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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

 

kota1
vonhelmholtz
911 posts
 

Last year I and teenage daughters moved into a newly built house with the good fortune that my wife waited to move in ten months later. I immediately put together a Sony/Anthem/Emotiva/Klipsch/Hsu 11.1 Atmos theater where family members primarily watch movies, Korean/Japanese Dramas and YouTube. The next nine months I carefully put together a two channel room. I have enjoyed watching concerts in the theater room and do enjoy watching dance/music performances, but prefer listening to most music in my two channel room. I must admit that I would never be able to afford an 11.1 Atmos system which was the equal of my two channel system. It never occurred to me to listen to music without video in the theater room, but then again I consider my theater room components to be good, but not nearly as satisfying without the video. I should admit that Magic Dragons performance of Arcane’s opening song “Enemy” is incredibly in 11.1 Atmos.

To summarize, I can’t afford theater room component which perform at the same level as my two channel room.

kota1 OP
2,706 posts
 

@britamerican

Really happy you joined the conversation, nice to see you in this thread, welcome. As for Dr. Toole he didn’t set that up all by himself, Kevin Voeckes tuned and calibrated it and I am sure Harman provided all the resources he needed for the setup. In Dolby’s guidlines the MLP is setup toward the back of the room. That wasn’t the best setup for my room. I was lucky as all get out to get advice from Anthony Grimani, Wilfried Van Baelen (auro 3d founder, owner of galaxy studios), and Marti Humphries (owner of immersive audio studio The Dubstage). Wilfried was adamant to have the MLP equidistant between front and back walls. He also recommended ceiling treatment and bass traps on the ceiling. The aurlex geofusors you see on my ceiling are back filled with polyfill and double as bass traps. When Marti saw my pics before doing any treatment he said all of the wood paneling and dry wall were terrible for acoustics, gave me some tips, and also introduced me to Wilfried. Anthony Grimani couldn’t have been nicer and more supportive in responses to my e-mails. It was AFTER I did all this I saw Dr. Tooles and Abbey Road studios layouts were basically the same style I ended up with. We all use an equidistant MLP, use monitors mounted high as height channels, use a center height, wide channels and VOG channels. Dr Toole uses 4 subs, Abbey Road has subs on the ceiling. I compromised and used 3 subs and the one on the back wall is mounted high on the wall instead of the ceiling. The people in this professional community really seem to care about the end user and were happy to help.

kota1 OP
2,706 posts
 

@vonhelmholtz

That’s a great post, thanks and you budgeted according to your preferences, all good. If you are going to get another atmos concert bluray kraftewerk 3d: the catalogue is the best one I have tried so far. I’ll get the imagine dragons, thanks for the tip. The Firestick/Firecube is the only streamer I know that does both atmos music and hirez/ultra-hd AND the firestick is cheaper than an ATV4K or a shield. The voice search feature works pretty good too.

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kota1 OP
2,706 posts
 

@deep_333

There is a significant technical learning curve for correct implementation of object based audio that would be very difficult for technologically challenged old men.

Of course you are right. But then I see the shrines to the gods of music the geezer crowd has built over the years in the system area and I go, well, they are doing something right. A LOT of members already do 5.1 and buying a receiver these days isn't that big of a leap.

Now, some of these DIY guys can make speakers, tube amps, and stuff you can't imagine. For them an atmos setup would be like making cereal for breakfast.

It can be very difficult to go back to stereo after it is experienced on a rig that means business.

Yep, roger that, I like stereo for listening on my porch, my patio, my office but when its time for a 2 hour playlist of critical listening it is generally either upmixed to MCH or atmos in the media room. With Atmos there is so MUCH content I still want to get to and they keep dropping more.

 

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