Do NOT Blow Your Entire Budget on Two Channel Audio

what are people using as a front end?

If you look at the sales numbers receivers are the most popular in general.

The next higher tier would be separate processors with XLR outputs. If you want to fold a two channel preamp into a multi-channel system there are preamps with a home theater pass through feature. The benefits of a processor over a lot of two channel preamps is the room correction and easy integration of a subwoofer. The benefit of a two channel preamp over a processor is a direct signal path and reduced noise from the HDMI/video card. I budgeted $2K for a Marantz processor and $2K for a flagship DAC/preamp. My active speakers have toggle switches between the XLR balanced input (processor) and RCA input (preamp) so I used a "balanced" approach and it worked out fine. I could have easily dropped $5K on a processor and left out a dedicated 2 channel preamp/dac but I liked the $2K processor a lot so I just added the two channel preamp/DAC.

If I were shopping today I would get this Marantz processor at the $2K sale price and drop another $2K on a 2CH preamp/dac with HT pass through.

You can always spend more than the budget I suggested above but you get the idea, it's more or less balanced between a 2 CH pre and HT processor. If you are more of a two channel guy tilt it that way, immersive guy tilt that way. If you are a one box guy look at this receiver.

The new Sony receiver has been getting rave reviews and if I were getting a receiver for immersive audio would likely choose it. Here is a video about the Sony demo at a recent audio show:

https://youtu.be/pcyBHD2feIw?feature=shared

Rather than an either/or between purist 2-channel and a full-on Atmos setup, 5.1 is a satisfying halfway house. I can say from experience Atmos folds down into 5.1 very well, and conversely, a lot of 2-channel content upmixes/dynamically matrixes into 5.1. I’ll go a little further: sometimes the 2-channel content sounds better in 5.1 than the Atmos mix.

The Atmos fold-down into 5.1 is no accident; Atmos is based on 5.1 as the starting point, with additional spatial information tacked onto other "stems" as they pop in and out of the mix. So 5.1 playback doesn’t actually lose any information; overhead content is simply re-mapped into the 5.1 plane of sound.

But down-mixing Atmos content into 2-channel goes too far; too much is lost, and a separate 2-channel mix is usually recommended.

So a system with purist 2-channel, combined with 5.1 in the same room with a bit of extra switching, lets you enjoy all the dominant formats: 2-channel music, movie and TV soundtracks, and most of what Atmos offers.

I personally found the Atmos mixes kind of variable: the "Rocket Man" remix is stunning, no question about it, but others were in poor taste, or just flat-sounding, with nothing but a splash of reverb in the rear and sides.

Being able to switch on-the-fly, in the same room, between purist 2-channel, upmixed/DTS enhanced 5.1, or Atmos in 5.1 let me decide which mix sounds best. And the answer was they are all over the place, between option A, B, or C.

In theory, yes, Atmos should always sound the most modern, with all the studio tech that’s available today. But ... with the heavy compression we hear on a lot of modern "remastered" recordings, the actual musical experience might not be as satisfying as a plain old 2-channel CD made in 1990. An awful lot comes down to the taste (or lack of it) of the re-mastering engineer.

@lynn_olson 

Being able to switch on-the-fly, in the same room, between purist 2-channel, upmixed/DTS enhanced 5.1, or Atmos in 5.1 let me decide which mix sounds best. And the answer was they are all over the place, between option A, B, or C.

+10!! The backward compatibility of Atmos is key. 

That’s something that often gets missed. Read about the production guides for Atmos, and it is clear it is a superset of Dolby Digital 5.1 (not 7.1). So down-mixing simply remaps overhead, or spherical, content, into the 5.1 plane.

Down-mixing Atmos into 2-channel, or discrete 5.1, into 2-channel, essentially destroys it. The Dolby guides are clear: make a separate 2-channel mix, and while you’re at it, make sure the 2-channel mix has good mono compatibility (because that really matters in the 2-channel world).

5.1 is the common interchange format between stereo and surround, and the Dolby/DTS upmixers/decoders work surprisingly well. And it’s not a big deal to add 5.1 to a top-of-the-line 2-channel system.