Is Dolby Atmos a meme?
Stereo audio is all you need, surround is just speaker jew bullshit
>>108554057I was perfectly happy recording FM radio onto C60 cassette tapes and playing them back to listen to what I wanted when I wanted in the 70s.It was good times.
>>108554057>>1085542385.1 is amazing it just works andhas wide game and media support, this tech peaked about 2010 and really has not improved since like much else
real 5.1 and 7.1 is amazing but also:-extremely hard to achieve true lossless TrueHD standard. you will need pure copper wires, extremely expensive amp, very high end nvidia shield pro (at minimum) or good computer.- very very very challenging to get media that actually has a TrueHD track, configuring passthrough is usually fucking HELL, have to mess with ffdshow etc-even after you spent a week setting up everything you now realize that maybe 30 movies exist with actually decent worthwile surround, let alone atmos 7.1 mixing.I had a trueHD 5.1 setup, am a big movie nerd and was honestly impressed by like 5 movies, even in those only a handful of scenes are actually cool. And the tradeoff of having to tinker with the center channel level ALL THE FUCKING TIME because some movies dialogues are WAY TOO FUCKING LOW is just not worth it. Since then I have sold my entire surround setup and HDR+DV 4K TV and I now watch movies on a chink projector connected to two JBL TLX speakers from 1995. Honestly it's good enough(tm), only thing worthwhile is active subwoofer and that costs like 30$.
>>108554057prologic was good enough for your grandpappy, and it's good enough for you.
>>108554057No its amazing, if you care about audio immersion its on a different level. And it uses some black magic to give your old stereo music you're bored of a fresh new mix.
>>108554238>I'm an expert on tech I'm too poor to affordClassic Kruger
Dolby Atmos works with objects, right?So i could in theory selectively turn down the volume of one person and turn up another?Like if there is a sports competition and they have a female commentator, i can mute her selectively?If someone uses this technology to implement an "Mute all Women" button, i would buy it instantly.
>>1085542385.1 is required simply so you can tune the volume of every speaker, mainly the center channel. This eliminates the effect where you can't hear shit and then the effects/music is 140dB.
>>108555407>make a virtual 5.1 soundcard in voicemeeter >downmix to stereo with whatever boosts you need in equalizer apoYou're welcome.
>>108555494i use a virtual 5.1 card that mixes to dolby analog so i can sneak proper surround from the stereo line out instead.
>>108554057Only one sub.Dolby is amateur hour.
>>108554057Sounds great with headphones
>>108554057need vertically placed speakers for true 3d (not 2d) sound
>>108554057I installed atmos for a while and yes it is a massive fucking memedoes it sound good? yes. is it just a shill marketing name for 9.1 or 11.1 surround sound? yep absolutely for spatial audio in a theater setting more speakers and directions is always better, but its not a magic bullet and definitely not much better than 7.1. >>108554238only true for headphones
>>108554057Yes. You have two ears. Two speakers is all you need.
high end audio is a fucking memeany dollar spent over the cost of a basic big box store 5.1 setup is wasted and should've gone towards getting a better tv
>>108554057all movies worth watching were recorded in stereo or even mono. i can't imagine the depravity and mental retardation that would compel someone to invest in a dozen speakers just to listen and watch to 7.1.4 capeshit or whatever the fuck.
>>108555494That doesn't help those that watch movies/tv shows on streaming, cable, or physical disc.
>>108556488You ever wonder why you can still hear when you cup your ears?
>>108554411I had 5.1 when I was 15 and playing xbox360 with it was incredible. Surround sound in videogames is the greatest. You get true directional sound of who is coming and from where and better immersion in open world games. It's a competitive edge and it's a huge upgrade for single player large scale games.
>>108554057I went to a training course with a sound engineer who mixes in Dolby Atmos. He made us listen to one of his tracks and I found it pretty interesting but also pretty niche.I see the appeal with cinema, but less with music. The dude's music was "progressive acid techno" so it didn't feel gimmicky and it did sound cinematic and interesting, but I wouldn't do that to all genres and all music... In cinema or videogames I guess it's a lot more interesting.
>>108556532Anon surround sound has existed since the late 70s. The 1982 The Thing had a 6 track 4.1 surround sound for example. Unless you're only watching pre 70s movies only they had surround sound for years. And then there wouldn't even be a point to surround sound since most movies were essentially just teleplays that were more dialog driven than physical action. But if a movie like Jason and the Argonauts COULD have had surround sound you bet they would have put it in. Besides that, they have mixed many movies like that to add it in. Not every movie was just people standing in a room talking even though most were back then.
>>108557599I personally like large band music that would benefit from it. I like things like Jamiroquai or Doobie Brothers where that are frequently a ton of instruments and the stereo mixes do frequently sound super compressed. Although some of that is because Jamiroquai originally preferred single room full band recording on dynamic mics that just kind of sound like muddy shit anyway. But having the separation of instruments so I can hear everything including the latin percussion separated to another channel would be incredible. Pure electronic music sounds stupid for that desu. But for hearing all the sections or instruments separated would be really cool on big pop arrangements.
all one needs is this everything else is a meme! perfect for movies and music easy to move, want to experience the surround meme just detach the side speakers
>>108555025>No its amazing, if you care about audio immersion its on a different level. And it uses some black magic to give your old stereo music you're bored of a fresh new mix.try concert DVDs with 5.1>>108554411I use a pioneer, it has a calibration microphone for setup. do it once and done a large number of movies an games from ~2005 to 2015 support it>>108555025>No its amazing, if you care about audio immersion its on a different level.this
>>108554057Have you ever set one of these up with Audyssey? Such a small microphone yet it somehow knows all the acoustics in the room. Marvelous really.
Properly calibrated surround sound systems are amazing, but most people don't calibrate them correctly or have horrible sound treatment in the room.
>>108557741Sound bars are disgusting. Buy a receiver/amp and speakers so you can replace and upgrade individually.
>>108557680Yeah you're not wrong. I never thought of that, I'm a brainlet, it would definitely sound great indeed. However I fear that the gimmick of Dolby Atmos would take the lead over the quality of the composition. That's all I had in mind when bro made us listen to his track, that it would sound gimmicky if the composition didn't justify mixing it that way. It wasn't *umpf umpf* techno mind you, it was atmospheric and progressive in a way that justified its mixing.And the big part of the problem is you don't mix in Dolby Atmos the same way you mix in stereo. You need to have two separate mixes. So you need to invest in the technology both for mixing and diffusing your tracks, and right now it's just a gimmick in music. Spotify doesn't give a fuck about surround, I don't even know if CDs can handle a multi-channel file format...But! for some experiences it's definitely better in Dolby Atmos.
>>108554057if youre siuing in one exact spot all the time and never move your head its perfect
>>108555382It has a bed layer and an object layer, the object layer is mapped with XYZ coordinates so that it different speaker configurations can be used and objects can be placed in 3D space regardless. In the end, the processor doesn't allow for individual objects to be lowered or raised, just placed, and generally the vocals are mixed on the bedlayer anyways
>>108557847I prefer Dirac, but yes.
>>108558344What happens if I move my head?
>>108554057It does sound pretty great but if you're under 50 chances are you'll never have any place where you could install a full atmos setup anyways.
>>108555034It's like someone on /o/ saying any car made after 2000 is shitThat said I have a sound bar with surround speakers and it's pretty good. I'm not an audio autist though.
>>108554411I use some old 90s(?) Sony surround system I got for free from a friend's family. No complicated setup, plug and play, but 99% of content doesn't go beyond stereo so I realized surround is a meme. It is cool when you are watching that 1%.Headphones are better for non-movie content anyway, and games actually use 3D audio.
>>108561133>plug and playain't no wayyou have to coax newer hardware to choose analog surround track or manually remix to ye olde prologic matrix encoded stereo, otherwise you're just giving it something downmixed to plain stereo that it can't do jack with. granted a lot of music isn't in surround and you're just supposed to use the local equivalent of hall mode, but if you're not getting surround on twitch streams or whatever you dun fucked up.
>>108554057I currently have a cheap set of Jamo 5.1 speakers an a Pioneer VSX-932.The centre speaker is very underwhelming so I'm planning on buying an actually good speaker setup. Picrel is made in Australia and costs an extra $200 for the two Atmos ceiling speakers. Great value if they sound as good as people say, because speakers are very expensive here for some reason. I have an NVIDIA shield and everything plays through Plex so I've never had to tinker with anything. The amp tuned itself with a mic and it has "auto surround" which reads the input channels and automatically matches the output. I'm chasing that "full" sound you get from the cinema. I recently saw Project Hail Mary and it made me want to upgrade my sound.
>>108561553I think to reach that level you need to start looking into room treatment, using a regular living room only gets you so far
After i went to a Dolby Cinema for the first time last year, i will never go IMAX again. >inb4 liemaxNope, i always went to the BFi.
>>108561851I went to Imax in Melbourne for demon slayer and the screen was too big. Maybe it was because it was subbed or not made for IMAX, but it felt like I was looking around the screen too much.
>>108561851>BFiThey only use a single 4k laser projector, or 70mm IMAX which is only half of the current "high end" IMAX experience, or the older analog film IMAX that has pretty poor contrast ratio compared to Dolby Cinema.The dual 4k laser systems you get at the Empire Leicester Square IMAX or the Science Museum IMAX provide the higher contrast ratio that brings it closer to Dolby Cinema in the HDR quality.BFi also suffers from the problem that it's the largest IMAX screen in the UK, so the light from the single projector is spread out over a larger surface area, further degrading the contrast ratio.So yeah it's just handicapped compared to what IMAX can be at its best today.Dolby cinema uses the same dual 4k laser projectors (or very similar ones) but on (generally) smaller screen sizes so that light is projected in a smaller area and can give punchy bright highlights and HDR contrast.So yeah, Dolby Cinema will still normally be a bit brighter/punchier than even the best Dual Laser IMAX, but the best Dual laser IMAX will generally be larger than the biggest Dolby Cinema screens.Also dolby cinema screens aren't set up to handle the 1.43:1 aspect ratio that IMAX films will often use. Which requires them to crop in. Cutting off the top and bottom of an full frame IMAX image.
>>108554057I wouldn't say meme, just old.
>>108554057i have stereo and don't see why i would go past 2.1, or ideally 2.2.
>>108562084i went to the BFI when i was in london and the main problem i had with it is it was designed for fucking manlets my knees were literally jammed into the seats. i'm tall but not THAT tall. either way, for the occasional movie shot in IMAX that is 1.43:1 it's fun to go to an actual IMAX and see it, even if the Dolby looks a bit better generally speaking.
>>108562176there is a notable improvement of 5.1 over 2.1. You get rear panning for one thing, but if you are watching with more than one person on a couch 5.1 also adds a center channel which anchors the dialog even if you are sitting off axis. I would argue that 2.1(phantom center) is just as good as 3.1 if you're alone and sitting front and center, though. I agree with you that 2 subs is notably better than one, especially if strategically placed.
One of the underrated benefits of having a center channel is for watching sports because the announcer dialog is almost always carried on it. You can shut them up and watch the game without inane commentary by simply muting that channel. Lots of commercials also use the center channel for dialog, so that's an added bonus as the live nature of sports programming means time shifting to FF through advertisements isn't appealing.
>>108556858Sure it does. Just route it through voicemeeter first.
>>108558257>I don't even know if CDs can handle a multi-channel file formatCD has only two channels, and that will never change. Only BD supports Atmos, and "audio BDs" are actually a thing, but very niche.
>>108562338I remember cable channels glitching out once where you'd go to a network like ABC or FOX and you'd just get the primetime show that was on with just background music and sfx. The voices of the actors were completely muted.Didn't have a surround sound system, so it was kinda weird to have it default to what was likely the 5.1 track for those stations.This happened about 10 years ago and I don't remember it ever happening again, so who knows.
movie buff here>>108554411>you will need pure copper wires,meme>extremely expensive amp,meme, you only need something with proper sound calibration. something like a midrange Denon (3x00 and up) is good enough to do sound processing (however you need their mobile app to do calibration). beyond that you need semi-decent speakers and the biggest deal is you need to make sure your room has good acoustics. you can put together home made speakers with a 1990s amp and they'll blow the minds of everyone if your room has good acoustics; if it doesn't, the same setup will sound utter garbage. I know this because I've tried the same setups in different houses and rooms and got wildly different results.>very high end nvidia shield pro (at minimum) or good computer.complete fucking meme, all you need is to make sure your software player does bitstreaming output. the only thing that matters is if you have a high enough HDMI version for your target resolution, for ex. you can't do 4k from a hdmi 1.0 output.realistically, an intel n100 sbc can handle everything you want and run passively off a 19V DC PSU.>very very very challenging to get media that actually has a TrueHD track, configuring passthrough is usually fucking HELL, have to mess with ffdshow etcutter garbage, just get MPC-HC and turn on bitstreaming on the LAV audio filters. your amp will handle the rest, decode the atmos metadata from the truehd track and process the proper positions (assuming you've ran calibration on your amp).>having to tinker with the center channel level ALL THE FUCKING TIMEyeah that's annoying but it's not that bad. note that a good center speaker really will make a hell of a difference, I was coasting with crappy small ones for years and then got a proper one which made a huge difference.>even after you spent a week setting up everything you now realize that maybe 30 movies exist with actually decent worthwile surroundyeah but those sound so good that it's worth it.
>>108554057I have 2.1 Edifier S360DBit's enough for games music and movies.
>>108555382>Dolby Atmos works with objects, right?Sort of. What it does is have some 90+ sound channels all with 3d positioning, and each sound effect can use a different channel or position in 3d space. Then your amp computes the difference between that 3D model, and the positions of your speakers (as measured through calibration), and mixes the object to the appropriate channels at the appropriate volume, with the appropriate sound delay to account for distance. It's really the kind of 3d spatial audio we had in the early 2000s in games, just for movies.The good part of it is that it bridges the difference between sound mix and speaker configuration completely, so positioning wise it won't matter where you set up your speakers as long as there's one at every 60 degrees, plus some height channels.No, you can't mute individual objects, you don't have that much control over it. Dolby is keeping the specs tight, you need expensive mastering software to be able to see the 3d spatial positions, beyond the scope of AVRs and home software. But iirc there are some free decoders which kind of allow you to at least decode all the channels now.
>>108554057No, it's great. I have a 5.1.2 setup - switching to that from a (very good) 2.1 sound bar was like day and night, and did more to improve the watching and playing experience than switching from a mid LCD TV to a high end OLED.The two top Atmos speakers (the .2 in 5.1.2) are subtle most of the time, but in well mixed scenes where they are utilized they will make you shit bricks (like helicopters and napalm in the morning scene in Apocalypse Now).Best paired with a decent AV receiver and 4K player, and actual 4K disks, not rips and remuxes that you never know how fucked up they are or how your computer can play them right.
>>108557599>I see the appeal with cinema, but less with music.That's just because he made crap music. There are some multichannel music mixes which sound absolutely breathtaking and you won't want to go back to stereo after listening to them. Check Yello - Point, Kraftwerk - 3-D The Catalogue, Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon, Beatles - Love.Those are the reference mixes I always fall back to, especially the Yello album. That one is an exemplary mix, I've sold speaker sets with that one because it impresses everyone so much.Just look at picrel, it's the waveform of the album. Most albums barely add anything to the back channels let alone the height ones, this one can drive music through 15 channels. I really want to listen to this once in an Atmos demo room that has that many processed channels, my setup can only do 4 height speakers at most and I don't even have one yet.
>>108558257>I don't even know if CDs can handle a multi-channel file format...There used to be DTS CDs which had DTS encoded sound on the stereo channel. It would play white noise if you used analog out, but if you used optical/coax digital to a DTS equipped amp, it would decode the track to 5.1 channels.
>>108562772>What it does is have some 90+ sound channels all with 3d positioningTechnically, it has 10 "bed" tracks, these are fixed traditional 7.1.2 surround tracks. And then it has 118 "object" tracks, these are the individual mono audio tracks that can be positioned with X,Y,Z coordinates. Though if you want to get more technical you can also create object stereo pairs. Though they count as 2 objects so you're still limited in the same way to 118 total objects. But having stereo paired objects allows the mastering engineer to move the objects as a single object keeping the stereo positioning constant. Generally done for music stems and background hums. Also while you're correct you generally need expensive studio software to "read" the positional metadata properly, that's the same software that CAN be used to mute/delete objects (if you have the original mastering file). And it's not that Dolby Atmos COULDN'T allow consumer software/AVRs to do that without the mastering software, they just don't want you to be able to do that.
>>108560945it would be extremely painful
>>108562865>Also while you're correct you generally need expensive studio software to "read" the positional metadata properly, that's the same software that CAN be used to mute/delete objects (if you have the original mastering file).>(if you have the original mastering file)Well yeah, I was talking about the stuff you get on blurays, not dolby atmos mastering files. Those are the kind of things that mere mortals are not allowed to get near. You are more likely to find a DCP rip of your favourite movie than the Atmos mastering file for it.
>>108554057Do you have 9 ears? No you have two. Your expensive surround sound system is stereo by the time it reaches your ears. It is, objectively, a scam.
>>108562911>Your expensive surround sound system is stereo by the time it reaches your ears. It is, objectively, a scam.So you say you can't tell if you heard something from behind you or in front of you?
>>108562928You know almost everyone turns their head slightly when they're trying to hear it, so the sound hits one ear before the other and from that you know which direction it came from because of the misalignment of the sound waves and your brain corrects for it and tells you what direction it came from. It's still stereo, you're just moving your head.
>>108562983No, people turn their heads because they don't have eyes on the back of their fucking heads, and when someone calls to them from behind they have to turn to see who is calling.Alternatively, when someone is talking in front of you, do you have to turn your head sideways to hear them? Of course not, dumbass.
>>108562992Everybody cranes their neck when they're listening to a sound and it's so automatic that you barely realize you're doing it. If you stand very still and close your eyes you actually cannot tell if a sound is coming from directly in front or directly behind you.If you lose sound in one ear, you have zero idea where its coming from. Just like if you lose one eye you have no depth perception.
>>108562650>>108562824anything stereo is automatically capable of storing surround.the whole genius of dolby was that they stored multiple channels as analog stereo and the same exact audio tracks could be used for surround while still working with normal stereo equipment and media that knew nothing about it.
>>108557068you ever wonder why shooting with earpro stops hearing damage?do you really think putting your hands over your ears is air tight lol?
>>108563008>Everybody cranes their neck when they're listening to a sound and it's so automatic that you barely realize you're doing it.So you crane your neck to hear someone who is speaking in front of you? You might want to look into getting some hearing aids because that shit is not normal.
>>108563008the shape of your ears and head helps you differentiate between front and rearwith current tech its totally possible to do a lidar or photogrammetry scan of your own head and use it to create a HRTF profile to get the same effect for games, but there isn't enough demand for it
>>108563024>the whole genius of dolby was that they stored multiple channels as analog stereo and the same exact audio tracks could be used for surround while still working with normal stereo equipment and media that knew nothing about it.That's done by mathematically mixing certain parts of the stereo separation to other channels. IIRC it's something like, use the sound that matches both channels to form a center, and use the sound that's different between both channels to form the surround channel(s).It's also absolute trash compared to discrete 4+ channels.
>>108563030It's completely normal, it's been heavily studied and is well known and well understood they even have vocabulary for it.If you want to test this yourself, go to a quiet room and close your eyes, stay very still, and have somebody make a sound directly in front of you, and then directly behind you and you announce if it is front or back. You will be wrong about 50% of the time or you automatically move your head without realizing it.Now stop malding about your overpriced audiophile trash
>>108563048>You will be wrong about 50% of the time or you automatically move your head without realizing it.I won't be wrong about it because1. I'm not completely deaf like you, and2. if you do it in a room then the sound will bounce off the walls in different ways depending on the shape of the room, such as any windows, furniture, doors, etc, and that alone will allow you to identify the sounds direction.
>>108563045In games, you move your head "in game" to get the exact same effect from a stereo speaker system. You'll even see people do this automatically when they hear a sound they want to pinpoint they move slightly left right.
>>108563060yes, you do that in game with headphones too...but you don't get the HRTF effect
>>108563047eh, it's still neat and it's alright. and even if we can do better now, realize we're in a thread with backwards savages championing 2.0
>>108554057Dolby Atmos is not a meme, I really enjoy it on my iPhone with airpods and inside my car.What is a meme is having a center channel, or simulating center channel with software, both achieve the same effect of really shitty voices inside your head instead of natural environment. I do everything to put voice especially music as far away out of my head as I can which often means decreasing voice by 20% so its more about music If you like center channel - you don't and you are a retard, and the only reason you think you do is because someone told you that it's the "right way" but if you actually turn it off and don't simulate it either, you will realize how much better watching movies without it becomes. No more shitty mono audio in the middle of the room
>>108563059It's a known experimental result that's been done thousands if not hundreds of thousands of times. You're just straight up wrong. And of course you're doing the retarded thing all the audiophiles do where you try to justify getting scammed by accusing people of not having good ears.
>>108559910>$800 for a non-transferrable software licenseI wish someone would fucking hack this shit already
>>108554057It's a meme because all you need for convincing 360-degree sound is 7.1Stereo CAN somewhat do it, but you need to keep your head absolutely still or the effect is ruinied7.1 fixes this so you don't have to worry about head position, and the reason you don't need to worry about it vertically is because you are MUCH less likely to tilt your head in a way that loses the vertical surround effects from 7.1
>>108562865>And it's not that Dolby Atmos COULDN'T allow consumer software/AVRs to do that without the mastering software, they just don't want you to be able to do that.imagine buying some super expensive stuff and you can't do, what you should be able to do, because some corpo cucks lock it because "you arent supposed to consume it in a different way".>muh three dimensional object sound experience<may i mute one object?>NOStallman was right.
>>108563096Funny that you bring up audiophile scams, audiophile horseshit has gotten experimental results hundreds of thousands of times too, same thing. Does not change the fact that you have hearing loss if you cannot hear what people tell you unless you turn an ear directly in the direction of the sound. Just talk to any older person with worse hearing if you don't believe me. They will turn their ears towards your face not because of some fancy experimental audiophile experiment, but because their hearing is shit and they hear better if you talk straight into their ears.
>>108563584no, those turn their head because they hear better on one ear than on the other and will always turn the same towards you.Or if they have hearing aid, they often turn down one side, if there is something annoying there. They use their aid to their advantage and do things you can't do. I know a dude who bought the most expensive hearing aid he could get (still less expensive than any audiophile entry system) and it can do so much fancy stuff you cant imagine. He could actually filter out female voices to not have to listen to women. Something you can't do, because your corpo cuck system doesn't want you to.In any way, that other anon is correct and a sound that is perfectly in front of you can't be distinguinshed from a sound perfectly behind you without head movement.And your fancy surround sound system can verify that. Play a game and see if you get into situations where you don't know whether a shot came from the front or behind. I can promise you, it will happen.
>>108563530I hear ya, I have Dirac Live Bass Control for a 7.4.4 system and have debated adding ART but I don't know if I want to spend more on licenses. I guess there are worse things I could do with the money.. Audyssey I think is about broke and Audyssey Pro isn't very good.
>>108563549I think 2.1 to 5.1 is a huge difference (front rear panning plus an anchored center image), but going from 5.1 to 7.1 is more subtle. Arguably, I'd add height channels before more bed layers in many rooms.
>>108564574My issue is that when you update your receiver you'd have to buy all the licenses all over again.Right now I'm considering between a Denon 3800H and an Onkyo RZ50 which has the basic Dirac Live license included. I was originally aiming for the 4800H but their price exploded a few months ago.
>>108564924Yeah it sucks. That said, generally processors/receiver last a long time and the technology doesn't change that much. Arguably the only thing that really has changed recently making upgrades worthwhile would be Dirac support. I tend to keep processors a while, they generally aren't worth an upgrade as improvements are so incremental.
>>108564971I'm afraid the AV receiver industry is dying as a result.
>>108564996It's a problem, hopefully they hang on for a while. I work in integration and our mid level business is pretty soft, the theaters we sell now are very expensive and using Storm processors and amps. I just did one that used a Marantz AV10 (arguably for smaller rooms I'd rather use than the Storm) but that's still expensive. I use still Denon for media rooms and such. But, something to be said about the K-shaped economy taking over, at least in custom install world. Denon Marantz have been bought and sold a bunch too, last it was some medical company, now I think someone else owns them I can't even keep up.
>>108565048The shocking revelation to me was that Sony and Panasonic are the only brands for BD players left.
>>108563654>not have to listen to womenI'm not going to lie, that would be amazing
>>108563024>>108563047It's called Dolby Pro Logic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Pro_LogicAnd yeah, compared to real multichannel, it sucks.
