@sdw , congrats on your new receiver. When installing your height channels there is a universal layout that you can use for both atmos and auro. Have you installed height speakers yet?

I have but two ears. I like to listen as though I was at a live performance. Stereo, with the source filling in the soundstage in front of me.

Who goes to a show a is surrounded by musicians? 

@marshinski15 , absolutely true about stereo. Some music is being mixed in Atmos and the engineer is trying to convey the artists intent. If you read the article I linked to above here is how Giles Martin describes it:

We start off with the stereo. I feel immersive audio should be an expansion of the stereo field, in a way. I like the idea of a vinyl record melting and you’re falling into it. That’s the analogy I like to use. And if you have lots and lots of things all around you all the time, it can get slightly irritating and confusing, depending on what the music is.

and then

With Beatles mixes, because we have, I suppose, the money to do it, and the luxury of time, what I and [engineer] Sam Okell tend to do, opposed to using digital effects, is we’ll place speakers back in Studio Two [the Abbey Road space where the Beatles originally recorded]. And we’ll re-record John’s voice in Studio Two, so what you’re hearing are the reflections of the room he’s singing in. It brings the vocal closer to you.

Now this is for a pre-existing stereo mix that is converted to atmos. For music that is being mastered in atmos you have the artist right there and the engineer asks them about their intent. One atmos mix is backward compatible with the speaker setup of the listener, it could be stereo, 5.1, in your car, headphones, etc.

See:

@marshinski15 Back in the day, Pink Floyd placed speakers all over an arena or stadium, and mixed the music accordingly. Anyone who ever attended one of those shows would know how superior the sound was compared to a straight "soundstage in front of me" experience.

If you read this article I posted above they are interviewing the studio owners and engineers about mixing in atmos. I was VERY lucky to have corresponded with the owner of The Dub Stage and Galaxy Studios about not only my room setup but my room treatment. My intention was to be able to recreate what they experience on the mixing stage in a way that translated to my own listening room. It was not difficult, just needed to take it step by step. The results are very satisfying and I still listen to both atmos and stereo, depending on what I’m listening to. I can select the format I want through my Marantz processor.