I was excited about Atmos music at first but quickly cooled. I would like music mixes for 5 or 7 channels arrayed across the front, not surround sound. I don't care about height channels. They can throw those in if they want. The Atmos mixes I've heard were kind of nice in some ways but they're not doing what I'd really like. The potential is there but it's not going to happen just to suit my tastes. They often don't even use the center channel for center panned vocals or instruments, or if they do, they mix it in weakly, using the left and right front channel to create a traditional phantom center image, maybe slightly augmented by the center. I know some people like that better but I say what's the point? If I'm stuck with a phantom center image again I'll just as soon go back to 2 speakers for simplicity and practically the same sound. I'm not concerned about bit perfect. I've tested myself and found that digital volume control and other DSP like oversampling or converting bit depth and sample rate work just fine for me. Whatever they degrade isn't what I'm listening for. I hear inter aural cross talk problems much louder than any issue with digital. Maybe some day AI tech will allow spectacular sounding on-the-fly up-mixes of 2 channel recordings to suit my tastes.
