extra cash is going, i highly doubt a few more transistors, preouts, inputs etc. for 9.1 vs 7.1 justifies an extra $1200 if the amp section isn't getting a significant upgrade. It's not that manufacturers can't get decent performance with 9-11 channels.

Either way, I personally feel atmos is about as big of an improvement as discrete 5.1. Object based audio that can move along 3 dimensions just sounds so much more realistic than 5.1 or 7.1, and much of the attempt to matrix height channels (PLIIz and Neo X) suck in comparison to the real thing.
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[RichB]

Again, I rather pay extra for better amps and more advanced auto-calibration than usound modes.

Yeah but we have to pay extra for them to remove the amps

- Rich

 

[Auditor55]

99% of HT receivers were already capable of playback at 24/192 anyways, so it's not really a new feature.

Just going based off bench tests from AH and sound and vision, it seems denon and Yamaha are probably the worst offenders as far as lousy amp performance, I have yet to see an onkyo fail to meet its specifies rating, even in multichannel tests within 80%, but then again, they dropped audyssey in favor of their disastrous accueq, allowing them to use less powerful processing chips (both atmos and audyssey are fairly taxing).

I don't know if atmos is the cause of lousier power supplies, receivers have been going downhill way before atmos.

The major gripe I have is $2k+ flagship receivers showing crappy bench results on the amp section, that's just inexcusable. Makes you wonder where that extra cash is going, i highly doubt a few more transistors, preouts, inputs etc. for 9.1 vs 7.1 justifies an extra $1200 if the amp section isn't getting a significant upgrade. It's not that manufacturers can't get decent performance with 9-11 channels.

Either way, I personally feel atmos is about as big of an improvement as discrete 5.1. Object based audio that can move along 3 dimensions just sounds so much more realistic than 5.1 or 7.1, and much of the attempt to matrix height channels (PLIIz and Neo X) suck in comparison to the real thing.
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I never bought into matrix like PLIIz and DTS-Neo for movies, although I will employ them on older movies and some Indy films with only stereo sound tracks. However , I do find that they work well for music listening.

I remember the first time I heard sound on top my head from an Atmos demo, I thought it was kind of gimmicky. Having said that, again, If I was building a system from the ground up, with a dedicated room, I would go Atmos all the way. I don't have a problem with 3 dimensional sounds, I just don't like what you have to do in order to get it right. For example, I have always been skeptical in ceiling speakers. How are they going to match my mains. Also, those awful speakers that shoot sounds up to ceilings, that Gene talked about, I would never purchase.

BTW, they finally installed a Dolby Cinema room in my neighborhood, can't wait for something worth watching to go see. I really feel that Dolby Atmos is better suited for the commercial theater. Some systems were not meant for the home. So glad you can't do IMAX in the home.

 

[Auditor55]

Agree on the quality aspect. I used an Onkyo 805 back in the day at work and that sucker was 7ch and weighed close to 60 lbs. My 809 weighs 47 with the same number of channels. My new denon 4300h is something like 37 with two extra channels. They are skimping on the PSU for sure.

Yes they are skimping.

 

[panteragstk]

So glad you can't do IMAX in the home.

Or can you?

 

[yepimonfire]

I never bought into matrix like PLIIz and DTS-Neo for movies, although I will employ them on older movies and some Indy films with only stereo sound tracks. However , I do find that they work well for music listening.

I remember the first time I heard sound on top my head from an Atmos demo, I thought it was kind of gimmicky. Having said that, again, If I was building a system from the ground up, with a dedicated room, I would go Atmos all the way. I don't have a problem with 3 dimensional sounds, I just don't like what you have to do in order to get it right. For example, I have always been skeptical in ceiling speakers. How are they going to match my mains. Also, those awful speakers that shoot sounds up to ceilings, that Gene talked about, I would never purchase.

BTW, they finally installed a Dolby Cinema room in my neighborhood, can't wait for something worth watching to go see. I really feel that Dolby Atmos is better suited for the commercial theater. Some systems were not meant for the home. So glad you can't do IMAX in the home.

PLIIz kinda sucked. Neo: X was actually a great decoder considering the fact it was a matrix decoder. I personally think Dolby Surround is a much bigger improvement. Neural:X works great with multichannel content but is a comb filtering unstable mess with 2ch content. I feel like DSU upmixes both movies and music, stereo or multichannel, in a completely natural sounding way, in fact it works so well that I find I hard to listen to music in stereo anymore.

I think we both agree on the shortcomings of in ceiling speakers, but that’s only one option. Front height, especially when combined with rear height, works very well. Bookshelf speakers can be mounted to the ceiling using an omnimount, Dolby recommends a dispersion pattern of 90 degrees from 200hz-10khz for home installations. I can’t comment on speakers I haven’t owned, but I know that Klipsch Reference (cheap kind) and the Reference Premier have a dispersion pattern of 90 degrees all the way out to 14khz, and therefore should be able to be mounted facing straight down. My setup includes a pair of Klipsch RB-10s mounted slightly in front of the mlp in line with the front speakers, aimed slightly at the listening position. I have no issues with not being able to achieve the same dynamics as the fronts.

Other options include wall mounting the speakers on the side walls, while not ideal, it should work out nicely. I don’t really buy into the upfiring speakers, yes, they do add some vertical ambiance to the soundstage, but they really do seem like a gimmick.

Atmos demos definitely sound overemphasized, but every atmos mix I’ve heard in real movies sounds very good, and I truly believe adding a vertical dimension to the sound stage brings reproduction that much closer to real life. The improvement is nearly as big as discrete 5.1 was from Dolby stereo.


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