How good are the Upmixers at Upmixing from stereo or multichannel to Immersive Audio?

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quoddiophile

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I hope this is the right forum. If not, please move this thread to the correct one.

I am seriously considering upgrading to Immersive Audio. As the vast majority of my source material is non-Immersive (I have a few Atmos discs that I have ripped to 7.1) an important factor in my decision is the job that the various upmixers do in upmixing from stereo or multichannel surround to Immersive Audio. In general, how good a job do they do, especially the Auro upmixer?

I should mention that at present I have a Bryston SP-4 processor (effectively a Storm Audio clone) that can handle immersive audio. As a result, I have considerable experience in upmixing from stereo to multi-channel or even from 5.X to 7.2 as I have a 7.2 system. My experience with this has been mostly positive with the Auro upmixer being by far the best. Unfortunately, I have so far been unable to hear locally a decent demonstration of anything being upmixed to Immersive Audio. The nearest place I know of is 350 miles away and in any case, for various reasons, I am unable to travel significant distances at this time.

Hopefully, members of this forum who have had some experience with this will chime in.

Thank you very much in advance for any comments or suggestions you might have.

Jim

P.S. If I upgrade, I will almost certainly be getting 4 B&W CCM 7.5 S2 in-ceiling speakers and probably a NAD M28 7-channel power amplifier.
 
It sounds like you are talking only about push button or "live" upmixing?

If so, I have a Marantz AV7704 and 7.1.4 (plus a 12th top speaker for Auro 3d), and put Dolby, DTS, or Auro 3d upmixer on top of decoded stereo or 5.1/7.1 content. I don't know that I would go to an immersive system just for that, but definitely would/did for Atmos/DTS-X/Auro 3D discrete immersive, and what you can do with offline up-remixing.

If not, I would have a lot to say about what you can do with up-remixing, especially with the AI music source separation tools we have now. Many commercial Atmos mixes are pretty conservative, given the possibilities of the format, and a lot of surround "WOW" factor is left on the table, IMHO.
 
AVR upmixers do a decent enough job to upmix from 2.0/5.1 to ‘immersive’ up to 9.1.4 in my case.

Of course, it all depends on how the original mix is done, for each particular title.

DSU (Dolby Surround Upmixer) works better than before since the last update done a couple of years. It supports now the Wides for my 9.1.4 rig. It tends to keep the frontal stage sound of a stereo, compared to Auro-3D that gives a more full bubble sound. DSU fills and moves sound (discrete if good mix) to the rear and to the height.

Neural:X is more aggressive and send more sound to the heights. But I do not like it for music. It sounds more “all channels stereo” for me, and you lose some degree of discrete/inmersive.

Auro-3D (Auromatic) is a very good alternative to DSU. It elevates correctly the floor sound to the heights (copy+reverb) and has a wide range of adjustment to tune the level of effect. Auromatic use to sound more “envelope” than DSU and less distorting. With DSU, when redirecting some part of the frequencies of the sound to the rears (or tops/heights) the global sound may sound a little distorted or less “clean”, depending on the mix. This weird effect usually don’t occur with Auromatic, and you use to get a more fidelity upmixed sound, although with an important bass increase, depending on its level settings.

I enjoy Stereo always with DSU/Auro-3D. I like very few or none original stereo better than with DSU/Auro-3D

The 5.1 upmixing is not as evident. If the 5.1 mix is good enough I use to prefer the original mix, as the upmixing may blurry the sounds a little and does not add too much as the original 5.1 is already ‘Surround’.

In summary, the Upmixers really help to amortize the Immersive investment. But then, you are pushed to look for more Atmos good mixes.
 
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From my experience:

Auro 3D upmixing from 2.0 to 5.1.5 (or whatever) is very effective. It keeps the stereo sound field intact and coming from the front.
Auro 3D also works really good enhancing Quad albums without making a mess out of them.
Auro 2D (7.1): With some material, I prefer Auro 2D. It can take material with a dense center and give the impression of a bit more breath.

DSU (with Center Spread engaged) has been hit or miss for me. It can make an ambient mess out of some material.

Involve Audio Surround Master gives a nice immersive presentation with most material and it never does any 'harm' like DSU, PLIIx, Logic7 can do at times. I do find the need to crank the surrounds up or down on occasion depending on the source material.
 
I hope this is the right forum. If not, please move this thread to the correct one.

I am seriously considering upgrading to Immersive Audio. As the vast majority of my source material is non-Immersive (I have a few Atmos discs that I have ripped to 7.1) an important factor in my decision is the job that the various upmixers do in upmixing from stereo or multichannel surround to Immersive Audio. In general, how good a job do they do, especially the Auro upmixer?

I should mention that at present I have a Bryston SP-4 processor (effectively a Storm Audio clone) that can handle immersive audio. As a result, I have considerable experience in upmixing from stereo to multi-channel or even from 5.X to 7.2 as I have a 7.2 system. My experience with this has been mostly positive with the Auro upmixer being by far the best. Unfortunately, I have so far been unable to hear locally a decent demonstration of anything being upmixed to Immersive Audio. The nearest place I know of is 350 miles away and in any case, for various reasons, I am unable to travel significant distances at this time.

Hopefully, members of this forum who have had some experience with this will chime in.

Thank you very much in advance for any comments or suggestions you might have.

Jim

P.S. If I upgrade, I will almost certainly be getting 4 B&W CCM 7.5 S2 in-ceiling speakers and probably a NAD M28 7-channel power amplifier.
Hello Jim,

thats funny, exact that what iam working for(private). I have bought long time ago a DVD-A player and also some discs, but finally that wasnt full the ultimate thing for different reasons. Now i found some few labels that have good multichannel music and i want to hear that with my surround layout.
As i have the Trinnov Altitude32 and the immersive audio codecs, its the logical step for me. Current i have only very few BD with McH Music, but i also just started. I use the Auro-3d codec to upmix from stereo. Sources are Roon streaming and CDplay . Auro upmix is for me the best natural sounding choice. As Roon also can stream up to 7.1 sources, i use to the upmix here to finally feed my layout(current 9 speaker getting more very soon.
I have tried the other upmixes, but Auro-3d ist clearly the best sound for me. As i have current mainly stereo sources, there was/is a lot of fine tuning. Its mainly gain adjustments and proper delays in conjunction with the AL32 room optimizer.
Hearing experiences:
The sound stage get bigger in all dimension, and the whole sound is more "natural". You hear more details in terms of placement of the artists and clarity and dont split the whole music in different parts, its like "from the same mould". So its "all together" in every way. Sorry ,its hard for me to describe. The other upmixes simply-shotly said, doesnt sound so good. So the Trinnov AL32 codecs work very good- no wonder as they are working for/with all others.

As i have speakers with digitals input only, my next work is to rip all disc sources what i get to finally stream it, will see whats the best solution/player to do that.
I have also to look/try how all will sound/work with old quadro souces, every input here is helpfull.
 
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