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.