The revelation that Revolver is being released in a ‘Dolby Atmos’ mix has made me question just what that actually means. I’m getting a distinct whiff of snake oil.
I get that if you have a surround system (ie speakers all round your room) then you are going to get a surround experience.
But if you play through headphones… eh? How is that a surround experience? You don’t suddenly grow more ears, do you? The sound is still coming out from two sound sources, so isn’t it still just… stereo….?
I’ve attached a link to a YouTube demo of Dolby Atmos sound, but without a proper a/b test to compare to equivalent non-Dolby Atmos sound I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be hearing. Yes there are whizzes and objects flying around me, but that’s possible to do with a stereo mix anyway… And the fact I’m listening on headphones makes it by definition a stereo mix… Doesn’t it?
What am I not getting?
Are you familiar with binaural recordings? They are surround-sound recordings made with two small microphone capsules shoved into the ear holes of a dummy head (with dummy ears). So, when played back on headphones, the sound your ear drums hear is the same as the microphones recorded.
That’s right – two microphones, two ears, surround sound.
Phase is the magic ingredient.
Yes, I think I followed that, and that’s fair enough. But even a binaural stereo recording is still a stereo recording? So what you are saying is that Dolby Atmos (when played through stereo speakers/headphones) is just a fancy way of faking something that sounds like binaurally recorded stereo? (And I take it when the sound is decoded by an appropriate surround system it autamotically uses all the surround speakers?)
It still sounds like something that’s a bit old hat being dressed up as a new thing. Roger Waters was going about binaural sound on The Final Cut (which still does sound astonishing with the traffic noises and dog barking and all that).
Right, this is going to get technical and/or dull, so hold onto your hat.
The Dolby Atmos bitstream contains:
1. all the ‘stems’ (so, if the recording is on 24-track tape, it contains all 24 individual tracks – lead vocals, BVs, guitar, bass, kick drum, snare, hi-hat, etc).
2. all the fader levels for all of the different mixes – mono, stereo speakers, stero headphones, 4.0 system, 5.1 system, 7.1 system, full “around and over” Atmos system, ear trumpet*
3. all of the left/righ pans (for stereo)
4. all of the front/back pans (for 4.0/5.1/7.1 surround)
5. all of the height pans (for up-and-over playback)
There is only one Atmos bitstream which contains mixes made for all of the above.
Your Atmos decoding playback equipment knows how many speakers you have connected to it. It will let you access all of the mixes your gear can carry. So, if you have stereo speakers, you can only select mono or stereo. Surround mixes played over mono or stereo speakers just sound phasey and wrong.
If you have a full Atmos playback rig with speakers in the ceiling, you can select any of them.
Additionally, some soundbars and TV sets can decode the Atmos stream and use multiple speaker drivers to create “sound beams” which then bounce off walls and ceiling to create a psuedo-surround effect.
But, you’ve only got two ears and you can get full “around and over” sound played over headphones with either binaural recordings, or with Dolby Atmos.
Lou Reed recorded a couple of albums in binaural, they sound weird played over stereo speakers.
(*) Ear trumpet possibly not in the Dolby Atmos specifications.
I actually understood all that, and as always your dedication to dullness is to be applauded.
But but but… What you are saying is in the end, for people with just headphones or two speakers, ignoring all the fancy behind the scenes gubbins about individual stems and all that, all those people are getting at the end is…. stereo sound, the same as they would always have had? Much the same as someone in the 70s playing a quad record on stereo speakers?
Essentially, Dolby Atmos is just a way of encoding all possible mixes, regardless of how many speakers involved, into one sound file, rather than having separate mixes to choose from?
If that’s the case, then I think I get it. Although I although think the hype is misleading that you are getting anything different from yer standard headphone mix at the end of the day. And that YouTube demo video I posted is just pointless.
No doubt there will be people out there who will swear they hear a difference in a Dolby Atmos mix through headphones. (For such people I’d love to rip it to a stereo audio file without telling them, just to prove there’s no difference).
Yes and no. An Atmos surround headphone mix is not a stereo headphone mix, just like a binaural headphone mix is not a stereo headphone mix.
I feel my pedantry rising to make me look like I’m trying to out-dull you here (which is like bringing a knife to a gun fight when Fentonsteve is in the room) , but… Well… A surround headphone mix kind of IS a stereo headphone mix… Because whatever fancy binaural effects you apply to it, you still have two channels playing sound, one to each ear. No? Okay, maybe you have the illusion of spatial sound, but that’s nothing new, is it?
Your ears are not just sensitive to signals coming directly at them from two sides. There is a more subtle sense of direction at work, due to the response of different parts of your ear, enabling you to tell a sound from behind you on the left, say, from one which is above you on the left.
Sound signals to just two drivers in a pair of headphones can be made to seem like they are from up, down, forward, back by tuning nuances in them to the different parts of the ear which suggest different subtle directions of the sound.
Mike is correct.
Plain stereo played on headphones sounds like it is playing inside your head (between your ears).
Binaural or Atmos surround mixes sounds like it is playing from outside your head – in front, behind, over, etc. Just like sounds in the real world.
But surely it’s still, physically speaking, a stereo sound source – a pair of headphones? I don’t think I am getting why that is something different to the kind of stereo we have already, or even the binaural stereo we have already?
We only have 2 ears so they can be tricked into thinking sound is coming from different parts of a room with these techniques
But, even if you have umpteen speakers in your sourround sound system, you only have two ears. But those two ears can determine direction and phase, as well as level.
Dolby Atmos can do what binaural can do, but without the requirement of the dummy head and ear-drum microphones at the recording stage.
I think it’s a brilliant idea and a really neat engineering solution to the myriad of formats (I own vinyl, cassettes, MiniDiscs, DVD-A, SACD, blu-ray – and no one single device plays them all).
I’m also not exactly a skinflint, but I’d rather have one pair of (bigger and better) speakers, than have 15 smaller ones surrounding me. Or have more records.
“Dolby Atmos can do what binaural can do, but without the requirement of the dummy head and ear-drum microphones at the recording stage.”
An old friend of mine’s dad was a rather eccentric old school BBC engineering boffin and he used to regularly book two tickets for recitals and take his binaural head along with him and sit it on the next seat.
Sheesh, just noticed my clumsily typed title.
You won’t be getting anything except ordinary stereo on anything in YouTube as it doesn’t yet support either 5.1 or Atmos (except possibly on YouTube TV which I THINK is USA only?).
I can’t say much about Atmos on headphones but I have a couple of Atmos mixes for my surround system and it can be spectacular. Abbey Road is really good, as is the last Steven Wilson album but I have to say that it’s not an everyday experience. Apart from anything else you really have to be fixed to your perfectly placed listening position and the truth is the Atmos bits don’t necessarily enhance ALL of the albums, rather more some sections.
Overall, I’m a fan of surround mixes in general (Tubular Bells 5.1 is fantastic) but it’s not for routine listening.
Oh I love surround mixes as well (as I’ve raved about on here before), but Dolby Atmos seems to be getting promoted as a surround system that you don’t need surround speakers for! Which is what doesn’t make sense to me.
What you are “not getting” is that, even though you probably own this album, you will be shelling out lots and lots of money to ‘hear it’ remixed, remastered, Dolby atmos(ised) etc etc
It will include snippets or even whole songs that were on the original album but will be very very slightly different to how you first heard them. You will probably never ever listen to them again.
Peace and Love to everyone
Here’s a playlist of four Taxmans. The first is Dolby Atmos, the second the 2022 stereo remix, third 2009 stereo master and the final an outtake on Anthology 2.
https://tidal.com/playlist/83e9139d-bd4d-46c3-a142-591435b6f6bc
I agree with Arthur. Why isn’t the Dolby Atmos the standard stereo in 2022, whatever the technology behind it? It sounds best, doesn’t it, even streamed on a kindle?
Dolby want Atmos to be the single stream delivery method, because they get royalties on every studio encoder, domestic decoder and stream. They just need more of us to buy the decoders first.
I don’t think Atmos-encoded stereo sounds any different to normal (PCM) hi-res stereo. It shouldn’t, anyhow.
So Dolby Atmos mixes are basically promotional tools to get people shelling out for the gear. Which they then earn royalties on.
Nice earner, Terence.
They’re all at it.
When the Fraunhofer Institute held the patent for mp3, encoding cost a lot (tens of dollars) and decoding cost a few dollars per chip. The US & EU would tax playback-only Personal Media Players (“mp3 players”) as luxury items, but not if they were recorders (like Dictaphones). Radios were also considered luxury goods.
That’s why your iPod had a microphone but not a FM radio (which was sold as a plug-in accessory) – to get round the “luxury goods” tax. It’s also why the microphone recordings were WAV format, not mp3 (to get round the mp3 encoder licence).
Dolby charge a lot for an encoder and quite a bit for a decoder. I once designed a streaming video set-top box which was going to be able to play every video and audio format going, including Dolby Digital surround sound. The Dolby decoding royalty was something like 50% of the parts cost. It didn’t make it to market, as it made the unit too expensive. It could be considered to be Dolby shooting themselves in the foot.
The HDMI connector has a similar licence requirement.
But can Dobly Atmos be turned up to 11?
A certain type of Beatles fan will continue to rebuy records they already have for as long as new formats can be invented.
My phone has Dolby Atmos. All my mp3 files, regardless of how they were recorded, sound noticeably better with it switched on. When I say “sound better” I mean sound better. Fantastic, really.
If you ask me, this shift to obsessing over the sound as opposed to the music is a marketing-led distraction to make buying stuff attractive after pop music ceased to be a real creative force…
I’m with you Fitz. Once the suits realised the people who buy music – us lot – will buy the same thing repeatedly it was inevitable. Little development and support of new artists other than within strict market led constraints, no time to develop before you’re out, let’s have another classic album repackage.
Er, hang on, Twang – do you not read every word I write? What is Mod Team paying me for? I think you’ll find that fitterstoke is impishly quoting me with the intention of making me look a fool at best, a hypocrite at worst. But the joke’s on him (LOL!)! I do most of my listening on my cheap-arse phone, where I keep THOWSANDS of low-value mp3 files – netted from the eel farm with scant or no regard to remix/remaster specification – so when it comes to basic listening requirements I am very easily satisfied. And I have a Magic Button on my phone (Dobly Atmos) which immediately makes it sound better! This hardly makes me the audio trainspotter focussing on granular artifacts and pressing plant codes in dead wax. I’m a music fan, me! Just not Afterword-type music. Which is dreary.
Arf!
“My dog has no ears”
“How does he hear”
“Pardon”
Thank you all for your replies. I feel a bit out of depth so I’m going to get on with my life and stop worrying about it. (I’m supposed to be in mourning today anyway). I like Mike’s reply the best “Dolby Atmos mixes are basically promotional tools to get people shelling out for the gear” because I think for me that sums it up. As far as Revolver is concerned, I might just dig out my old mono LP.
Fuck it, just buy the stereo and turn it up to eleven in your front room. You’ll hear so many bounced audio feeds it’ll be just like standing in your favourite gig shed in front of a wall of Marshalls at full chat. What’s that? Folk? Classical? Singer-songwriter? Pshaw, Rock it, grandad, accadacca style!
*pulls on Aerosmith tee shirt, pops open cider can, zips up tent and heads for the stage*
Funnily enough, the room-within-a-room construction of my soundproofed garage is so effective at stopping sound leaking out, that it all bounces around off the walls and ceiling. It’s like random-location surround sound with only two speakers.
Hitting a cymbal on the drum kit is like being in the middle of a lightning strike.
I need to build some acoustic absorbers.
Instead of costly acoustic absorbers, why not install sliding windows and possibly a shutter door to your Lair of Solitude? That would allow unwanted sound to escape before bouncing off the walls!
Given that my new neighbours have installed a hot tub in their back garden and blast out music with their back windows open, it did make me wonder why I’d gone to the bother of trying not to disturb anybody.
Yesterday it was the album by the Vengaboys. At least I could go into the garage and shut the door to keep the noise out.
Here’s an AW-friendly unplugged version of their hit. I expect KFD will be along with a Vengaboys Tiny Desk session soon.
Are you going to tell me what my Magic Button does? How does it relate to all this binary artificial head recording malarkey?
(That’s a Bangin’ Tune! And my type of people!)
@fentonsteve – I’m actually like to know how my Magic Button works on music that’s recorded without Dobly Atmos. Please thankyou.
I’m not knowing how your Dobly button is working, please and thankyou, yes?
What I took from your elegant analysis was that Atmos is a recording technique, some kind of code which you decoded with a gubbins. My phone “app” (as TYPOT are calling it) works its magic regardless of the recording technology, kind of like an effects pedal for the ear. It cannot be decoding any Dobly data because there ain’t none. Is it even the same thing? I rely on you for information of this sort to put my mind at rest.
It’s magic, you fool.
I’m confident @fentonsteve can whisk away the veil of illusion. I was just down at one of my favourite eateries on the river (chicken with cashew nuts, bottle of Lii-ohh) listening to Smile and at one with the cosmos, and thanking Mr. Dobly for his small but important part in the wave of bliss that lifted me to the blue empyrian.
It might be doing a bit of what the ‘Stereo Wide’ button on my 1980 Bush radio cassette did – introduce a frequency dependent phase shift*. This has the effect of making the sounds a bit more ‘out of your head’ when listening on headphones but, ultimately, a bit phasey/weird and the mono button worked best.
Dobly did have form with this, some of their home cinema equipment having a pseudo-surround feature for playing two-channel stereo** over a 5.1 system.
(*) You don’t want to phase shift anything bass-like, or it sounds like you’re in a wind-tunnel, voices go up to 2 or 3kHz so leave them alone, but anything above is ripe for hyper-stereo.
(**) I’ve just had an idea for a ‘Beatles (TM) mix’ feature. Engage the button and all the vocals pan hard left, all the instruments pan hard right. Does anyone have Macca’s number?
Hmm. It’s not the familiar “Stereo Wide” feature, which comes with Musicolet app as “Surround Sound”, so I can do a direct comparison. Also, Atmos works wonders for the bass. And I cannot replicate the effect of Atmos with the 10-band Musicolet graphic equalizer.
If it is boosting the bass, but not just like a ‘Loudness’ curve, it might also be doing multi-band compression.
You can get away with compressing bass and kick drums to give them extra punch, up to the point where they turn to stodge. Where that limit is depends on the listener.
Multi -band compression…. Sorting out the running order at Live Aid.
I’m pretty certain Steve just called HP “Cloth Ears”
Pardon?
Is this related to Gus Honeybun’s magic button, from the late ITV franchise ‘TSW’? It was only pressed on birthdays, and triggered cheap tv pyschedelic effects, after the eponymous bunny puppet had stood on its head, or jumped up and down.
*gets coat*
This is as likely as fentonsteve’s “explanation”. He has been a disappointment to me.
Because of the lack of a blu-ray in the new Revolver box I looked at possibly streaming the new surround mix (I know I said elsewhere that it would be a faff, but I’m retired so am allowed to faff around within certain parameters) but, would you believe it, the Bluesound Node doesn’t support it! So I am doubly angry now…
Dobly angry?