Atmos Full-Range Discussion

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Yes I just looked at a track from Wolf but Windows is fighting me on taking a snapshot. Definitely not bricked. 10. There Is a Place (Argentinox remix)
10. There Is a Place (Argentinox remix).jpg
 
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Just wondering how the physical reality that humans can't determine location of low frequencies fits into this discussion about the 80hz surround and height speakers. More than saving bits, doesn't it make sense to give power to where it is needed the most by directing those deep tones to the sub-woofer?
 
Just wondering how the physical reality that humans can't determine location of low frequencies fits into this discussion about the 80hz surround and height speakers. More than saving bits, doesn't it make sense to give power to where it is needed the most by directing those deep tones to the sub-woofer?
Some of us do not have floor space for a sub woofer. I have a 5.0 setup using active speakers that cover 20-20k and are mounted directly on concrete walls (so no floor space used). I am considering where I could mount height speakers to fully support Atmos, but they will probably not be full range, although I hope that they will cover 50-20k. I am surprised that so much of the discussion confuses what Atmos can support, with what speakers can support in a specific arrangement. I think most people have constraints (physical, financial and other) and we should welcome constructive suggestions for how to maximise sound quality within constraints, rather than tell others what they must do, based on our personal beliefs.
 
Just wondering how the physical reality that humans can't determine location of low frequencies fits into this discussion about the 80hz surround and height speakers. More than saving bits, doesn't it make sense to give power to where it is needed the most by directing those deep tones to the sub-woofer?
A large speaker will sound better than a small speaker with a sub, if that sub is nowhere near the vicinity of the small speaker. Also, summing a bunch of channels of bass into one bass module, located in some random area of a room isn't ideal. You lose definition of a particular channel. Real world reality with my own ears. You do you if that works for you, but don't tell me I can't localize a single sub in a room, when I have for many decades, starting in my teens, building sub-woofers for cars.
 
Hi,
I’m new here and well, this has been one hell of a read, I took 3 days to read this thread, and I enjoy it. I see my ego engage many times, take a step back, breath, laugh, etc.

Carl Jung said something like “believing and knowing are two different things” (states of mind).

Reading some comments it’s clear they are beliefs, not scientific knowings.

Here are sone of my beliefs and knowings to contribute to this passionate conversation:

Knowing: ATMOS is spelt all caps.

Knowing: I’m a jerk and like making cheeky comments but they from my heart.

Belief: Dolby ATMOS front wide sbd height speakers are not full 24bit/ 96k because an Academy award winning sound engineer said on Audioholics he doesn’t use the front wide object base speakers as not to “lower the resolution” on the 7 speakers on the deck. I don’t have first hand experience to know, so that’s why it’s s belief.

Knowing: I’ve hade 5 channel SACD setups in many countries since 90s and have always tried to have 5 equal sized speakers after I went to Abby Road and heard Groove Amanda’s ‘Goodbye Country / Hello Nightclub” SACD played by the mix engineer on 5x B&W 800’s, each with a 15” woofer. I know from Q&A that he mixed bass down low in each channel because I saw it on the panel and then heard it in his hone played on SACD on the same speakers. He was using Chord amps at home. Having full range speakers reduced pushing the low channel frequencies to the sub. Feeling sub is different than hearing it. French church organs are an example of this.
- My profile pic is of the this SACD because it was a monumental shift to both SACD and was the “first SACD” to be created / composed by Groove Amanda sbc the engineers as 5.1, and at the completion wax down mixed to 2 channel CD.
- Who knew that?

Knowing: IMAX engineers said on Audioholics said that IMAX enhanced speakers are designed to play down to subwoofer frequencies. In IMAX cinemas there are no dedicated subwoofer channels in the recordings, all channels have deep base.

Knowing: My 7 Polk Audio IMAX enhanced speakers are all capable of playing down to 40hz and lower, but not at high enough volumes, so I use an additional 4 subs to play below 40hz and remove standing waves.

Knowing: most class D amps have low current abd can’t drive large of medium woofers as well as a lower powered A/B. I had a NAD M28 for 20 months and my NAD 777v3 receiver and Emotiva 7v3 run rings around the M28s bass. I also demoed a M10v2 a few week ago with the Ncore chip and same thing, However I have not heard the Purify 7040 chip for deep full range listening.

Belief: 5 or 7 timbre matched speakers playing a full range is essential for ATMOS tracks where some engineers mix lead vocals and mid-bass in the rear and/or sides.

Belief: in the future ATMOS mixes on heights and ceilings will go full range. Remember Dolby pro-logic where the two rear channels were encoded in the main channels and were low resolution? Then DTS-EX were encoded 6&7 channels in the 5 channel mix. We have been here several times before.

I suggest we get curious:
1. what are the technical specifications for encoding ATMOS, IMAX Enhanced, or DTS:X music?

2. will running Dirac reduce a 24/96k track down to 24/48k

3. What are the advantage of stacking subs 6ft tall and ceiling subs vs single height floor subs?

That’s my 2 cents worth.

Wozza
 

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Hi,
I’m new here and well, this has been one hell of a read, I took 3 days to read this thread, and I enjoy it. I see my ego engage many times, take a step back, breath, laugh, etc.

Carl Jung said something like “believing and knowing are two different things” (states of mind).

Reading some comments it’s clear they are beliefs, not scientific knowings.

Here are sone of my beliefs and knowings to contribute to this passionate conversation:

Knowing: ATMOS is spelt all caps.

Knowing: I’m a jerk and like making cheeky comments but they from my heart.

Belief: Dolby ATMOS front wide sbd height speakers are not full 24bit/ 96k because an Academy award winning sound engineer said on Audioholics he doesn’t use the front wide object base speakers as not to “lower the resolution” on the 7 speakers on the deck. I don’t have first hand experience to know, so that’s why it’s s belief.

Knowing: I’ve hade 5 channel SACD setups in many countries since 90s and have always tried to have 5 equal sized speakers after I went to Abby Road and heard Groove Amanda’s ‘Goodbye Country / Hello Nightclub” SACD played by the mix engineer on 5x B&W 800’s, each with a 15” woofer. I know from Q&A that he mixed bass down low in each channel because I saw it on the panel and then heard it in his hone played on SACD on the same speakers. He was using Chord amps at home. Having full range speakers reduced pushing the low channel frequencies to the sub. Feeling sub is different than hearing it. French church organs are an example of this.
- My profile pic is of the this SACD because it was a monumental shift to both SACD and was the “first SACD” to be created / composed by Groove Amanda sbc the engineers as 5.1, and at the completion wax down mixed to 2 channel CD.
- Who knew that?

Knowing: IMAX engineers said on Audioholics said that IMAX enhanced speakers are designed to play down to subwoofer frequencies. In IMAX cinemas there are no dedicated subwoofer channels in the recordings, all channels have deep base.

Knowing: My 7 Polk Audio IMAX enhanced speakers are all capable of playing down to 40hz and lower, but not at high enough volumes, so I use an additional 4 subs to play below 40hz and remove standing waves.

Knowing: most class D amps have low current abd can’t drive large of medium woofers as well as a lower powered A/B. I had a NAD M28 for 20 months and my NAD 777v3 receiver and Emotiva 7v3 run rings around the M28s bass. I also demoed a M10v2 a few week ago with the Ncore chip and same thing, However I have not heard the Purify 7040 chip for deep full range listening.

Belief: 5 or 7 timbre matched speakers playing a full range is essential for ATMOS tracks where some engineers mix lead vocals and mid-bass in the rear and/or sides.

Belief: in the future ATMOS mixes on heights and ceilings will go full range. Remember Dolby pro-logic where the two rear channels were encoded in the main channels and were low resolution? Then DTS-EX were encoded 6&7 channels in the 5 channel mix. We have been here several times before.

I suggest we get curious:
1. what are the technical specifications for encoding ATMOS, IMAX Enhanced, or DTS:X music?

2. will running Dirac reduce a 24/96k track down to 24/48k

3. What are the advantage of stacking subs 6ft tall and ceiling subs vs single height floor subs?

That’s my 2 cents worth.

Wozza
Photo of my Polk Audio LS800 with dual 10” bass drivers and SDA array, and B&W 801 Nautilus
 
Belief: Dolby ATMOS front wide sbd height speakers are not full 24bit/ 96k because an Academy award winning sound engineer said on Audioholics he doesn’t use the front wide object base speakers as not to “lower the resolution” on the 7 speakers on the deck. I don’t have first hand experience to know, so that’s why it’s s belief.

Be careful with this one. Everything changes when talking about streaming DD+ vs playing TrueHD Atmos. When delivered, both streaming or TrueHD, it's always 24/48. Atmos can be mixed at 96k, but not delivered at 96k for any speaker. Objects can be treated differntly with TrueHD Atmos, rather than all of them encoded into a 192kbps group.

In addition, Dolby's documentation is all over the board, and engineers' answers are all over the board about all of this.
 
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Perhaps we have a different defintiion of brickwalled. That's OK. Here is the track Wolf from Matt Darey, followed by That Was Just Your Life from Metallica's Death Magnetic, for comparison of what I consider brickwalled.

View attachment 88256


View attachment 88255
That wavfile looks great. The Wolf album has some of the loudest songs I have ever heard. Retrospective has the loudest songs I have ever heard. I do not know what is going on there. Do you find some of them extremely bass heavy?
The Ambra Atmos looks like the Metallica wavfile. I have ripped the 7.1.

Is Wolf from the m2ts file? For example I listen to TFF The tipping Atmos at -16db, Wolf has to be no louder than -25db. It is so much louder. Matt even said it was a challenge getting everything as loud as the ultra squashed mixes today. That is what he was going for. His words.

The Metallica live Atmos wavfiles look like the Death Magnetic one, they are brickwalled, but the Japanese 7.1 is much better.
 
In the Zappa thread there is some talk of Atmos level normalization, is it possible it wasn't applied to those which makes them seem so loud?
Sorry, not an Atmos guy so don't remember the term or if it may apply here.
 
That wavfile looks great. The Wolf album has some of the loudest songs I have ever heard. Retrospective has the loudest songs I have ever heard. I do not know what is going on there.
There are other songs on the album which are much louder than that first track. However, none of them are clipped, and all of them are dynamic. When I decoded the Atmos to PCM, it was definitely a challenge, finding the right gain value, without doing it on a per song basis, which I was tempted to do, but never have.
 
How do those Polks sound? I've often been curious about them.
They sound amazing. Truely. My friend like them so much he purchased 2x L600s, L400, and R700s for rears. They paid very well on Emotiva, and NAD top end but the L800s need lots of current and the M28 or T778 class D amps fong have enough current. So I’m testing the Emotiva XPA7 and it has the balls.
 
Be careful with this one. Everything changes when talking about streaming DD+ vs playing TrueHD Atmos. When delivered, both streaming or TrueHD, it's always 24/48. Atmos can be mixed at 96k, but not delivered at 96k for any speaker. Objects can be treated differntly with TrueHD Atmos, rather than all of them encoded into a 192kbps group.

In addition, Dolby's documentation is all over the board, and engineers' answers are all over the board about all of this.
Thank you for this info. It’s a good example how our / my beliefs are created on hear say. Ah the ego.

I do NOT have and Atmos discs yet and have seen anything that says yes I want that, but I’m new to this channel so that’s about to change. I see Dark Side of the Moon Atmos Blu-Ray is coming out as part of a $250 box set, but it’s full of this other stuff the called records that can’t be recorded on, has no sampling data rate specifications, no this side up label. What’s that all about? Lol.

If I had to buy 20 Atmos Blu-Ray discs what should I buy?
 
That wavfile looks great. The Wolf album has some of the loudest songs I have ever heard. Retrospective has the loudest songs I have ever heard. I do not know what is going on there. Do you find some of them extremely bass heavy?
The Ambra Atmos looks like the Metallica wavfile. I have ripped the 7.1.

Is Wolf from the m2ts file? For example I listen to TFF The tipping Atmos at -16db, Wolf has to be no louder than -25db. It is so much louder. Matt even said it was a challenge getting everything as loud as the ultra squashed mixes today. That is what he was going for. His words.

The Metallica live Atmos wavfiles look like the Death Magnetic one, they are brickwalled, but the Japanese 7.1 is much better.
The Wolf track I showed was an M4A converted to FLAC and shown in Audition. Audition showed the LUFS as -12.xx so indeed it's fairly loud if memory serves.
 
Yes I just looked at a track from Wolf but Windows is fighting me on taking a snapshot. Definitely not bricked. 10. There Is a Place (Argentinox remix)sounoun

Thank you for this info. It’s a good example how our / my beliefs are created on hear say. Ah the ego.

I do NOT have and Atmos discs yet and have seen anything that says yes I want that, but I’m new to this channel so that’s about to change. I see Dark Side of the Moon Atmos Blu-Ray is coming out as part of a $250 box set, but it’s full of this other stuff the called records that can’t be recorded on, has no sampling data rate specifications, no this side up label. What’s that all about? Lol.

If I had to buy 20 Atmos Blu-Ray discs what should I buy?
What Blu rays should you buy? Here are a few with great mixes, immersive and nice tonal balance.

Schiller Epic and Morgenstund
Air 10,000hz
Booka Shade, Glavany Streeet and Dear Future Self
Steven Wilson The Future Bites
Pineapple thief Give It Back
Soundtrack Of The American Soldier
Jazzmachine 24
Kenny wayne shepherd Trouble and The Traveler
 
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