What is Your Opinion of Atmos Music?

Atmos does provide a 3D soundstage. Instead of just expending left to right and front and back it expands with a height dimension. An object based format is a more precise way for the engineer to mix the soundstage in 3 dimensions.

I like stereo too, especially in the mornings listening at low volumes.

I listen to stereo, 5.1 surround and Dolby Atmos. Done right, 5.1 and Atmos are outstanding. A whole new dimension in sound, much preferred. The only problem is a lack of quality material. Hopefully that will improve with time.

@sdw , I agree with needing more material but have found an excellent work around. The upmixers in a processor are decent but the X-Box has an upmixer that will provide an actual Atmos, DTS, or DTS-X stream. It is fantastic and the X-Box Series S is small and around $300. I stream every movie in atmos or DTS even though most of them are using dolby 5.1 soundtracks. I have not tried gaming on it yet but it has every streaming service I use and it also has Plex, Tidal (through Plex), Amazon Music, Deezer and Spotify. You can also stream via DLNA. Basically I can make every track Atmos music by playing it through the X-Box.

Thanks, that's good to know. I recently bought a new Yamaha AVR (Aventage RX-A6A) and I know it does some upmixing, including to Auro 3D. I'll check it out first, but will keep your suggestion in mind.

@kota1

Great link, thanks.

I’m already looking forward to a trip to the cinema once something catches my interest.

Object based systems such as Dolby Atmos do seem to be a genuine advance over 2 channel recordings when it comes to a convincing representation of spatial sound.

For many audiophiles, a life-like 3d image has always been major goal.

Perhaps the obvious wire issue could be dealt with by some form of Bluetooth connectivity?

Anyway, it’s high time since we had some advance over the work of Alan Blumlein, one of early audio’s great heroes.

"In 1931, Blumlein invented what he called "binaural sound", now known as stereophonic sound. In early 1931, he and his wife were at the cinema.

The sound reproduction systems of the early talkies only had a single set of speakers – the actor might be on one side of the screen, but the voice could come from the other. Blumlein declared to his wife that he had found a way to make the sound follow the actor."