It would be great if Roon implements Atmos.
If anyone is interested in calibrating their Atmos speakers with REW, there’s a link in this video for 9.1.6 TrueHD “Lossless” Atmos sweeps with -31 dialnorm setting (so no volume dimming by AVR loudness management) playable form a PC (HDMI passthorugh) or Bluray player:
The last time this topic was discussed within the community was in 2021. The digital music world has moved on since then, which is why I am raising the question of Roon’s support of Dolby Atmos now. Roon still disregards the growing importance of this format.
I own a Nucleus+, which has an HDMI output; one way I connect my Roon to the rest of my audio system is via an HDMI cable to my AVR. Given that HDMI easily handles multi-channel audio (such as Dolby Digital Plus), there is no obstacle for a Dolby Atmos bitstream being conveyed.
Roon, however, continues to ignore the availability of Dolby Atmos tracks – on Tidal, for example. As a consequence, all we are able to listen to is a vastly poorer version of numerous recorded albums. Let me be specific.
Using the album 1989 (Taylor’s Version), Tidal offers it in two versions, MAX and Dolby Atmos. Here is what Dynamic Range of each (also with vinyl as a reference):
Vinyl record Tidal MAX Tidal Dolby Atmos
Global DR11 DR6 DR13
Min DR10 DR4 DR11
Max DR12 DR8 DR15
As we can see, Roon is imposing upon its subscribers a grossly inferior version of music quality that is available.
I think it is time to ask why Roon hasn’t updated its software to enable Dolby Atmos and what the company is intending to do about it.
It needs to be licensed. It is not free.
I’m not sure everyone agrees with this opinion including a significant number of mastering engineers who have worked within the format.
While DR can give clues as to the quality of the mastering it’s only one datapoint which should be used. I’ve not listened to this album so I have no idea where that additional headroom is being used so can’t comment further.
It would be nice, since Roons parent Harman / Samsung does ship Atmos enabled products, to know what the plan is long term. It seems like better integration with other Samsung brands would include Atmos.
Personally, I’m not able to use it and from trolling these forums I think I’m still in the majority. But the majority is shifting. Dolby has pushed this format deeper and deeper into the streaming catalogs and there is a “buzz” about it. Will it last longer than SACD, DVD-A, or any of the other multichannel formats? I have no idea. One advantage it does have is the automatic binaural mix that is / can be created with any Atmos mixed master. This should benefit the quality of listening over consumer headphones but that isn’t exactly Roons market either (although, if ARC support this what a win huh?).
Anyway, I suspect this post will get merged with the other one. There is nothing new to report on this and nothing has really changed other than a deeper catalog. I’m not sold the Atmos version is “better” much like any other “remaster” is better than a properly mixed 2-channel version by an artist, studio, and engineer who are paying attention and value what gets shipped.
No thanks. No interest at all. Tried some Atmos via Tidal just doesn’t do anything for me. Rather Roon fixed its database and performance issues before adding another licensed codec like MQA to the mix.
Dear IP Everywhere – I appreciate your taking the time (and using your knowledge) to respond to my post. I have listened to 1989 (Taylor Swift’s version) using Tidal Max, CD, and vinyl. I have very high-end digital and vinyl playback systems, so I don’t think that any of those formats was degraded from its original potential. My wife, who used to be a professional singer, and I both concluded that the vinyl version was much more “alive” and engaging than the CD and streaming versions.
I recently read a very thorough review of a Rolling Stones album, “Hackney Diamonds”, in which all available formats were evaluated. It makes very interesting reading: The Rolling Stones – Hackney Diamonds – Review – (Test: Vinyl record, Blu-ray stereo and Dolby Atmos trueHD, CD, Amazon Music UltraHD, Tidal MAX Flac and Tidal Dolby Atmos) – Magic Vinyl vs Digital (magicvinyldigital.net).
Let me add that your made a number of interesting points in your response. As for the future of multichannel, I am continually amazed that consumer electronics company don’t push it more. For sure, it would be more revenues for the makers of electronics and speakers. Moreover, the listener’s experience can be vastly improved. An example I use when demonstrating my audio system is playing “Hotel California” first it stereo and then in multichannel. Without exception, the audience is always wowed.
I’ll read the article.
The only time I ever truly “wow’d” an audience listening to multichannel, back when I had it properly set-up, was early 2000’s when DSOTM SACD came out. That was magically well done and it really did bring a new perspective to the album. Nothing I’ve heard since has been all that exciting to me when compared to the 2-channel.
However… In saying that… I get more joy in “wow’ing” my audience by having them sit and listen to a system where the speakers truly disappear. This is rare regardless of budget as most people do not measure / time align the stereo at the listening position. All the money in the world does not solve skipping the work of proper room set-up. Without proper set-up the magic of 2-channel stereo is never fully realized. I think Atmos is a poor substitute but it is a “less work” way to expand a musical work beyond 2 point sources. And it works for headphones which, as I said, might actually be the better use case.
For now, I’m enjoying my 2 channel enough not to clutter the system with Atmos. However, give me a reason why the Atmos master reaches a higher level of listening enjoyment than the 2-channel and I’ll get interested. I’ve not seen / heard this, but I’ve also not read your article. I’ll get to that soon and am always open to having my opinion changed.
Overall people should have choice. And, honestly they do. A $130 Apple TV solves your problem right now today. Would it be a nice to have in Roon? Sure, maybe we’ll get there, but the Apple TV works great too and it’s another reason I don’t need this in Roon.
Even for just bitstreaming to an AVR?
Except they are nothing alike. There is a use case for Atmos as it is a pretty good surround sound format. MQA on the other hand is completely useless and provides nothing over standard FLAC except inferior sound quality.
Tidal can only serve up the versions of an album they receive. I put this on the labels. And that doesn’t let Roon off the hook for not supporting Atmos.
I have a Samsung HW 950 soundbar , which is Dolby Atmos compatible. Its one of the early outputs from the California Harman/Samsung sound lab
I tried several Atmos sources and struggled to tell if Atmos was active ,
5.1 works like a dream but all these soundbars needs appropriately placed walls and ceilings for their “reflections” to work. Out of interest its pretty mediocre for audio.
Suitably unimpressed with Atmos
Same here, I’m mainly a headphone listener and am content with what I get from my various headphone setups. Not interested in this at all
Try listening on a real Atmos setup. Soundbars and Atmos enabled speakers are not going to provide a true Atmos experience.
We are a speaker free zone , I’m lucky to get the soundbar past SWMBO 
Fortunately I love my headphones
I don’t have that issue but my home theater/main Roon zone is in my living room so I am pretty space constrained with everything I got in there. My front speakers (no center) and subs (3) are full size but my surrounds, surround backs and heights are from Orb Audio. Their size and color options really helps make them disappear into the room.
I’d even accept support for more than 8 channels from Roon, if the company doesn’t want to enable Dolby decoding or proper formatting for bitstreaming.
I convert to 7.1.4 offline and use other playback apps.
A reminder that Roon will support playback and control of 5.1.2 Dolby Atmos because it is within the eight channel Roon limit. Blu-ray rips and MKV downloads in Atmos (there are a few sites doing this) must be converted to 5.1.2 format (and stored on a hard drive) using a combination of the free MMH Atmos decoder and the Dolby Reference Player, a professional piece of software. The same tools will take the same Blu-rays and MKVs and decode to 7.1.4 (or any other Dolby Atmos format) — but the channel count thus requires JRiver or another player to playback the bigger channel count files.
Similarly, Atmos “Spacial Audio” files from Apple Music streamed through a Mac computer can be played out through Audacity and saved in an eight channel format for Roon playback and control. JCR
This! More than 8 channels! I have 7.1.4 and 5.1.4 files and have to use audirvana. More channels please!
Roon should be the best, even for niche formats that most people don’t have the setup for.
Atmos is more complicated because of licensing etc. No such issues with more channels which even free players handle.
With due respect, criticizing multi-channel audio played through a state-of-the-art audio system having the output of all speakers carefully established for tonal equivalency and correct speaker volume levels, is an invalid exercise. I originally set up such a system for my late wife, who loved music but could not comfortably leave our house. Over the years, I have continued to upgrade my system as technology improvements became available.
Most of my multi-channel source material comes from concerts recorded on Blu-ray discs, with the remainder from multi-channel SACD and DTS recordings. An audiophile can spend a million dollars on a two-channel system, and the same sound in my media room will better it. Essentially, this “contest” is like bringing a gun to a knife fight.
Music encoded with Dolby Atmos has more bits to utilize, which means there is commonly more dynamic range and more spatial information. As an aside, the engineering is superior, too.
I have raised this issue about the availability of Dolby Atmos-incoded music through Roon because Tidal is offering more tracks every week. It is frustrating that it is available for playback through a cheap Amazon Firestick and not a Roon Nucleus. That is simply ridiculous.
I would love to see such capability in roon, but the issue is definitely not what HDMI can handle but what Dolby would permit a software solution like roon to decode and encode internally. If roon server would handle an Atmos stream even in a very basic way (i.e. for sending it via RAAT or doing level normalization or applying DSP) it would have to do significant Dolby-proprietary procedures i.e. possessing a significant portion of the ´secrets´ of Dolby’s algorithm. Unlikely that Dolby would allow that even if licensing fees would be a solvable issue.
Dolby Digital Plus in Tidal, Apple Music or Amazon Music is a different thing. It is a lossy format which is handed over by the aforementioned services and all the hardware in between without ever being encoded or decoded except from a Dolby Atmos licensed hardware renderer (such as an AVR). Same applies to ´true´ Dolby Atmos streams being in a closed container file such as MKV or MP4.
I doubt that roon would want the possibility to just hand over such stream untouched, particularly as Tidal seemingly is the only common source for streaming Atmos which roon could process (and the one with poorest bitrate according to my knowledge). File formats carrying a true Atmos stream are rare to find and ripping blu-rays is not really an easy nor a legally permitted thing.
Although I would love to see these options, I guess we are far from that.
What might be easier is an immersive format with less licensing restrictions. Auro3D in a WAV container might be easier to handle. 4.0.2 (commonly known as “2+2+2”) in a 5.1 FLAC container already works flawlessly with roon.
DR says nothing about audible sound quality or perceived dynamics, particularly if you compare formats with different number of channels or different level normalization.
This also does not say anything as you seemingly have not gone through the procedure of level normalization for each source and you have no knowledge about mastering steps taken for the different versions.
Most of them had pretty bad experience with introducing SACD, DVD and blu-ray some 20 or 25 years ago so do not blame them. The market for multichannel high end audio (home cinema excluded) is pretty thing. Unfortunately, I might want to add, as it indeed can sound superior compared to two channel stereo and in many many cases it does. Particularly with classical music, jazz and rock.
You mean the ´Hell freezes over´ version?
Would also recommend to listen to a proper multichannel or Atmos or Auro3D setup. If it is proper and the mix is well done, it will be outperforming stereo by far. Particularly if there is ambience information i.e. reverberation patterns of the recording room on the rear and immersive channel which is the case with all classical recordings and lots of jazz and (live) rock. It simply sounds wider, more natural, effortless and more like a concert hall, balancing direct and indirect parts of the sound field much better.
Unfortunately this is the hole audiophiles, myself included, have fallen into for decades. A new format would be like pushing a huge boulder uphill, with one’s hands and legs bound.
Accepting the reality of Atmos being the mainstream format (25,000 albums currently), and making it sound as good as possible is the best way forward. All licensing issues are solvable. It’s just a matter of money.
Getting 12 channels to work at a state of the art level, makes two channel audio seem like child’s play. I’ve done it, and it’s worth every bit of effort.
Think about your “give me one reason” comment in the opposite way. If more channels doesn’t equal a higher level of listening enjoyment, then going back to mono should be a good thing. If we all started with 12 channel audio systems, and a new trend arrived saying two channels was better, we’d read a lot of comments about prying 12 channels from cold dead hands.
Atmos may be a novelty, but it’s becoming more and more of a reality. I have hundreds of files in this format, just waiting to be played. Adding it to Roon would be appreciated 