OPINION : Dolby Atmos is great – when listen to in the right space and stage setting . The technology is probably as democratic as it ’s ever been . But ironically , its biggest trouble is that it is everywhere .
I commemorate in my first few years work in the A / V industry I was sent to Dolby HQ in Soho to account on this new - fangled environment technology calledDolby Atmos . Back in 2014 , it was meant to be an rise on picture palace strait , jumping from 5.1 and 7.1 mixes to a soundtrack that could be fully immersive , with the viewer enveloped – sides , front , rearward , and above – in a hemisphere of sound .
The cardinal Son was immersive , and that ’s what I took from that demonstration . Not that Atmos was necessarily better than 5.1 and 7.1 tracks , but I did n’t feel as if the sound was coming straight off from a speaker unit – that it was simply in the room with me .
What is Atmos meant to be anymore?
That ’s not the experience I ’m get from technology that integrate Dolby Atmos today .
It ’s make the period where I ’m not even sure what Atmos is meant to be . It ’s grown from being a cinema technology to one that ’s – moderately uncomfortably – fitted into living rooms , and can be base in smartphones , wireless speakers , earpiece , soundbars , and tv set . But it ’s never quite recapture the quiver of immersive audio .
In the correct setting , immersive audio is fantastic . I ’ve visited studios such asL - Acoustics , Dean Street Studios , and Dolby HQ ( many clip ) to hear spacial sound , and in those configurations , it works because of the elbow room and the positioning of the speakers to make a soundscape you may turn over into .
It absolutely does n’t work for tv set . Dolby Atmos does n’t seem to have the same finish with TVs , which seems to be to offer better processing than needfully better sound . I ’ve had the privilege of try two enormous8 K TVs , one fromSamsungand another from LG , and the Atmos carrying into action has leave me inscribe my head .
The Samsung TV presented a just ‘ Dolby Atmos ’ performance with its internal apps than it did through a 4 K Blu - ray player , but in either case , it ’s not as if the TV was perforate sound effects out to the viewing position or creating a mother wit of effects above you .
That ’s rather difficult for TVs to do unless it ’s thePanasonic MZ2000or , to a lesser extent , Sky Glassbecause they both have a fully - fledged Atmos sound system . The root would be to get a soundbar , but that ’s only half the equation . You require rear speakers to complete that hemisphere of sound .
Smartphones can apparently do Atmos but I ’m not even certain what that means anymore because there ’s no way they can produce an immersive experience through their speaker system . Then there are headphones , and despite thegrowing act of spacial audio premix and agency of listen to them , the job you encounter here is that not every song is made to be heard in immersive audio , especially audio tracks that have been retrofitted to be immersive . It requires a great deal of engineering and while some data track sound salutary , others could be succinctly described as ‘ meh ’ .
There ’s also the issue with phone that audio is locked around in the space around your head , not in the room itself . Wireless speakers can get past this issue , the Echo Studio and Sonos Era 300 produce a swelled phone , but we still have the problem of how music is mastermind in spatial audio , as well assitting in the right placeto find the spacial audio gist issue forth from what is just one speaker enclosure .
The job is that with Atmos , Dolby has slapped its sealskin of approval across all types of devices to get spacial audio out there . And while it works in some cases , it ’s also served to water down the experience and become confusing . It ’s a bugbear on Tidal that if a track or album is in Dolby Atmos it will play in that data formatting when I often ascertain stereo is a better experience ( depending on the headphones , of course ) .
I am intrigued byDolby Atmos FlexConnect , which could get past the issues Atmos has in the home by being more flexible in terms of the hearing space . But other indications suggest the damage could be expensive , which would dampen its initial collection .
Ireallylike Atmos , and immersive audio in general . When deployed well it is subtly involving or frantically immersive . But I do reckon it ’s suffered from some cockeyed lineament control , integrated into machine that struggle to do justice or use virtual processing to make height and width , which simply does n’t work . It ’s in danger of becoming another confused objet d’art of technical school , and it deserves better than that .
