Poll: Atmos Music: Are You Going to Listen at Home?

QuadraphonicQuad

Help Support QuadraphonicQuad:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Atmos Music: Are You Going to Listen?


  • Total voters
    184
BTW, do squirrels on the roof count as an "ATMOS EXPERIENCE?"


See the source image
 
It's not just finance... my wife and I literally almost got a divorce fighting over the speakers in my 5.1 set-up!

My sons new wife put the kibosh on his 5.1 system, said the speakers and wires all around was tacky.(even though he tried a compromise to use small satellites) Now he's stuck with a 65" HDTV and a sound bar, with all his polks and satellites now in boxes. He's pretty bummed about it, but 2nd wife rules I guess. This saying is wrong happy wife happy life, should be happy wife crappy life.
 
do squirrels on the roof count as an "ATMOS EXPERIENCE?"

No, but the roof space makes it easy to run ceiling speakers!

My room had a flat roof with 190mm beams spaced every 600mm. I had to feed a pull wire over a 30mm gap on top of each beam using the speaker cutouts and existing downlight holes. One trick I learnt: push a 15mm conduit through to the next access point first then push a stiff wire through the conduit.
 
I'm a big fan of the Atmos/Auro 3-D world, but not just for the dedicated mixes. I enjoy playing with the various upmixers (Dolby Surround, DTS Neural X, Auromixer) with stereo sources. For example, "Time" by APP sounded great last night as the cymbal wash slowly filled the room from front to rear overhead... Of course, folks have very different tastes when it comes to upmixers, so YMMV.
I’m with you here. Although, I’ve played around with various upmixers in the past, they were fun but I always returned to stereo with two-channel music. With Auro-3D Auromatic, I leave it on 100% of the time. It makes a tremendous difference expanding the soundstage.
 
You can actually do 5.1.5 with Auro-3D. The "voice of god" speaker in the middle of the ceiling. On my AVR, you give up the 2nd sub to do it.

Mine, too. However, I like the balanced subs! Would like to temporarily set it up, though, just to check it out. My living room roof is an A-frame (with the slopes front to ceiling back down to back where the rears are), so I'd have to suspend a speaker from the ceiling light :cautious:
 
I'm running 7.1 right now, and most Atmos core/DTS-X core 7.1 audio sounds really great on my setup. I'm about to move into a new home and plan to eventually go 7.1.4. My Onkyo avr was purchased from accessories4less factory refurbished with full warranty almost 10 years ago and it's still working like a champ. They have some refurbs on there with 9.1 powered with output for 11.1 (7.1.4) processing with an added 2 channel amp from Marantz, Denon, Yamaha, etc. starting at about $700. I plan to use the new avr to power the 7 main speakers and my old Onkyo just to power the 4 Atmos speakers. I've also been looking for a simple affordable way to add the 4 ceiling speakers without having to cut into the ceiling, and I think I've settled on some 2-way Yamaha ns-aw350 outdoor speakers that have brackets that can mount onto the ceiling and rotate up, down, left, right easily and they are only around $99 a pair. Thinking about adding some bass shakers for shiggles too!
 
I voted: I’ll listen to Atmos as 5.1 or 7.1 (no extra speeakers)

If we're not able to listen Atmos surround with what we already have, no one will upgrade in the future. If there is Not enough titles for music, no one will buy an Atmos system in the future either.

We need hundreds, if not thousands of titles if Atmos is going to be a for real thing, that becomes a new normal standard. If it's backwards compatible with 5.1, then we'll take what we get.
 
That's the problem though. If many supposedly Atmos mixes are just going to be heard folded down to 5.1 or 7.1, that's honestly and truly going to follow that discrete intentional 5.1 or 7.1 mixes will better them. Now where the hell are we?

It really does work that way too. Folding down is a compromise. It may be small. It may be very well done. The ambisonic-like scaling in these 3D systems may be a legitimately clever idea and done well. But at the end of the day, there's either the original mix or a compromised version of it. In the same way that a 5.1 mix folded down to stereo can be lesser than an intentional stereo mix due to the artifacts that sometimes generates (yes, there are exceptions), there's going to be a divide between a full discrete 3D mix and a folded down render of it.

I don't mean to dismiss anything. Not even upmixing and that kind of thing. Playing with decoders with stereo sources and all that just to see what happens. It's all good!
But an original mix as the artist intended and heard on final playback in the studio is something to be respected. That's a hard bottom line too! You can always disagree with it and modify it if you decide you like that. Decide someone made a mistake and correct it even! Any and all of the above. But you have to at least start with the full mix from the artist 1:1 or it's all meaningless.
 
Ha! Great post. This made me laugh.

... "ambient wiggles" - which is a funny term I plan on using in future too...

I believe I need to credit The Flaming Lips. Probably not the words they used, but they wrote in the liner notes on the Pink Robots album about first hearing a demo of Q-Sound I believe and they weren't impressed by the only slightly perceptible polite wiggles or warbles. If they were going to do something in surround sound... f that! "We want drums spinning around the room!"
 
It's not just finance... my wife and I literally almost got a divorce fighting over the speakers in my 5.1 set-up!

I read comments like this and they always just shock me to the core. I can't imagine the depression I'd sink into if I ended up with someone so incompatible with me and then actually followed through and took down a music system or settled for portable/limited stuff. Not to project what's important to me on anyone else and cause problems! I mean, I AM single but that's more from being an awkward dude than anything else.
 
I read comments like this and they always just shock me to the core. I can't imagine the depression I'd sink into if I ended up with someone so incompatible with me and then actually followed through and took down a music system or settled for portable/limited stuff. Not to project what's important to me on anyone else and cause problems! I mean, I AM single but that's more from being an awkward dude than anything else.

Jim, better to be awkwardly SINGLE than enmeshed in an AWKWARD MARRIAGE! Not at all meaning to sound misogynistic, but maybe it's time for men to fight for liberation, as well, and assert themselves as SPEAKER of the HOUSE!
 
Last edited:
I couldn't decide between I already have a system, or I plan to, because there wasn't a choice for "If I can ever get my electrician friend to come over and install my ceiling speakers for me".

I will be making the huge leap from 5.1 to 5.1.2, but it will be officially Atmos.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top