The Official Dolby Atmos & Immersive/Spatial Audio Thread -- AKA Why Are We Still Banging On About Surround Sound?

We’ve had a few threads from time to time on surround and 5.1. And I recognize this isn’t the Hoffman or Quadraphonic Quad forums for obsessives and weird uncles. But with the emergence of spatial audio on streaming platforms, as a feature of soundbars (how I experience it) and AirPods substantially (if not significantly) lowering the barriers, it’s maybe worth a thread on it.

Let’s acknowledge some of the caveats up front: surround sound is still somewhat niche and for obsessives as it has been since the days of quad. And yes, the industry is certainly trying to wring a few more dollars out of its dormant catalogue and a catatonic listening public.

But focusing too much on the drawbacks misses what’s legitimately cool about immersive audio mixes: that they literally put you inside some of your favorite music.

Most of us here have experienced the proverbial “headphones album” — where you’re in your bedroom listening to Dark Side of the Moon, Loveless or what have you (perhaps with a Hipgnosis gatefold sprawled on your lap). Others may have obsessed over certain 12" mixes that expose different elements of songs we love. Well, spatial audio allows for that on a three dimensional scale.

I have a few Blu-rays of this stuff as well as experimented with doing free trials of the streaming platforms that carry it (Amazon/Tidal and Apple, currently). Some of my favorite listens so far:

The gorgeous surround mixes of Robert Fripp’s incredible Frippertronics …

The wide panning Atmos mix of the Human League’s super sparse Dare … where the muffled rifle noise of Seconds emerges from the front speakers and echoes its way into the rears and highs.

Mike Oldfield's Hergest Ridge unveils a noticeably different set of instrumentation from previous issues.

Bob Clearmountain’s Bryan Ferry’s Boys & Girls mix is a virtual demonstration record of the Atmos technology (“Windswept” kind of sounds like it was built for this).

Joni Mitchell’s sumptuous “Help Me” with its vocal bed cradling the listener …

The immersive treatment can be surprisingly effective on music you wouldn't necessarily expect. For instance, there are some really interesting remixes of classic soul or country. Like how Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman” allows you to break apart the Capitol Studios echo chamber on the Campbell’s voice (supposedly designed by and buried 30' in the ground by Les Paul!) from those shimmering Al DeLory strings …

Or how Steven Wilson’s discrete mix accentuates Martin Hannett’s off kilter production on New Order’s Movement.

Or how a bunch of different jazz records put the listener almost literally on the stage or in the studio with the band, creating a kind of intimacy with its audience that jazz engineers have been attempting at least since Rudy Van Gelder.

Obviously, not all this stuff is created equally. There will always be some portion of mixes that feel like perfunctory cash grabs where they add a little bit of echo in the rears and call it “immersive.“ And there is more to this than just panning a bunch of shit around the 3-D spectrum (tho that can be fun: see the SFA and Flaming Lips 5.1 mixes of their aughts albums).

For my part, I won't say any of this is a game-changer ... but I enjoy it and am sometimes excited by experiencing a record or an artist in a new or different way.

What say ILM of immersive audio? Does anyone give a shit?

As someone who bought those SFA and Flaming Lips 5.1 mixes as well as a handful of others (I remember liking NIN's the downward spiral surround mix), I am interested in this stuff, though I have nothing to contribute really and am unsure what Atmos brings to the table that makes it superior to previous surround sound formats, though I would guess that in the last 20 years, at the very least people have gotten better at mixing for surround sound.

Selected albums "mixed in QSound"

Over 60 albums feature QSound processing. Some notable examples include:

The Immaculate Collection by Madonna (1990)
Power of Love by Luther Vandross (1991)
Prisoners in Paradise by Europe (1991)
The Soul Cages by Sting (1991)
Spellbound by Paula Abdul (1991)
Help Yourself by Julian Lennon (1991)
Parallels by Fates Warning (1991)
Dangerous by Michael Jackson (1991)
Amused to Death by Roger Waters (1992)
Whaler by Sophie B. Hawkins (1994)
A Live One by Phish (1995)
Pulse by Pink Floyd (1995)
18 Til I Die by Bryan Adams (1996)
Broken China by Rick Wright (1996)

Bring back mono.

unperson otm, if it doesn’t sound good on a little bluetooth speaker then you fucked up the mix

I mean, yeah, I love mono too. Just the same as I love songs where when you strip away the arrangement and production you have a nice, catchy tune.

QSound! I’d forgotten about that. Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut was also mixed in”Holophonic Sound” – which was a 3-D thing. Both used two speakers IIRC, which matters because how we perceive sound directionality has to do with our outer ears and even our skulls from what I understand. But yeah, the industry has been tooling around with this for a while.

I have just dipped my toes into this water and - it's pretty fun! I'm focusing on Atmos for now but will check out some 5.1 stuff I've had for years but never listened to. It's a really great way to approach old favorites, so far I've heard:

XTC - Drums & Wires and The Big Express, and especially the latter benefits from having the instruments swirl around your head. Also, the mixes are brand new and knowing these records note for note brings surprises as I listen, a longer outro here, a different vocal bit there.

Propaganda - A Secret Wish, this time the source is the original LP version and I've really only listened to the CD for almost 40 years. This record is so complex, Atmos really shows off the depth of the recording.

Kraftwerk - Autobah, the Blu-ray shows little videos and images as the songs play that the band used when I saw them live in 2015. It's not a radical mix, you don't have instruments panning wildly, but it's a tasteful effect and tickles my ears.

I haven't gotten to Talking Heads - Stop Making Sense and Simple Minds - Sparkle In The Rain yet. Fortunately for my bank account there aren't too many titles I'm interested in picking up.

My big question is should I spring for an Atmos version of a title I've already got in 5.1?

I'm curious if there are people using stems to make unsanctioned live 5.1 / surround mixes as a part of the playback process. Like if they had rigged up players that are almost DAWs that load up a session and you can pan tracks in every direction in a listener-oriented interface rather than a producer/engineer.

This guy does that:

https://youtube.com/@5.1-surround-mixes-by-mg?si=7qRNRJ6QvhB6On-2

My setup is 5.1, but Atmos mixes sound good on it (so I hesitate to buy more hardware).

I've really been enjoying getting into surround mixes in the last two years, and they compel me to sit down and do nothing but listen and concentrate for the duration (my typical music listening is usually in the car, or background music at work, or at home in the background while on the computer, etc.).

One fun discovery I made is that if you play a regular stereo recording on my receiver (Onkyo TX-NR6100) but in 5.1 surround mode (rather than "pure audio" which just uses the 2 front stereo speakers, or "stereo" which uses the 2 front stereo speakers plus the subwoofer), then it sort of "translates" it into surround. I believe what it does is any sound that is hard-panned left or right goes into the rear surround speakers, sounds that are panned a little to the left or right go to the 2 front stereo speakers, and stuff right in the middle goes on the center channel. The results vary wildly. Sometimes this sounds bad, but sometimes there are surprisingly good results.

Another key tip I discovered is that the receiver doesn't always automatically use the correct surround mode (e.g. Atmos, DTS, etc.), so I always have to check which mode it is using when you start playing, and change the mode if necessary. Otherwise it doesn't sound the way it was intended to sound.

I second XTC's "The Big Express" - that album has never sounded so good (surround or stereo). I have all of the XTC surround mixes (but just have the 5.1 for "Skylarking," not the new-ish Atmos), and I love them all. IMO the two must-haves are "Skylarking" and the Dukes of Stratosphear collection, "Psurroundabout Ride." Those are the ones I would play to anyone who is skeptical about music in surround sound.

I think I have all the King Crimson surround mixes up to Discipline (but not the newer Atmos mixes of "Larks'...", "...Poseidon" and "Lizard" - the 5.1 mixes still sound great to me). "Lizard" is the real surprise among the bunch - it's a lot of fun.

I have the Genesis ones from the Peter Gabriel-era box set - I would have mixed them differently (which applies for both stereo and surround): a little less bass (which is WAY too loud in places), slightly less lead vocals, and Steve Hackett's guitar isn't loud enough sometimes! I think "Lamb..." was my favorite surround mix from that bunch (haven't heard the new Atmos one yet).

Others in my collection:
Prince - Purple Rain. This one is growing on me. Several tracks use the aforementioned trick NTI mentioned: "add a little bit of echo in the rears".
Air - Moon Safari. Pretty good - I like the sound separation in several tracks, where I could hear new (to me) details in "La Femme d'Argent" and "Remember."
Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon. Very nice. It has both Atmos and 5.1 mixes - both are great, although the Atmos one seems to have a little more clarity.

This YT channel has tons of official and unofficial surround mixes, so although the audio is compressed (and I need to crank the volume to get to a normal level), you can try before you buy (and lots are out-of-print):
http://www.youtube.com/@5.1MusicChannel

Lots of prog of course, but then there are some surprises, like the Temptations' "Ball of Confusion": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYPYbR_E2lo

I was confused for a minute but it looks like your Onkyo receiver does support Atmos, so it's just downmixing it to 5.1? That's cool that it sounds good!

What I've learned from my surround experience is that some mixes are subtle and some are almost like completely new versions.

Bill Nelson's "Quit Dreaming and Get on the beam" is one of my favorite albums of all time and I feel like I heard a whole lot that either wasn't there or I just didn't notice before. Cliche but true. It's a mostly tasteful surround mix but there are some songs like "Life Runs Out Like Sand" that feels like a new experience to me, and I've heard this album hundreds of times.

I agree. By contrast, something like Steven Wilson’s sublime mixes of the Tull catalogue rarely reveal parts I haven’t heard before but they create a very different—yet somehow faithful—experience of listening to music that I’ve in most cases known in various capacities for a very long time. It’s a great, under appreciated feeling as a music fan.

I have finally thought of an album I would like to hear in surround sound: Miles Davis's On The Corner. There's so much percussion, and so many different keyboard players buried in the mix, that I think there might actually be potential there.

An OTC spatial mix would be incredible. It shouldn’t be a multitracks issue as they were hauled out for the box as well as the Laswell remix in the late 90s. I suspect the bigger issue might be that Bob Belden died – he was the guy in charge of overseeing those boxes for Sony.

A few releases that might scratch that itch are the original quad mixes of Bitches Brew and Live-Evil, which are (or were) both streaming on Amazon Music Unlimited.

Another is the quad mix of Herbie Hancock’s Sextant – tho I’ve never heard it as it’s not streaming anywhere and only on SACD.

Listening to GMcBB’s copy of the Bill Nelson Quit Dreaming 5.1. I would disagree a bit that it’s tame or safe so much as particularly immersive. Like, I think the mix is vox/bass/drums in stereo upfront with things like keyboard and percussion embellishments in the rears. Which is a fine way to mix an album, but maybe not as enveloping as some. Title track here is maybe a bit more so.

Some things are in the eye of the beholder a bit tho (or maybe more specifically, your setup’s). On the Quadrophonic Quad site the Atmos mix of the Human League’s Dare was pilloried for not being discrete enough but on my system it’s big and wide which IMO works well for a record that has only a handful of elements.