Dolby Atmos - Speaker vs. Headphone playback

[ted_b]

Sorry, JimofMaine, but if you are a Dolby mix engineer with those opinions about Atmos with speakers (you must have heard some really bad setups to come to those conclusions; my 7.x.4 can image beautifully in all areas of my "bubble" and I can easily follow any moving objects/sounds if needed) I'll pass on your finished product. Dolby Atmos's effects on headphones are, IMHO, about 10% of what Atmos can really do. I'm sorry to say all this but you've been pushing your opinions hard, so I assume you want them out there.

 

[GOS]

 

[MidiMagic]

When you hear the Atmos in headphones, does it sound like it is inside or outside of your head?

 

[MidiMagic]

I've not listened to a good set of Atmos headphones playing Atmos material, but I have listened to headphones that were trying to recreate a spatial experience from 5.1. The effect didn't approach a decent 5.1 setup, but maybe the tech has improved.

We certainly shouldn't ignore enthusiasts that invest in good headphones to experience Atmos. But I sincerely doubt this will eclipse the experience of a well setup room with modest equipment.

I like Atmos, but it isn't perfect and is certainly problematic for three reasons:
1) Atmos claims listeners can discern the location of a sounding body at an infinite number of locations in a hypothetical sphere about the listener. It cannot.
2) Atmos claims listeners can sense a sounding body moving throughout space accurately about the listeners. It cannot.
3) Atmos has a very small sweetspot and the listener's head must face forward, unmoving.

Does it sound cool? Yes. Do I like it? Yes. Does it do all that's claimed? No, it's problematic.

Hmmm... I have done all of that with the original Dolby Surround Pro Logic:

1. I can pan a sound in any position around the listener (and with the height modification, overhead too).
2. I can have a moving pan going in a smooth motion in any direction.
3. No sweet spot - it works in an entire movie theater.
4. With a special circuit between the headphone jack and the headphones, hearing all of this in the headphones.

Jumping to 5.1 discrete loses this ability.

 

[Piatz55]

You have a point. However, this site is about spatial audio. Since Atmos binaural listening constitute 99% of all playback of Atmos mixes, mentioning how it sounds to the 1% is insignificant. While not trying to hijack this thread, my point was it's easy to listen to mixes with the wrong techniques and technologies. If your headset isn't Dolby certified, you're hearing headset stereo. If your device is Dolby and headset Dolby, then at least the spatial Dolby mix is being heard correctly.

And yes, Binuaral Atmos IS Atmos! In fact I'd argue it is the best way to experience the format. Atmos over speakers is problematic. The 99% of headphone-only Atmos listeners, suggests they agree on some level.

This is definitely a large part of the answer as to why certain Atmos mixes aren’t translating great on speaker systems. The reality of Atmos, is that most of the consumers are listening on headphones, and a lot of engineers are creating the mixes exclusively on headphones, without ever listening in a speaker environment. Personally, I’m checking on both, mainly because for me, it’s easier to make informed level and EQ decisions on a speaker system, rather than through a binaural fold down on headphones - however a lot of my object placement is tweaked on headphones, since I need to make sure that specific playback translates well to the vast majority of listeners.

Another issue, that has mostly worked itself out by now, is that when Atmos launched to streaming services, some artists & labels were simply repackaging old SACD 5.1 mixes into an Atmos container to capture that portion of the streaming market. Apple QC has since been flagging these by consumer complaints and they are being re-worked with proper spatial mixing methods. I’d wager most people’s “hall of shame” mixes would fall into that category as simply placing those SACD rips into the 7.1.4 bed was not a great apples to apples conversion.

 

[jimfisheye]

... The reality of Atmos, is that most of the consumers are listening on headphones, and a lot of engineers are creating the mixes exclusively on headphones, without ever listening in a speaker environment. ...

"and a lot of engineers are creating the mixes exclusively on headphones, without ever listening in a speaker environment."

This is what I want to see called out and shamed until it stops.

 

[minimumtumbleweed]

If we're going to speculate that 99% of the public will still never listen to full surround sound and will only ever hear surround mixes with an Atmos downmix to stereo... Well, then it just looks like a form of copy protection that ties decoding to requiring a new hardware purchase. With Dolby only licensing the decoder to hardware devices at present. But I'm not supposed to say that part out loud.

This is the biggest issue; it's not even platform-agnostic. I can have a $2000 set of headphones but it can't play Atmos music because... reasons... The headphones that are "able" to play Atmos music are not even very good, just your typical wireless mass-market fashion accessories.

 

[jimfisheye]

Ohhhh... THAT's what someone meant by "Atmos headphones"! One of those toy-ish bluetooth things but it has the Dolby decoder built into the hardware.

Yeah those are lo-fi kind of things. Just like soundbars, they can decode the Atmos files but they just can't reproduce sound to where you can hear them. I shouldn't care but I guess this stuff irks me because it will lead too many people away from hearing something cool because the root audio function is so broken. Then they think Atmos is just a gimmick. It's not fair!

The gurgling sound bluetooth devices make in audio eclipses anything the lowest bit rate mp3 ever did! I guess it's still an improvement over some of the rogue malfunctioning cassette decks from last century though!

 

[DrKlahn]

"and a lot of engineers are creating the mixes exclusively on headphones, without ever listening in a speaker environment."

This is what I want to see called out and shamed until it stops.

It would be really interesting to know how many are actually doing this. I know from watching videos on YT that Steven Wilson and Alan Parsons use speakers (Wilson uses headphones for stereo though). It seems unlikely to me that anyone serious about Atmos wouldn't sample the mix on speakers. But I could be wrong.

 

[JimofMaine]

Hmmm... I have done all of that with the original Dolby Surround Pro Logic:

1. I can pan a sound in any position around the listener (and with the height modification, overhead too).
2. I can have a moving pan going in a smooth motion in any direction.
3. No sweet spot - it works in an entire movie theater.
4. With a special circuit between the headphone jack and the headphones, hearing all of this in the headphones.

Jumping to 5.1 discrete loses this ability.

Cool. Can you send me the file to hear it for myself? I have a Dolby Pro logic decoder and 4 speakers.

Why do you think Dolby created Atmos, if Pro Logic had these capabilities?

Wave Field Synthesis (WFS) is the only technology that claims to create a virtual acoustic environments you describe. It takes many dozen speakers and still fails for high frequencies.

 

[JulesRules]

The gurgling sound bluetooth devices make in audio eclipses anything the lowest bit rate mp3 ever did! I guess it's still an improvement over some of the rogue malfunctioning cassette decks from last century though!

If your bluetooth headphones "gurgle", then there's a problem somewhere. I used to have that happen occasionally with an old computer of mine which I think didn't have the newest drivers. If the devices (the one which plays the music and the one actually outputting the sound) are working properly, bluetooth audio doesn't sound bad at all. Not as good as lossless, mind, but decent enough for being on the go...

 

[MidiMagic]

Cool. Can you send me the file to hear it for myself? I have a Dolby Pro logic decoder and 4 speakers.

Why do you think Dolby created Atmos, if Pro Logic had these capabilities?

Wave Field Synthesis (WFS) is the only technology that claims to create a virtual acoustic environments you describe. It takes many dozen speakers and still fails for high frequencies.

What file? When I did these experiments, I just had the Dolby decoder connected to the encoding mixer output. I played music through the encoding mixer and listened carefully to where the sound images were as I panned them around. My head was turned in different directions and I did the pannings again and again. I used the encoder to encode live music to recordings for others, but I do not have the rights to those recordings.

For the height modifications, I used two SQ decoders, one in the encoder and one in the decoder. I know there was no sweet spot because I heard the same sound pannings no matter where I sat in the theater (I saw Star Wars 20 times in 1977). I also experimented with my record "The Story of Star Wars" which contains encodings from the movie.

Dolby created 5,1 discrete and Atmos because his patents on Dolby Surround and Pro Logic expired. There would be no more income from them. He made and patented new systems to make people move away from the old technology because he could no longer control its use. That's why new receivers don't play Dolby Surround correctly.

This is one thing I hate about patents. The manufacturer always wants something to sell that it has patents on. When the patent expires, they sell a new product they have patents on and discontinue the old products.

Patents are also why we have format wars. Each company wants to sell only what they have their own patents on, so we get all of these incompatible formats. It's why we had so many different quadraphonic systems.

 

[kfbkfb]

How about a binaural recording of a (proper) Atmos playback (7.1.4, for example) - it seems to me that the binaural recording process would be very likely to capture the sound height effect and convey that via (regular [good quality]) stereo headphones.

(I don't have an Atmos system, so no comment on the quality of Atmos mixes)


Kirk Bayne

 

[jimfisheye]

There's always going to be a divide between the binaural camp and the discrete camp. We have an ambiguous spot ("blind spot" is too strong a word) to the sides with front vs rear perception. Those binaural recordings use reverb to resolve that.

This should be the proverbial record scratch light bulb over the head moment.

They need to add reverb to do that.
Add reverb.

So already mixed music mixes are off the table! Can't very well be adding reverb to someone's mix. That would sound absurd and altering. Binaural mixes need to be made from the ground up and tend to only ever work on headphones.

Surround sound is an immersive environment and it really only comes across in full force that way. You need to interact and at least move your head side to side a little. Surround sound isn't in here with us... we're in here with it! This cannot be done with headphones! Now if Apple gets their head tracking software on point and finds a way to render that in real time that isn't just video game crude, I think this could still happen one day. The current stuff is a level of flashy that commands attention. More like an ultra realistic animation though. Detailed but pretty far from real.

 

[esimms86]

There's always going to be a divide between the binaural camp and the discrete camp. We have an ambiguous spot ("blind spot" is too strong a word) to the sides with front vs rear perception. Those binaural recordings use reverb to resolve that.

This should be the proverbial record scratch light bulb over the head moment.

They need to add reverb to do that.
Add reverb.

So already mixed music mixes are off the table! Can't very well be adding reverb to someone's mix. That would sound absurd and altering. Binaural mixes need to be made from the ground up and tend to only ever work on headphones.

Surround sound is an immersive environment and it really only comes across in full force that way. You need to interact and at least move your head side to side a little. Surround sound isn't in here with us... we're in here with it! This cannot be done with headphones! Now if Apple gets their head tracking software on point and finds a way to render that in real time that isn't just video game crude, I think this could still happen one day. The current stuff is a level of flashy that commands attention. More like an ultra realistic animation though. Detailed but pretty far from real.

The Smyth Realiser A16 can give you a true out of your head immersive experience using headphones. I know because I own one. Though I paid only 800 USD for mine via Kickstarter, buying one today at retail will cost you around 5K. Smyth Research, of course, is infinitesimally small when compared to Apple.

 

[JediJoker]

The Smyth Realiser A16 can give you a true out of your head immersive experience using headphones.

With a personalized HRTF and a measured headphone, what the Smyth does in hardware should be possible in any software binaural renderer.

 

[JimofMaine]

I agree. The posts debating the merits of speaker versus headphone playback for Atmos have been moved to a separate thread, where the discussion can continue: https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/threads/dolby-atmos-speaker-vs-headphone-playback.35824/
Let’s get back on track

In this day and age of audio asking for bad mixes (as opposed to opinions regarding the music itself) should start with stating the audio translation being evaluated. Otherwise the opinion at best has little value and at worst might turn someone off. Atmos music mixes are mostly heard on headsets (99%) so a question without translation context is problematic and must be pointed out--even on this forum which focuses on multi-channel speakers. (But why should a forum on spatial, 3D, full dimensional sound pigeon-hole headphones in a special time in audio history where headphones CAN BEST speakers spatially speaking? My guess because people haven't experienced it.) See you guys over in the "headphone section."

 

[JimofMaine]

Sure, but I don't think anyone is talking about headphone "Atmos" here (you can hardly call it Atmos). I would go further and exclude soundbars as well. I think that's justified considering the nature of this forum and its users.

May I ask what headphones you've listened to Atmos music mixes? Now that this thread has been moved to speakers vs headphones, maybe we can get to the bottom of your bias.

 

[JediJoker]

...headphones CAN BEST speakers spatially speaking...

They cannot. And I say this as a headphone lover and collector.

 

[Zimmy68]

I certainly hear a 3D effect when listening on AirPods Pro and Max. Does it match a properly setup Atmos home theater system? No.

When I was a kid (in the 80s) I went to an attraction in Disney's MGM Studio's park. I can't remember but it had different examples of Foley sound creation, etc.
Near the end, you put on what looked like the most basic pair of headphones and sat in a quite space.
The demo had people walking around a large room, getting closer to you, walking behind you.
Most impressive was the sound of getting your haircut, it felt so much like someone was cutting the hair on the back of my neck, the hair stood up.

If done correctly, an awesome 3D effect can be achieved with headphones. I have no doubt. It's the same 2 ears.