Read about Tidals release of full Dolby Atmos this week (expanded from the Android only support, 6 months ago).
Have a Marantz SR8012 with a HDMI connected NUC8i5 with ROCK installed (and a physical 7.1 speaker setup with ROCK HDMI decoding set to 5.1).
Works great with FLAC/DSD 5.1 (24bit/96kHz) local records (Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon anyone?) but searching for Dolby Atmos records in Roon (Tidal) gave no results.
I searched the Tidal app on my smartphone and found Atmos labeled records.
I picked the same record in Roon (ROCK) but there were no Atmos labeled alternatives.
Played the record anyhow (over HDMI) but it was only 2 channel decoding.
Is this known by Roon (ROCK) software developers and will be integrated or are they taken by surprise?
OK, thanks and congrats you got it working but no technical statement on how.
I bookmarked/liked (according to Jim_F) the Dolby Atmos labeled songs in Tidal android app and they showed up in Roon (though no Dolby Atmos labels) but still only 2 channel stereo from my AVR! I’ve tried all settings in my AVR but only 2 channel from ROCK over HDMI. I’ve also set 5.1 under the HDMI zone settings in ROCK (works flawless with local FLAC/DSD 5.1 songs as stated earlier).
When I read more on hardware requirements I found a statement on “What HiFi!” homepage:
“…supported streaming devices include the Apple TV 4K, Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV Cube, Fire TV Stick (2nd gen), Fire TV (3rd gen), Nvidia Shield TV and Nvidia Shield TV Pro (2019 or newer).”
So if you like me, just have Roon ROCK (on an Intel NUC8i5) & a Tidal Hifi subscription, connected with HDMI to a Marantz SR8012 AVR, you’re out of business until Roon SW developers implement what’s included in the approved list of streamers mentioned above, right?
My understanding is, that Atmos contains a TrueHD stream plus metadata info for objects. I guess that objects are temporary sound sourced like helicopters and bullets and wonder if there are instruments encoded in this Atmos metadata stream in music files. Otherwise, it would be good enough to play the TrueHD stream.
It seems that the Atmos files in Tidal drop back to two channel when no Atmos decoder is found.
Would it be possible to exploit a possible Mch TruHd stream from these recordings, if there is one? Or, in fantasy land, have Roon soft decode Atmos into an 8channel HDMI stream?
So @Greg_M, are you playing Tidal Atmos tracks through Roon? If so, can you describe more about your setup… what core device? Endpoint? Connection type? Thanks!
No, I wish to. I listen to Atmos tracks on my home theatre setup. Tidal app for Apple TV connected to Yamaha a3080 receiver with 4.2.4 speakers. I also got Atmos update for nvidia shield yesterday. Apple TV converts everything to PCM, so I can’t see the source format of the tracks. Nvidia shows Atmos/DD+ 48kHz (no bitrate, no channels).
This points to my assumption that Roon (and its Linux client ROCK) does not (yet) support Tidal Atmos decoding.
How can one achieve response from the Roon developers? Are they reading this or should I post this question elsewhere on the forum?
Seems to me, that Atmos is a Dolby 2-6ch stream with additional metadata in a wrapper that expands the amount of channels further as defined by the setup. Seems to work only analog, i.e. no digital output of the fully decoded channels.
Roon plays the said Tidal Atmos files in stereo. Would be interesting to know, if it then plays an alternate, non-Atmos stream, or the Atmos core stream which is then, sadly, only stereo? Which would mean that all Mch information is encrypted in the Metadata.
Interesting article with reflections from pro award winning studio surround mixers.
Might clear out things and point towards multichannel being the natural step after 2 channel for a true natural listening experience:
You may well be right. Personally, I find that 5.1 surround is sufficiently immersive for my home cinema. The 7.1 surround films I have don’t seem to add much to the illusion. But then, that may be just me…
Agree. How much Quadraphonic stuff was ever released? How much multichannel SACD/DVD-A was released? And of the latter, how much of that wasn’t anything more than a gimmick remix (anyone remember the Metallica DVD-A’s joke multichannel “remix”?)? The only sort of traction I’ve seen in multichannel is soundtracks, where they were mixed multichannel for the movie in the first place. And then I guess some classical stuff where they record straight to multichannel. Either way, extremely niche.
Nevermind probably less than 1% of consumers have the soundsystem to even play it back. (Bump that a couple more percent if you include the faker soundbar setups…)
Isn’t Roon a niche from a market perspective?
If you’ve got the interest (and money!) to invest in both Roon and for example DAC’s for hundreds and even thousands of dollars, the step up to multichannel high def true separate channels might be in the neighborhood, right (less than 1% of market area)?
And why would Tidal consider it worthy?
My experiences lately (purchasing a Marantz SR 8012 close to 3000$) has been an eye opener when listening to the niche multichannel records in the article I shared.
So the question still is, will Roon (and ROCK) include the required decoding for multichannel Atmos music from Tidal?
The implementation of local DSD/DSF/AIFF/FLAC 5.1 music files works flawless so why shouldn’t Tidal Atmos?
