As We See It

I vehemently disagree with you but this is a great column; the best you've written in a long time.

You're best when you have a) news to report (the quotes) and passion. Please keep it up.

I listen to Apple Music atmos stuff all the time in my living room, even mixed down to 5.1 it's great. Sure, I wish it was lossless, but I'm not crying wolf about it. Normal streaming, both music and video, has significantly improved in quality over time, and there's no reason to think Atmos won't do the same, just have some patience and enjoy what's out there. Having all these Atmos/surround mixes so easily available without cluttering my house with piles of plastic is incredible.

It seems that on the digital side it is about gimmicks and not the highest resolution possible. I don't do MC or buy Apple products, so it does not really matter to me, except to see where digital is headed.

It seems odd to me with all that is going on with digital TV and customers wanting more and more resolution and bigger screens. I guess this just proves that people are just more visual.

I am enjoying my headphone experiences and just bought a second pair of AKG K701s ($200) which seem to do a good job of matching my hearing loss. I have enough high rez material to last my remaining days past my 76 years.

I enjoyed my new time with Tidal HD streaming and find it very good and way better than Amazon HD which I cancelled. I am pleasantly surprised.

This hatred of Dolby Digital + Atmos, and hope for its demise, must stem from a fear of something? There certainly can’t be anything wrong with people enjoying music in the highest immersive resolution yet released (for 99% of albums).

Whilst I would like more atmos blu rays,I could not buy thousands so am happy with some extras as streaming.
They should give us a DL option to purchase and release some limited edition blu rays such as Thriller with 5000 available on sale.

some sound engineers, like the one from Radiohead if I'm not mistaken, say that mono is still best. I do not share that opinion. With mono you don't achieve a sound image. But maybe you don't need a sound image for a "live" feeling? Not sure. Still, I am convinced that you will achieve the best results with, and you can better invest in a fully wired stereo with (purchased) digital music (no streaming). I buy AIFF files (without compression, which are not "lossless" but "lossnothing") in cd or High Res quality and store them on my iPhone serving as an iPod and in the Onkyo HF app. In addition, I refuse to buy the red and blue for the fourth time, on vinyl as a teenager, on CD in my twenties and in High Res files a few years ago. Do they really want to earn four or five times with the same music from me? Really?

Why not stream lossless Atmos audio? We already stream UHD 4K movies with (compressed Atmos soundtracks). Why hamstring such a remarkable experience?

Jim,

To the hatred of Dolby Digital + Atmos, and hope for its demise, I would add MQA and any other digital format that is just another play by the record company suits to "invet" yet another format to encourage consumers to buy the same 25-40 titles yet again. I'm 68 and have seen this BS for far too long. Just listen to records, reel to reel, or even cassettes OR redbook CDs and let this digital format BS die a quick painful death.

As SACD (great format) proved, if 95% of consumers wanted a great sounding digital format, it would have had mass adaptation a l-o-n-g time ago.

What is the resolution of streaming Atmos?

Why the constant negativity towards Atmos or anything multich for that matter? Rather than promote the SOTA in immersive audio and then encourage a change to a lossless stream, all you can do is continue to berate. Lossless Atmos files are huge and very demanding of bandwidth but it could be done if the market demands. It took us decades of asking for the lossless streaming of 2ch before it became a reality. Stereophile has had it's head on backwards towards surround sound ever since J. Gordon Holt left over the issue and the loss of Kal's Rubinson's "In The Round" put the final nail in it's coffin at this magazine. While over at The Absolute Sound multich coverage continues and expands with things like Robert Harley's October 2023, 8 page article on the building of the new HT/Music room in his home.
Mr Austin, your short sighted vision of High Fidelity's SOTA is slowly leading this magazine into the stone age and it's demise. I highly suggest you step down and turn the reins over to someone with a wider view of High Performance Audio.
Sal1950

I understand that Atmos is intended to provide an enhanced experience compared to two channel stereo, that it can be provided in lossy or lossless format, and that Apple currently provides Atmos in a lossy format.

MQA provided lossy two channel stereo. I understand many people, like me, can't hear the difference, for me (and I believe many others) the key issue was that MQA was lossy and a proprietary system when there was a perfectly good lossless and open source format already established and avaliable - i.e. FLAC (or ALAC).

So, after reading the column, if the issue for Stereophile with ATMOS is Apple's lossy compressed delivery, then why is Stereophile so consistenly against Atmos being lossy compressed when it has been so consistently for MQA, which is also lossy compressed?

"To summarize, MQA is lossless at all frequencies where music (and music-related sounds) exist. "

So you say, many others with more serious engineering chops have presented otherwise.
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30381-mqa-is-vaporware/#comments
When it sounds different, it sounds different than the master the engineers released. In other words, it's distorted.

"The deterioration of Atmos with Apple's lossy compression is easy to hear."

No one claims it isn't! But lossless Atmos is the SOTA in immersive music presentation today. And 5.1 music is nearly as incredible and a very close 2sd. What's your problem with at lease mentioning either in any positive way? All that ever comes out of your pen is negativity.
Give it up Jim and turn Stereophile over to someone actually interested in moving the SOTA in recorded music forward.

I believe over processing makes real musical instruments loose their musicality. Just listen to the very expensive Kii range of super processed sound speakers, they sound great playing mostly computer generated music because as it has no harmonic structure to it's notes, put some real recorded instruments on them and they start to sound sterile.
To me it sounds like they get the fundamental notes right but can't produce the upper harmonic structure of them. Same with this Dolby Atmos, too much processing going on to give it the wow factor, but ruining any of the fine harmonics that may be there.

Cheers George

There are also good things to say about Apple. The good thing about Apple (in terms of music experience) is first of all the introduction of iTunes, which became a turning point in illegal music downloading. Music was bought again, and therefore paid for. But then came streaming. Streaming nowadays is actually nothing more than illegal downloading in a better guise and yes, better quality but still (data traffic costs are the largest cost item for streaming services so they have every interest in not offering you the best quality, it's just that simple) and yes for a (too low) monthly subscription (which only the biggest artists benefit from, and the streaming services, ... do they? Or only the shareholders? Them again?). Anywyas the other good thing about Apple is the iPod, now integrated into the iPhone, along with the Apple pocket camera, Apple pocket computer, Apple pocket... you get the picture. In addition, AIFF. Uncompressed music files. Not "lossless" where you lose something (otherwise they would have called it something else, the truth is in the name), but "lossnothing", where you don't lose anything. I am convinced that music from an Apple uncompressed stereo AIFF file (or any other uncompressed format and no streaming and via a fully wired stereo) sounds better than an Apple (or anyone else's) compressed Atmos (or any other surrounding or other compressed format when using equipment in the same price range). Hence my argument in my earlier post, you are better off investing in a fully wired stereo and listening to purchased uncompressed music files. A old-school cd sounds better then any streamed music file as a 4K Blu-ray movie looks better then a streamed 4K movie. But for movies I make an exception and opt for convenience and choice, I hardly own Blu-ray movies and yes I have a subscription at Netflix and HBO Max (EU). But I don't make this exception for music and opt for maximum quality within my budget. Less (choice) is more (quality). And then this about Apple, everything from Apple also looks great (the eye is also interested, although I make an exception for my boring Hegel and Nad power amplifier in terms of looks so yeah again...) and everything from Apple works well together. My computer and smart phone are from Apple, such as the music files and storage. But I pass up for Atmos, or the smart watch and streaming and payment or any other services. And yes, Apple is for the masses, not for a small subculture and autistic nerds (I'm speaking for myself here).

Considering how crushed the dynamics are on most new stereo releases, even the failed MQA releases formally on Tidal, I find it odd that lossy Atmos, with the dynamics still intact, get this much hate. Immersive formats add a dimension that mono and stereo just can't compete with. That dimension plus the dynamics, should be what every audiophile strives for. DD+ format compression is miles ahead of your granddad's Mp3s. Apple Music Atmos is simply a steppingstone towards a greater future for immersive music, unless the narrow-minded people get their way.

Well said himey.

A response to this article on my blog:
https://archimago.blogspot.com/2024/01/on-stereophiles-dolby-atmos-bleak.html

Getting anxious about lossy EAC3-JOC codec especially at quite a high 768kbps is not necessary!

I originally assumed that streaming Atmos would be indistinguishable from a Blu-ray. But then I bought a Blu-ray version of an album I had listened to from Apple Music streaming - I noticed immediately that it sounded better in the lossless format. I wasn't looking for it or expecting any difference, but I noticed it by surprise.

"The deterioration of Atmos with Apple's lossy compression is easy to hear."
"I originally assumed that streaming Atmos would be indistinguishable from a Blu-ray. But then I bought a Blu-ray version of an album I had listened to from Apple Music streaming - I noticed immediately that it sounded better in the lossless format. I wasn't looking for it or expecting any difference, but I noticed it by surprise."

Same thing happens in CD v Streaming.

Cheers George

I can be moved by music from a mono Sonos or whatever mono system and from a 300K installation and whatever system. Ultimately it is about the music (and the (memory) that it evokes) and not about the sound system or format of the sound file.

Btw I can not be moved by music played from an iPhone built-in speaker or any smart phone. Unfortunately I cannot avoid ending up in such a situation sometimes and that's over my irritation threshold. How much effort does it cost to use at least a small JBL speaker?

Folks, as someone who has a ton of experience listening to the TrueHD and DolbyDigital+ streams, I would agree that the differences are easy to hear, just like it was with MQA. The difference is in the loss of the sense of space in the mix and some detail. However, it is still a worthwhile listening experience and most often better than the terribly compressed stereo mix. It is often leaps and bounds better than what MQA was doing. It would not surprise me if Apple Music changes to TrueHD over time. I do not think they will be forever DD+. In speaking with a contact at Dolby, I note they are pushing for this. Expect some announcements this year of the availability of a good deal more Blu Ray releases and MKV downloads. I think for Atmos, the future is bright.

Einstein Motivational Quote; "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. imagination circles the world".

Appl. to Dolby Atmos and multichannel (in general), etc. etc.

... if one's imagination can't create a satisfying auditory experience from 2-channel, even for movies, then the imagination system may be handicap.
You need automagic transmission, electric doors and wheelchair ramps. The U.S. govt. necessitates accessibility to all disabled.

With a fresh Dirac calibration to tighten things up in my HT, I am receiving the DSOTM blu ray tomorrow with the new Atmos mix, which has been freed from the boxed set and is now available for $20 on Amazon. I can compare said disc to the Apple Music Atmos, the SACD 5.1 mix and stereo mix and an original MoFi LP with less than 50 total lifetime plays. I only lack the Parsons mix. Importantly, I will be able to directly compare the two Atmos versions. In prior comparisons of the Moving Pictures Atmos blu ray to the Apple Music stream, I didn't actually hear a lot of differences. I tend to believe that when listening to multichannel, some of the nuances are muted by the immersive experience as the brain assembles it all in to a coherent construct. YMMV, and so shall mine... But as far as it goes, the only relevant part of this discussion is quite literally comparing Apple to Apples...

rant on/And just as an aside, I had a chance to hangout socially with jj once when he was working in the perceptual coding division of MS and we discussed his thoughts on perceptual coders in general, and even then some nearly 20 years ago he believed that Fraunhofer had come up with the secret sauce for rendering a reasonable bit-rate lossy codec to be nearly inaudible in most contexts. Given the limitations of consumer standards for maximum bitrates for streaming, I can't see how we're going to lossless files streamed to us for another 5-10 years. So instead of handwringing about what you aren't getting, buy the damn discs for now and STFU. /rant off

That guy in the picture at the top of the article represents the average number of chairs and the average number of listeners in the average audiophile's listening room.

More speakers than listeners is some sort of audiophile rule.

;-D

and headphone listeners. As my left ear became impaired, to make the presentation less confusing & dialog clearer, I prefer to watch/listen to movies with the surrounds turned down/off, in phantom center channel mode & subwoofer turned down/off. Luckily, my Sony AVR provides this on the speakers & headphones. I ask that any new multi channel system provide these same features for the hearing impaired. This should be simple to do in an app or menu?

I can’t recall ever seeing so much judgemental posting on a forum covering stuff that’s supposed to make us feel good.

Sure, there are people who can’t afford high speed streaming, and there are people who bought into MQA within hours. And the hobby can accommodate all of us.

There are elements of recordings I can hear, but my wife cannot. There are elements of recordings that my neighbor can hear that I cannot. None of us is wrong about what we can hear, nor are any of us wrong about what we like.

I see several posters here who clearly don’t have much of a life, and I hope they can find one.

..gave animals one pair of eyes and ears for a reason.