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

9 x Grammy winner mix engineer Manny Marroquin at Larrabee Studios:

"Anyone I play atmos for, it changes their mindset, man that was the most amazing thing I heard"

https://youtu.be/JmQN477uSbE?feature=shared

Interesting that you don’t need a big space to get great sound, notice the wide channels wall mounted to the far left and right amd the height channels mounted above:

Apple Goes Spatial - Part 3: The Artist And The Engineer - Mixonline

@facten

@kota1 - "Why would I want to BUY multiple sources, dacs, and preamps today that will be boat anchors within five years?"

What hi-end manufacturers are you seeing divorcing themselves from 2 channel audio that this is going to be the case?

(This is a more appropriate thread to continue this topic so I moved my reply.)

The answer is Sound United, as they were just acquired by Medical Supplier Masimo, Harmon Kardon was acquired by Samsung, and the "high end " industry is being replaced by mobile headphone listeners and home theater, by far.

Atmos is backward compatible with headphones, cars, TV’s, and every variation of speaker setup you want want, from soundbars, a pair of speakers, five speakers, seven speakers, sixteen, etc. Atmos is being streamed online in video and audio, live TV broadcasts, in movie theaters and live performances. Don’t get me started on gaming and VR but you can look it up.

Do you remember what the iphone did to the blackberry? When apple adopted spatial audio it changed the music industry forever, I am not investing $$$ into what I perceive as an audio version of the blackberry.

Next question?

iPhone vs BlackBerry