Dolby Atmos Music on Blu-ray

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The only place I've seen the pre-order is eBay Germany (0602435511610 | eBay)

I hate to say it, but I really can't see Dolby Atmos music really taking off. Hardly anyone (relative to 8+ BILLION people) has Atmos at all, let alone an interest in sitting in their living or home theater room and listening to music on it. Unless they can do a convincing binaural presentation on headphones (conversion), it'll likely do worse than 5.1 music did (which is to say terrible). A lot of people have 5.1 type systems for movies (even if they're crappy sound bars). How many buy music in 5.1? They're all on here....

Now you might be able to get clubs to do some Dolby Atmos albums (imagine a 34 speaker Atmos club system with techno flying all around the room like on My Future Self. I can see that getting some limited demand. Charging $30+ an album isn't helping to sell them either. Basic business 101. Demand = low, price = high, but too high prices also = low demand. It's a catch-22.

10 Atmos albums for $300+ ? My god.... I'm buying most movies at $5-10 including Atmos these days. It'd be nice if iTunes or someone sold Atmos music albums that included the 2-channel version for the car or iPhone or whatever, but they don't seem to want to encourage "sales" anymore at all, just "rentals" through Apple Music so that would mean getting Tidal. But from what I've seen, Tidal often only includes a single track from an album like Dear Future Self. Yeah, that's no good either.

I guess that's why I'm looking at getting an Involve Audio processor when the new version comes out in January and start buying old Quad LPs (which seem to average $8-12 online on eBay, often still shrink wrapped and never played). As bad as support was for them, compared to today, they got a load of mainstream artists to release some albums in it. SACD tried, but failed to interest the mainstream. Part of the problem is the high cost of equipment and album prices. Sorry, but no one wants to pay $35 an album, especially when they're just encoded like a Pro Logic movie (i.e. just milking the market). I used to buy a LOT more music when it averaged $8-10 an album (whether through older prices or BMG/Columbia Record Buy 1 get 4 to 8 free type deals.... Then I bought "tracks" of songs I liked, but knew the rest of the album sucked. Now I have no idea what to buy and sites like Pandora have done NOTHING for me to find new music. I put in Pink Floyd or Tori Amos and it plays the same 3 artists it thinks I might like (but don't) over and over again. Blech. I haven't played Pandora in probably 10 years as a result....
 
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I finally listened to Booka Shade - Galvany Street in Dolby ATMOS.

I think I like it better than Dear Future Self. The tracks didn't flow into each other as well and I think there's considerably less deep bass, but the tracks themselves were much more musical sounding to my ears overall whereas many of the tracks on Dear Future Self were a lot of hypnotic trance-like sound effects to beats and rhythmic chords. Here there's a lot more vocals going with a bit more structure. It's not the Pet Shop Boys from the '90s musical (hell even they are doing trance/techno stuff now) and I have this yearning to hear Domino Dancing or even Staying Alive in Atmos as I'm convinced Disco would be awesome in Atmos, but I guess this will have to do for now. Even with a bit more structure, the songs do not lack for sounds and instruments moving all over the room.

If there's any difference in terms of imaging usage, I'd say Dear Future Self is a bit more evenly spread out where this album at times seems to do a lot of front-back stuff towards the middle of the album with the sides taking a break at times or with less prominence, only to come back later again all around. This made the rear speakers that much more noticeable (something uncommon in most Atmos movies) and I felt like I was in this giant hallway (well it is a 12'x'24' room, but a lot of material makes it feel shorter at times due to lack of distinct rear usage). The same can be said for ceiling material. It starts strong all over the ceiling and then seems more focused and eventually comes around to moving all over the place and even sounds appearing in 'pillars' right in front of me or even coming down from right above me to just above my head that were just strange to hear in that location (I assume it's a combination of a spot on the ceiling directly above to a point in the ear level speakers in the same place which tends to hover just above my head when sounds are placed there in the middle of the room. Freaky to say the least.

Whether it would do this quite the same way with other Atmos arrangements/seating locations, I can't rightly say as my room is rather Auro-3D orientated with Top Middle lined up with Side Surround as "Surround Height" in the middle and Rear and Front Heights lined up with the front/rear mains (Rear Height/Surround Height duplicated in Auro-3D mode) so sounds tend to focus in alignment vertically in a way I'm not sure would happen with top middle placed asymmetrically as some of Dolby's diagrams seem to suggest with fewer speakers (I'm using a 17.1 configuration as 11.1.6).

In any case, for a retrofit Atmos album, you'd never guess it. It seems just as natural in Atmos as Dear Future Self, IMO. It also includes a binaural (they call it "headphone mix") track just like Dear Future Self as well as a traditional stereo track. I highly recommend Galvany Street in Atmos in addition to Dear Future Self.
 
What's amazing is Yello's Point in Atmos still doesn't come up in an Amazon search (UK or Germany), but its in the search bar results so people are looking for it, but they apparently don't carry it or have it buried under a thousand results. Atmos music will never catch on if Amazon doesn't start listing music blurays in their own category. Some show up under regular CD category and others Bluray and some not at all, especially from US sites where they typically act like they never heard of Atmos music.

Price shipped from jpe: $40 US. That's a LOT for a music album, Atmos or not. It would have to be spectacular to be worth that, IMO, not just "fun".
 
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I found an upmix out on the interwebs that isn't half bad. That started me looking for the BD but I mean ordering anything would be tough right now but these prices are nuts. The last price I saw was about 40 Eu which would be almost $50 US. (+shipping!)
I take it JPC is a German seller. I didn't see them when I was looking I don't believe but $40 shipped would be better as MagnumX quoted.
 
I ordered directly from here yesterday - for delivery to the UK:

https://shop.point.yello.com
I am strongly tempted to try this cuz I sure love my Yello Live in Berlin Blu-Ray. However I don't have ATMOS & even tho it's supposed to downmix to 5.1 I've read some pretty "meh" comments here about that. And oddly ATMOSdoesn't start until track 18? Are the others just stereo? Yello has had so many albums I am far from experienced on their body of work. So are these all new somgs or compilation?
 
I am strongly tempted to try this cuz I sure love my Yello Live in Berlin Blu-Ray. However I don't have ATMOS & even tho it's supposed to downmix to 5.1 I've read some pretty "meh" comments here about that. And oddly ATMOSdoesn't start until track 18? Are the others just stereo? Yello has had so many albums I am far from experienced on their body of work. So are these all new somgs or compilation?

I'm under the impression that's because the Blu-Ray contains the high resolution stereo mix as well as the Atmos mix (note that the Atmos tracks match and exceed the stereo ones). That doesn't excuse the insane pricing (although many Pure Audio Blu-Rays are in the $30/€30 range, but of course they don't have the shipping price issue; the official site wants €32,5 just for SHIPPING to the US (that's more than the cost of the already high blu-ray itself!) I don't know if this will improve if/when Amazon.de gets it in stock (shows 1 seller so far at €45 + shipping!!!). Amazon UK is usually reasonable to the US since they remove the VAT, although lately the shipping has been pretty high so it's best to order multiple items at once, which means you need to want other things at the same time.... Amazon US seems to have spotty interest in Atmos music blu-rays (often have groups you never heard of in stock, but someone somewhat famous like Yello? Forget about it. I had to order Schiller and Booka Shade from the UK in Atmos, but their prices were MUCH more reasonable at well under £20 before shipping in Atmos. Schiller was only £8.58 + shipping, although I haven't yet got it so I'm not going to hold my breath, especially after Kraftwerk 3D turned out to be a regular CD from them)

I see the comments on the Blu-Ray Atmos version on their Facebook page says pretty much the same things.... (e.g. Mike Atwood: Will there be options for USA to order without the ridiculous shipping costs? 35 Euro just for shipping is a killer.)

It's also insanely annoying every time I do something like a Google search for it, it automatically changes it to "yellow point atmos edition". I despise auto-correct!

I wish artists would just sell direct to digital with MKV Atmos files to buy/download (at least it would negate the insane shipping costs). I just end up dumping them all to my server anyway.

I found the Amazon UK link (running behind it seems): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Point-Dolby-Atmos-Yello/dp/B08NVGHFD1
 
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I went ahead and ordered Yello - Point - Atmos Edition from JPC.de. It turns out they remove the taxes there too so it wasn't quite as bad as it initially appeared to be. The total with shipping to the US was €29.15 or $36.93 US. It's on its way.
 
Listening Yello - Point from Tidal Atmos, It's the first time I have enjoyed much more walking around my home theater room than listening at the MLP seat.

Specially with some tracks, no matter where you are moving or standing the sound is moving all around and some time it seems it follows you. You walk around and when you pass trough under a ceiling Atmos speaker you hear a kind of phantasmagorical voice coming just above you from that speaker and then immediately it moves to your back or to your front. And you are not seat at the MLP.

For me, this is the most 'Reference demo' of what Dolby Atmos (or immersive format) can do, that I have ever heard!

Those of you that have bought the Blu-ray, please tell us if it has any additional video, animations or whatever that could enhance the Tidal Atmos experience. (Just to convince me of buying it also ;)).
 
Listening Yello - Point from Tidal Atmos, It's the first time I have enjoyed much more walking around my home theater room than listening at the MLP seat.

Specially with some tracks, no matter where you are moving or standing the sound is moving all around and some time it seems it follows you. You walk around and when you pass trough under a ceiling Atmos speaker you hear a kind of phantasmagorical voice coming just above you from that speaker and then immediately it moves to your back or to your front. And you are not seat at the MLP.

For me, this is the most 'Reference demo' of what Dolby Atmos (or immersive format) can do, that I have ever heard!

Those of you that have bought the Blu-ray, please tell us if it has any additional video, animations or whatever that could enhance the Tidal Atmos experience. (Just to convince me of buying it also ;)).

Better than Kraftwerk 3D?
 
Better than Kraftwerk 3D?

Yes, Better than Kraftwerk 3D, because Yello-Point has many moving sounds almost continuously, that for my taste are well mixed as they don't overwhelm and are musical arrangements that do not break the whole musical main stage.

Kraftwerk 3D is also very good, specially with the help of visuals. That's why I asked if there are interesting visuals in the Yello-Point BD. But I would say Kraftwerk is at a lower level of 'sounds moving everywhere..."
 
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