[philovivero]

Someone else posted this down in the bottom of a comment thread somewhere, but I think it deserves to be at the top level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dw3aKbw5Wo

This is a smart, motivated audio engineer talking about Atmos. Quick summary: it's awful when it works perfectly, and it almost never works perfectly, in fact, it rarely works at all. Good luck trying to get Atmos working, and even if this was a completely open standard, would you really bother?

[pnw]

I've had an Atmos system for a few years and it works great for movies, both on 4k disc and streaming services. Almost all of the Apple TV+ content is Atmos encoded. The $500 system in that video is entry level Atmos, my system is 5.2.4 and cost a substantial amount of money.

I agree that games support could be better but that's mostly up to publishers. As for music, I've tried it and it's fine but it's mostly a gimmick for selling remasters of established artists IMHO. Tidal has a lot of Atmos music content. It seems he was trying to use Amazon Music and Amazon is notorious for not supporting Dolby standards because of the cost.

I've worked in audio professionally and software I created is used in lots of movies and music.

[jwagenet]

Perhaps you’re right his $700 unit is not set up correctly or insufficient, but the point is it seems the speaker (and headphones he tried) are basically what you might end up with if you don’t have a high budget and do a fair bit of research: the end result is disappointing and would turn people off of the technology.

[viraptor]

Feels like, if you can't get a person who understands the tech to buy the equipment and get it running correctly, there's something very wrong with this system. I get that even experienced people can make mistakes (I sure made many in my field), but if that's a specifically researched content for publication... you tend to be careful with those.

[pnw]

I think Dolby's desire to market the Atmos brand is unfortunately beyond what the tech can deliver. Atmos works great for people willing to invest in a high end system, especially for the right content, but it's diminishing returns on entry level systems and headphones.

[goosinmouse]

I'm an audio engineer who has dabbled in atmos when it started getting popular and most of what he says i completely agree with. On a personal level, i have never found any spatial mix of any song or recording over the original mix.

[raffraffraff]

I enjoyed the quad mix of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. I found that separating some of the sounds over 4 speakers helped clarify them. This works because there's so much going on in that album, so many sampled sounds throughout the album like the snippets of conversations. The clocks at the start of Time were great. I listened to the whole thing sitting in the middle of my living room with my eyes closed. It was extremely absorbing and enjoyable.

99% of the time I listen to the regular mix though. I love music but I don't want to sit motionless in the dead center of an array of speakers. Music is a soundtrack to chopping onions, relaxing with a book, fixing my bike etc.

[ShadowBanThis01]

I have that SACD too, but the fact that they didn't ask Alan Parsons to do it seriously undermines its legitimacy. I mean... WTF?

I heard a rumor that there is in fact a Parsons-mastered surround mix in existence.

[raffraffraff]

It's on YouTube. Not sure if it's genuine, but that's the one I'm talking about.

Although I'm not sure I agree with you. Other human beings on planet earth are capable of remixing an album.

[ShadowBanThis01]

Yes, I should simply say that it made me less excited about it.

Meanwhile, I enjoy Steven Wilson's surround mix of XTC's Nonsuch (except the first track, in which the vocals are oddly messed up).

[raffraffraff]

Oh, I'll have to listen to that!

[klodolph]

Another take from an audio engineer… this one only 3 minutes.

https://www.tiktok.com/@greazywilmusic/video/722394591746289...

(I know HN is allergic to Twitter, so I worry that some people are gonna go into anaphylactic shock if I post a TikTok link.)

[SECProto]

summary of that, from 1:22: "For watching a movie, in a movie theater/in an appropriate speaker setup, shit is awesome. Love it for movies, it's so cool. But for music, it has not, and will not, ever take off."

[basisword]

>> This is a smart, motivated audio engineer talking about Atmos. Quick summary: it's awful when it works perfectly, and it almost never works perfectly, in fact, it rarely works at all. Good luck trying to get Atmos working, and even if this was a completely open standard, would you really bother?

I hope he had more to say than that, because that’s nonsense. Getting it “working” is as simple as playing it on Apple Music via my AirPods or Sonos. There are definitely bad mixes available, but there are some incredible ones too. Listening to “Let It Be” on the Sonos is magical.

I’ve also done some mixing in Atmos and it’s pretty straightforward.

At the end of the day it’s largely subjective, but I’m pretty certain it’s the future - especially now Sonos has stated releasing single devices that can play Atmos to a pretty good standard, and most new major label releases are mixed in Atmos.

[Intermernet]

"I hope he had more to say than that"

Yes, he did. A lot. I suggest you watch the video. He goes into how Atmos isn't anything new, it's not unique, how it's a basic money grab, how it would be better as an open standard, how Atmos is fine if you like it (as music listening is purely subjective), how remixes of music in Atmos are generally objectively terrible (and, in most cases, not what the artist would have wanted) and a lot more.

Benn Jordan tries very hard to be unbiased and well researched in almost everything he presents. For him to come to the conclusion that Atmos isn't really worth the cost barrier to entry is something I (and many others) will take into account. I'd say Dolby Labs would also do well to take it into account, but they don't have a very good track record with listening to valuable criticism. When it comes to criticism, their noise reduction is perhaps too effective.

It's also worth noting that they love re-inventing surround sound and charging licensing fees for the privilege to put a badge on your product ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby#Dolby_surround_systems ).

IMHO Atmos is the 3D TV of audio, except it could be good if it was an open standard.

FYI, as far as I can tell, Apple (and most others) are delivering Atmos in lossy formats. These may be good, but they aren't by any means state of the art for multi-channel. Server side de-muxing of spatial audio to the required number of channels would mean less overall processing (channel combos could be cached) and higher quality delivery using open standards (multi-channel FLAC supports up to 8 channels, and it's an open format which would allow easy extension). This would be better for the consumer (bandwidth is not an argument in these days of 4K+ video streaming), arguably better for the artists and publishers (better quality audio to the consumer), but it wouldn't make anywhere near as much money in licensing for Dolby.

[squeaky-clean]

Some folks here may know Benn Jordan better by his pseudonym The Flashbulb.

[pixelpoet]

Ace guy too, besides his really good music.

[bob1029]

I have a hard enough time keeping the sweet spot locked in with my stereo/studio setups. The day I get bored with 2 channels, I'll reach for more.

A proper soundstage with a high-end stereo loudspeaker setup will typically make the best multichannel kits sound like shit by comparison. Achieving this is about physical location of speakers and compensation for any time-delay in the signal chain. Clearly, getting 2 things positioned well in space/time is much simpler than 5+.

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

2.1 or 2.2 is sufficient for nearly all music, but for almost no modern cinema.

The primary mix for movies is basically mono, with sound effects sprinkled around you. If you want a chance to make sense of the dialogue, you really need a good center channel aligned with the center of the screen. The stereo downmixes almost universally suck because they don't boost the center channel enough before splitting it to the left and right speakers.

[justinclift]

> The day I get bored with 2 channels, I'll reach for more.

Heh Heh Heh

If you like BladeRunner 2049, have a go at watching it in stereo vs higher # of channels.

It has exceptionally well done 5.1/7.1 audio, which makes a huge difference in its listening experience.

I only have a 7.1 setup though, so no practical experience with Atmos. :)

[bob1029]

I've watched this one several times on my stereo setup. I don't think the multichannel mix would provide a meaningfully-different experience.

The most important part of the BR2049 audio experience for me lives below 100hz. I don't need that .1 to feel what you are feeling. I have a DSP engine that siphons everything <60Hz off my stereo channels and feeds it into a quarter ton worth of subwoofer. Once you have this movie running flat down to 12Hz, your "multichannel effects" will be produced by the structure you are watching it in.

[globular-toast]

99% of that is the high dynamic range and presence of a proper subwoofer. Surround adds maybe 1% to the experience. Try it.

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

Nah, you can't easily dynamically downmix surround sound audio to stereo. In the main mix, the dialog mostly comes through the center channel, and the left and right surround sound speakers are used for sound effects. If you simply split the center channel to left and right without massively boosting the volume of the center channel first, you're going to have stupidly loud sound effects (from the L/R surround sound speakers) and the dialogue will sound like whispers. If you're playing the movie from a PC, you can boost the center channel audio with software, but sometimes (e.g. when a character is off-screen) dialogue will come from the left or right channels and you won't be able to clearly hear them.

If you've got a stereo speaker setup, there's no good solution unless you can get your hands on the actual official stereo mix (some streaming services let you select this), but even the official stereo mix is an afterthought cobbled together by some overworked and underpaid audio engineer: the primary mix is absolutely the theatrical mix with all the surround sound channels, then everything is downmixed progressively from there.

[globular-toast]

I've had no problems with downmixed surround on stereo speakers. Never had a problem with dialogue, not once. And I've watched basically every notable English-language film that's come out in my lifetime.

I didn't say anything about a centre speaker, though. A centre speaker is useful when you have a large screen and people will be sitting outside of the sweet spot. You don't have to be far outside the sweet spot before you lose the ghost centre channel. But you can still get really far without a centre channel and it's much easier because the ideal position is behind the screen which is hard to achieve (requires an acoustically transparent projector screen). The ghost centre channel is always behind the screen, though. Some AVRs even include an option to "lift" the centre channel by mixing it into the L/R to account for the common suboptimal below-screen positioning of the centre speaker. I've never tried it, though.

Nobody has ever heard my stereo set ups and commented on lack of surround speakers. And when I did have surround speakers nobody ever commented on them. Nobody ever couldn't hear the dialogue. They were always impressed with the bass and dynamic range.

For me, the diminishing returns are something like this (specifically for film soundtracks):

- 60%: Good stereo speakers (preferably full-range, down to 60Hz),

- 80%: Quiet environment and ability to listen with full dynamic range at close to reference SPLs (ie. no kids, no neighbours annoying you or you annoying them),

- 90%: Good subwoofer to add the actual sub-bass material (down to 20Hz),

- 99%: Good LCR set up (ie. centre matched to the L/R speakers),

Leaving 1% for anything extra like surrounds etc. It's just really silly to add surrounds before getting the huge gains above.

[bob1029]

> Leaving 1% for anything extra like surrounds etc. It's just really silly to add surrounds before getting the huge gains above.

This advice would save so much headache for so many nerds. The juice is simply not worth the squeeze unless that whole checklist is already satisfied and you are still not blown away.

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

I'd adjust the percentages a bit, but I actually agree with your 5 points, and their order.

[justinclift]

Interesting. I do have a decent subwoofer, so maybe that's done more than I was thinking.

That being said, there's no way I'd do away with the subwoofer. That has turned out to be the #1 best sound upgrade I've done thus far. :)

[globular-toast]

The stupid thing is people listen to Atmos stuff on terrible speakers. Like soundbars with upfiring speakers. Tiny, whimpy little drivers that are tuned to make it sound like you have "bass". It's a shame because if people just set up a decent stereo system it would blow those systems away.

Even if you have a decent system (that's going to cost thousands, a good room and modification of said room) the gains are tiny outside of a few gimmicky demos. In a home environment you really don't need anything more than front speakers. Surrounds do not add anything. Save your money and buy a bigger screen.

[zirgs]

Many soundbars also come with separate subwoofers - that's where the bass is coming from.

[fxtentacle]

In my opinion, the problem is not Atmos, it's the lack of head-tracking. That's why it can sound awesome on a calibrated surround speaker setup but usually fails to deliver on headphones.

I once built a wwise plugin that allows you to play Atmos and the likes on a Oculus with proper Headphone Surround 3D and everyone agreed that it was fantastic. But those consumer $0.01 ASICs integrated into mainboards obviously can't compete with a solution that has more sensors and GHz of compute available.

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

Don't Apple headphones/earbuds have spatial audio headtracking enabled by default? I think it even works with Apple TV (not just phones/laptops)

[fxtentacle]

Yes, and some people love it. But the AirPods don't have enough processing power so they need to send the measurements to the host via bluetooth and then the adjusted audio is sent back later. The result is 200+ ms of latency on the head-tracking which is much larger than the perception threshold at 30ms.

[basisword]

I don’t notice any latency issue generally. But, if you change your heads “default position” (i.e. instead of looking forward most of the time you’re now looking out the window next to you most of the time) it does take quite a few seconds to readjust and find the middle.

[Angostura]

I've got a couple of the original Apple HomePods set up in stereo config, and I have to say it sounds pretty good. I'm not an audiophile, but I have friends who are and they are impressed with the sound.

[crazygringo]

Is there a text version or summary? I can't spend 24 minutes watching.

Atmos on my AirPods seems to work just fine, but I guess I'm curious if I'm missing something?

[recursive]

If you feel like it's working no one can tell you anything else. But Airpods also work fine without Atmos, so it's not really an improvement.

The over-simplification is that Atmos doesn't improve music, and rarely works. And Atmos through stereo headphones is a non-sensical premise.

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

> Atmos through stereo headphones is a non-sensical premise

If you watch atmos content through an apple tv it has head tracking for airpods. It's not going to change your life, but the audio being centered on the actual screen a la a proper surround sound setup is a nice touch.

[crazygringo]

Exactly this. There's nothing "nonsensical" about it. It's a distinction anyone can perceive.

Now, whether you care about is personal preference. But it's definitely a real thing.

[recursive]

I thought Atmos is an n-channel audio encoding thing bundled with an ideal room setup.

Head tracking is interesting. I hadn't heard of it, at least as an Atmos thing.

But it doesn't seem to have anything to do the source media encoding. Head tracking seems like it would work with a mono source.

[TX81Z]

Atmos on headphones is negligible, but on a surround sound system it can be awesome. Eno isn’t a fool.