Listening to Now (In Dolby Atmos)

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humprof said:
I'll meet you halfway, @perzon57! I'm happy with the sound quality of many of the Atmos and Dolby Audio offerings on Apple Music, especially those things that I don't want to shell out the big bucks for anyway! (Like All Things Must Pass, for instance.) But even after correcting for expectation bias (and "I spent good money on this, so by god it will sound better!" bias), some things just sound better on disc.

Some knowledgeable-sounding person--maybe it was @pat bateman?--posted about this on one thread or another, sometime in the last few months, and I think the gist of the post was: depending upon what-all is going on in the music at any given moment, sometimes 768 kbps is sufficient for transmitting all the relevant audio information. Sometimes not.

But at the end of the day, I agree: it all depends upon how much that matters to you. Amazingly, there are other things to spend money on besides multi-channel music...
Click to expand...

Pretty much correct. Comparing M4A (the codec used for streamed Atmos music) to MP3 isn't quite an apt comparison. The Atmos channels are just metadata, so its an insignificant in the amount of bitrate. The bulk of surround sound mixes (for the most part) have the majority of the bitrate in the L/R and Surround L/R. See picture. Just like how X265 (HEVC) video compression was a huge step over its predecessor X264, M4A was a similar leap in audio compression over MP3. If you have a movie encoded in both X265 and X264, the X265 is going to look a lot better than the X264 even if the files are the same exact size. Same principle with M4A and MP3.

Does high res BD Audio sound better? Of course. But, 99% of people can't tell the difference or don't have the equipment to properly experience it, even on a decent HT system, so I don't blame the streaming services for not wanting to quintuple their audio bandwidth for movies, or 10X+ for high res BD Music over 768kbps Atmos.
 

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pat bateman said:
Comparing M4A (the codec used for streamed Atmos music)
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A slight correction Pat. M4A is a container. It’s E-AC-3 (Dolby Digital Plus) that’s the high efficiency codec used for streaming Atmos that gives all the benefits you mention (not the M4A container).
 
Amazon Music has several Atmos selections
Hard to navigate
If you search, Beatles, etc., you get selected tracks
All sound good
Not DVD/A, or BluRay Audio quality, IMHO!
 
Two new remixes on Apple Music:
https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-christmas-song-expanded-edition/1435551048https://music.apple.com/us/album/handel-messiah/1452251149
Also, the Kelly Clarkson got an enthusiastic review in the New York Times's annual selection of Christmas records (as did the Norah Jones and the "Cole Classics Reimagined" album, to be fair):
https://music.apple.com/us/album/when-christmas-comes-around/1586039341
The standards on Kelly Clarkson’s second Christmas album are almost unfair to other interpreters — she is that nimble a singer. (See “Last Christmas,” especially, rendered here as a vivid roller coaster.) However, it’s Clarkson’s originals — which she sings with the kind of verve most singers not named Mariah Carey don’t bother putting into their holiday releases — that make “When Christmas Comes Around …” truly stand out. “Santa, Can’t You Hear Me” with Ariana Grande is pure Motown, and “Glow” with Chris Stapleton is a worthy howl-off between two powerhouse vocalists. It’s also striking just how uncelebratory some of these songs are: “Merry Christmas (to the One I Used to Know)” is haunting; “Christmas Isn’t Canceled (Just You)” is a blissful tsk-tsk; and “Merry Christmas Baby,” about sloughing off a deadbeat partner, is deliciously icy: “Have yourself a merry Christmas/Hope it’s not as cold as you.” JON CARAMANICA
Click to expand...
 
popshop said:
Yessir
https://music.apple.com/us/album/ocean-to-ocean/1586228889?ls
Click to expand...
I agree that this is one of the best atmos mixes I've heard in awhile. While the album is one of Tori's better efforts in some time, it's the atmos mix that really elevates the material and increases the impact. Whoever did the mix really understood the music and its layered production, opening things up and revealing tremendous detail with very active surround and height channels. I wish all of these streaming only mixes were this good.
 
srbjab said:
I agree that this is one of the best atmos mixes I've heard in awhile. While the album is one of Tori's better efforts in some time, it's the atmos mix that really elevates the material and increases the impact. Whoever did the mix really understood the music and its layered production, opening things up and revealing tremendous detail with very active surround and height channels. I wish all of these streaming only mixes were this good.
Click to expand...

Thanks for pointing this out. I had this album in "My Collection" but as I'm not much of a fan of Tori Amos, I didn't pay attention.

But once more again, beeing multichannel addicted, I find enjoyable some other non favorite music styles.

Listening and enjoying from TIDAL Atmos: https://tidal.com/browse/album/202130553
 
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