Music Just Changed Forever

[Sonnie Parker]

Should be interesting to see the development of Atmos music evolve. Maybe it will survive.

 

[one4]

Earlier this year, pre-Covid, we made a $16,000 commitment to upgrade our HT sound system. All was done piece by piece (new amps, new pre/pro, new speakers, new subs, new cables, new 30 amp dedicated power, etc., etc.) DIY. By early Summer our 7.2.4 upgrade was complete, and we began replacing our DVDs and older Blu-rays with 4K/Dobly Atmos (and where we could find it, DTS-X). We are thrilled with the sound and the flexibility. We can switch from two channel music to object based surround with the press of two buttons on our pre/pro remote.

By late Summer we were looking into Internet music streaming and got free trials on both Tidal and Qobuz. We found that MQA (Tidal) without any unpacking did not sound as good to our ears as 16/44.1 (Qobuz). We don't have a MQA DAC and have no intent to purchase one. Next we tried the Atmos music on Tidal via our Firestick 4K. We thought it sucked. Yeah, we got the object based surround, but sounding highly compressed. We tweaked all the settings we thought to and nothing changed; we'd rather listen to clean, HiDef stereo than that muddled cacophony. On the other hand, we've no issues watching streaming 4K video with object based surround via the Firestick 4K; we look forward to HBO Max implementing this in the coming weeks. So, we're paying Qobuz customers now. Tidal is in the rear-view mirror.

BTW, we've around 50 SACD and DVD-A dics we purchased almost 20 years ago when they were only a few dollars more than Redbook dics. We continue to enjoy them today.

 

[one4]

Thanks for posting your experiencing. Your system looks awesome, how do you like that Yamaha processor? Are you at least enjoying movies in Atmos?

Thank you!

Yes! Much more so in DTS-X. We have always found DTS to be superior to Dolby, especially regarding dynamic range. (Our DVD-A's with Dolby and DTS tracks all sound better slecting the DTS track.) Not sure if there is that difference now, between X and Atmos, but we do notice a substantial difference in the implementation of objects. X sounds more immersive to us than Atmos. We've read that the Atmos mixing engineers have a directive not to put sounds overhead or behind at a volume that might distract a viewer from the screen, while X mixing engineers have no such directive. We like being distracted (surprised); if we missed something on screen because we turned our heads to look at where that sound came from, we can always rewind and watch again. In Harry Potter, a Golden Snitch, or Bludger, flying past our ears, involuntarily ducking so it doesn't hit us, is just amazing in DTS-X. With Atmos it's nice, but we don't duck.

We love our Yammy; no major complaints. Then again, we've always had Yamaha receivers, AVRs, and now a pre/pro, so we really can't compare with other brands.

 

[one4]

It's on our list to look into Atmos music or X music (is that a thing?) on disc; our current player will handle that we think. Perhaps there is a platform beside Firesticks that does Tidal Atmos as it should be done. I'll look into that too, but the boss would have to approve spending more than a few $100 for such, and I doubt a platform like that exists. What leaves me scratching my head is we can stream Tidal direct through our Yamaha (without MQA unfolding of course), and the Yamaha is perfectly capable of decoding Atmos, but we have to use a separate platform (like a Firestick) to get Tidal Atmos?

Thanks for the Xbox suggestion. We aren't gamers either, but we will look into it. We just don't see how an app can take a non-object based stream and convert it into object based; make it true Atmos or X. Routing the stream into multiple channels, sure, but creating objects where there were none? That doesn't quite sound possible to us.