Talk to me about Dolby Atmos

T1berious

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Hi there,

I'm curious about Dolby Atmos and wondering if anyone here has made the jump from a 5.1 setup and what there impressions were?

As I use floor standers i won't be looking at additional speakers at floor level.

So anyone using 5.1.4? How does it compare? And more importantly is it worth it?

Cheers T1b
 
I have 7.1.4 and I prefer it to 7.1 because it sounds 'flat' in comparison to me.

When switching between the two, the difference going from Atmos to 'flat' is more noticeable than going the other way.

When you have discrete effects coming mostly from the ceiling speakers, it's a very nice effect - like when the guy goes upstairs to get the money from the safe in The Revenant - you hear the footsteps above you going to the rear.

I have some very cheap speakers in the ceiling (that are tilted/angled towards the seating) and they seem to work ok for me, so you don't have to break the bank if you are on a limited budget.

Getting full range wide dispersion (90 degree plus) speakers are the recommendation, with many opting for a coaxial design (tweeter placed in the centre of the woofer).
 
The Revenant doesn't have an Atmos track does it? Are you talking about the upmix?
 
I couldn't remember to be honest, but the upmixer is very good (as I think the above example suggests) and worth having all by itself IMHO - it seems to do a pretty good job with non Atmos and back catalogue stuff so adds that extra dimension to all your existing movies.

For me it's worth having, but I'm sure others will have a different opinion.
 
I bought two pairs of the Elac A4 upfiring speakers to sit on top of my existing floor standing Front L&R and my standmount rear L&R.

I'm using a Marantz SR7010 AVR.

The improvement was immediately noticeable and very worthwhile. The soundstage is just much bigger and you really notice the additional 'height'.

One of the best improvements I've done and amongst the best value for the fairly low entry cost.

Most discs don't have actual Atmos yet but the SR7010 does a sterling job adding the upfiring channels on normal Blu Rays and on Sky (via optical toslink).

Highly recommended in my book.

PS - I bought upfiring as messing about installing speakers in the ceiling was a no-go in my situation.
 
I think most UHD disks have Atmos or DTS:X, but not all BDs do, which means having to buy the UHD (and a player) if Atmos is important to you, which makes the upgrade a little more expensive. 3D disks don't seem to have Atmos which is a shame as 3D sound with 3D video seems a good combination (for those that like 3D).

It can be done using a PC to rip the video and and audio streams from the two disks and remuxing them, but that's another story...
 
I think most UHD disks have Atmos or DTS:X, but not all BDs do, which means having to buy the UHD (and a player) if Atmos is important to you, which makes the upgrade a little more expensive. 3D disks don't seem to have Atmos which is a shame as 3D sound with 3D video seems a good combination (for those that like 3D).

It can be done using a PC to rip the video and and audio streams from the two disks and remuxing them, but that's another story...
If you are using Windows 10 and the Creators update you can install the Dolby atmos software, I've noticed that since I did this all my Blu-ray's are up mixed to either atmos or DTS X.
 
I have 7.1.4 and I prefer it to 7.1 because it sounds 'flat' in comparison to me.

When switching between the two, the difference going from Atmos to 'flat' is more noticeable than going the other way.

When you have discrete effects coming mostly from the ceiling speakers, it's a very nice effect - like when the guy goes upstairs to get the money from the safe in The Revenant - you hear the footsteps above you going to the rear.

I have some very cheap speakers in the ceiling (that are tilted/angled towards the seating) and they seem to work ok for me, so you don't have to break the bank if you are on a limited budget.

Getting full range wide dispersion (90 degree plus) speakers are the recommendation, with many opting for a coaxial design (tweeter placed in the centre of the woofer).

totally agree here, i found it subtle in my set up using wharfdale 9.0 for all height in 5.1.4 mounted on the wall equidistant from MPL in a middle height and rear height set up with denon 4300 - until you go back to no height channels...it just fills a gap.
i included the heights as i had wharfedale 9.1s all round so the cheap 9.0 £40 a pair seem worth a punt with a roll of cable. and there are a lot of cables... use coloured tape or the included id stickers as supplied by denon
the upmixers are very good too
but Kong is a great atmos disc and yes im looking at UHD players to make sure i get the atmos option
ben
 
I think most UHD disks have Atmos or DTS:X, but not all BDs do, which means having to buy the UHD (and a player) if Atmos is important to you, which makes the upgrade a little more expensive. 3D disks don't seem to have Atmos which is a shame as 3D sound with 3D video seems a good combination (for those that like 3D).

It can be done using a PC to rip the video and and audio streams from the two disks and remuxing them, but that's another story...

Whilst the above is technically correct I think we need to be careful here as talk of needing to get a computer involved to download your own atmos soundtrack will be needlessly off putting to many.

By Atmos most people mean the 2 or 4 upfiring or downfiring 'height speakers'.

True only a handful of disks actually have a proper Atmos soundtrack. But the majority of decent Atmos enabled AVR's will upmix the soundtrack on normal Blu-ray or Sky etc to bring these height/Atmos speakers into play. This might not be proper Atmos but I and many others hear a substantial improvement and consider our 'Atmos' speakers to be adding value at this stage.

I'm not making this distinction to be argumentative. Just pointing out that if you have an Atmos enabled AVR the barrier to entry is reasonably low. Just add speakers and your AVR will then use them for most Dolby Digital and above sources. No need for computers or suchlike which is probably only something that the really dedicated will consider.

As for proper Atmos. Well if that hopefully improves on the upmixed stuff then even better. But as that's in the minority for now it's important to get the most out of your current sources.
 
Whilst the above is technically correct I think we need to be careful here as talk of needing to get a computer involved to download your own atmos soundtrack will be needlessly off putting to many.

I'm sorry my single line with that suggestion has upset you, but there are many people here who use HTPCs so something like that may have been useful for those people who can do that. You don't download the Atmos track btw, you just strip it from the 2D BD that contains it, and remux it with the 3D video from another BD (of the same movie).

Fortunately, there are some 3D disks that also have the Atmos soundtrack - like Ghost in the Shell for example.

I'm not a 3D fan so it's of little use to me, but thought it might help someone. My bad...
 
Hi Gary,

You didn't upset me. I was simply meaning we need to differentiate between does adding Atmos (height speakers) make a worthwhile difference. It does! Versus proper Atmos. Which I'm sure will but is a higher bar to achieve as you need to either buy eye-wateringly expensive UHD discs or go to lengths like downloading the sound tracks.

The less than 500 quid I spent on Atmos speakers was the best bang for buck I've spent in a long time on surround sound. So in response to the Ops question I heartily recommend it.

Regards,
Alan
 
Hi Gary,

You didn't upset me. I was simply meaning we need to differentiate between does adding Atmos (height speakers) make a worthwhile difference.

I thought I covered that in my first reply in this thread.

It does! Versus proper Atmos. Which I'm sure will but is a higher bar to achieve as you need to either buy eye-wateringly expensive UHD discs or go to lengths like downloading the sound tracks.

The less than 500 quid I spent on Atmos speakers was the best bang for buck I've spent in a long time on surround sound. So in response to the Ops question I heartily recommend it.

Regards,
Alan

I spent a lot less than you and it still works well. People don't have to spend a fortune but they can of they want.
 
I've been pleasantly surprised how many rented BluRay discs I've had with a proper Atmos track on them, so it's not limited to only UHD discs (just as well since I don't plan on getting a UHD player for a long time yet).

I have to say that I'm more in the camp that I didn't think it was such a 'night and day' improvement that many on here were raving about when it came out. However, this is partly because my previous 7.1 set up had the surrounds all high up due to room restrictions at the time. Therefore I've got quite used to hearing surrounds above me after 8 years or whatever. It's only now that I have my surrounds at a lower level that I find this is a bit 'flat' when switching from Atmos/one of the pseudo modes back to 5.1.

I also know that I'm in the minority, but I prefer to listen to music discs in native format and not to upmix (especially Neural:X which seems to do odd things to the front soundstage and centre speaker in particular). FWIW I pushed the boat out quite a bit when I upgraded and basically put some pretty decent LCR speakers in the Atmos positions and put even better speakers in the LCR position: That improvement was far more significant to my ears than the Atmos channels, so I would always recommend buying the best LCR you can afford before worrying about Atmos channels, especially if it means a 'watered down' system using budget speakers when you might have got better 'base' level ones by waiting to add the Atmos speakers.
 
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I went from a 7.1 setup to 7.1.2.

The difference is huge, even with non-Atmos tracks being upmixed.

I'm still amazed at how well upmixing works, it's very clever.
It seems to be able to pick out sounds that would be above you and place them there... most noticeably on rain and helicopters for some reason.

As for "proper" Atmos / DTS:X soundtracks, they're a mixed bunch, some use the overheads quite subtly, some give them a good old workout :D
 

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