Do NOT Blow Your Entire Budget on Two Channel Audio
Yes, two channel audio is here, and is not going away. However, object based audio is delightful, widely available on Tidal and Apple Music, and should be in the listening room of every music lover on the planet, not just "audiophiles. If you plan to be a music fan a year from now start building your object based audio system today. You will need:
1) A receiver/processor capable of Dolby Atmos.
2) A subscription to Tidal or Apple music.
3) A Firestick, ATV, or Nvidia Shield.
4) A minimum of 7 timber matched speakers and a subwoofer.
Once you experienced stereo would you ever go back to only mono? No, you would build a system capable of either mono or stereo. Now that object based audio has arrived do the same thing. Build a system capable of mono, stereo, AND object based audio. When Elton John heard Rocket Man in an object based format for the first time why did he demand to convert his entire catalog to Atmos? If you don’t know, then you need to go listen to Rocket Man in a good Atmos setup ASAP.
So, take your budget, DIVERSIFY, and get a good Atmos capable receiver or processor. Object based audio is NOT last decades surround sound or home theater. It is for MUSIC first, if you need a recommendation on how to allocate your budget feel free to post a question. Most importantly, you don’t NEED two systems, one for music and one for movies. A good object based audio system can play two channel music just fine. A two channel system on the other hand can’t play object based audio without a proper processor or receiver.
Greg Penny talks mixing Rocket Man in Atmos.
https://youtu.be/ggzfcUKDqdo?feature=shared
As far as phones go that is the way the majority of people consume music today, using bluetooth ear buds. I replaced my phone with a very nice DAP from Onkyo, the DP-X1 and it sounds great, is android based so I can use it to control my system and use the play-fi app for streaming. One DAP to rule them all:
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re " When you listen to live music, the musicians are in front of you, not all around you. Sounds like a gatekeeping money grab to me." That is just a practical limitation of delivering live music to an audience. But why do we have to be limited to that when Atmos can put us sitting in the midst of a String quartet. Not a gimmick, a paradigm shift !
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You are right about 3-D holography being more stupendous than stereo...But using based objects audio as atmos is very different than using BACCH filters... I will stay with 2 speakers and this is why i favored the most natural approach by BACCH filters... way less costlier too...And natural because by mathematical acoustic priciple there is no timbre degradation when playing recorded original acoustic of any stereo albums through our stereo system with the BACCH ... 3-D acoustic dont need many speakers and any other DSP than BACCH filters...
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No, it’s a gimmick, and a tired, old one at that. In the early days of two-channel stereo, there were demo records with people playing ping-pong and trains that roared from one end of the room to the other. Some bands such as the Beatles made "stereo" albums with the vocals on one side and the instruments on the other. Immersive? Paradigm shift? Then came quad with SQ, QS, CD-4 and discrete. Instruments could be made to swirl around you. You could be in the middle of a string quartet! Immersive? Paradigm shift? Nope, just a gimmick that few people wanted. But I get that the OP is obsessed with "object based audio" so I hope he leaves room in his budget for some objects that will help add excitement to his experience. He should certainly have a few of these, perhaps one for each speaker:
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You seem to be content with your stereo (a 90 year old technology), no problem there. But, some technological advancement from the very smart guys at Dolby, DTS, Sony, Yamaha, etc offered the potential to create high fidelity multichannel/object based/immersive rigs starting around 2014. There are significant costs and a learning curve associated with putting together such a high fidelity rig. It is very very different from the barrel bottom receivers and sht speakers popped into ceilings, which is typically associated with immersive audio in purist stereo circles. But, once, you hear the former, it is hard to unhear it. For some of us, life is short and we like to experience things like that before the finite lifespan ends. It is not really a question of finances these days because i know a lot of guys who will drop 80k on a truck clean and easy ( i.e. for a chunk of metal on wheels that will take a guy from point a to point b, whoop di doo). I’ll nix the 80k for a goofyass truck and spend it on such a rig...makes me happier...( different priorities)
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