Ahhhh I missed this part…
“Playing local TrueHD Atmos files through the Dolby Reference Player”
TrueHD Atmos masters are 12, 14, or 16 channel downmixes (IIRC) of the 3D space (the JOC)? And the Reference Player can decode the AC-4 export (which keeps the JOC intact). However, I don’t see mention of the use of AC-4 in the article (Tidal + Others). The Reference Player lets you model your room / speakers similar to any processor. Neat stuff indeed; if you can get access to the right files.
However, I still don’t understand how the “Atmos” (JOC) part of the EC-3 / DD+JOC is being encoded in this set-up when AMusic is the source? I should go dust off my old account and go ask I guess.
Anyway, @ComputerAudiophile keep up the momentum here. Very fine bit of kit you’ve put together as usual.
The Reference Player plays a few different file types, among them MLP. These can be ripped from Blu-ray Disc.
Playing MLP through the Reference Player is identical to any hardware decoder. No real room modeling is done for deciding on the consumer side. It’s all about number of channels and if they are placed within the Atmos specified locations.
I have a 7.1.4 system, thanks for the kind words by the way, and this doesn’t change for me. I can play the files via the Reference Player and output 12 channels to my 16 channel DAC or output to Audacity capturing the exact same stream that would be sent to my DAC. Then export as W64 or WAV and split with cue sheet.
It’s TrueHD with Atmos, and the decoder only needs to be used once for a 7.1.4 system.
Atmos has the support of three streaming services and all the major labels. Studios can’t keep up with the work mixing releases for Atmos. Labels are reaching out to artists, with lists of their albums not yet mixed for Atmos.
Everything is temporary if given enough time, but many things can be enjoyed for a long time before they are replaced. Dolby has a long track record with the movie industry and now it’s product is embraced by the music industry. both good things.
Anyone who disparages Atmos should say whether they have listened to the format for any length of time with music that has been encoded with Atmos in a well-thought-out manner. My personal faves include Honky Chateau, LA Woman, and the entire Talking Heads catalog. I think you need to give the format a chance, then you can make an informed decision.
Atmos is the biggest improvement, biggest change, most important development in my audiophile life (born in 1975). High resolution, DSD, and all the other great improvements, don’t come close.
Seeing this Atmos discussion made me hit the pause button on adding roon to my system. It would have been a nice extra but not with this Atmos roadblock as Tidal to my NAD Avr works now for music. Seems like a Roon Atmos companion box or something using an hdmi to interface directly with the player might be the answer???
Maybe when / if Roon decides to become the jukebox for streaming video there will be a solution. As what to watch when streaming needs to have some kind of fandango screening search interface that I’ve not seen. That would likely require Atmos capability to be viable.
Hi Dean,
I am a lifetime Rooner, using my Sony tv to stream Atmos from Tidal. My enjoyment of Roon is based on all of the info it gives me: artist bios, album reviews, Roon Radio giving me new music choices…all things Tidal is not great at. I guess your decision might be based on whether you enjoy the stuff i mentioned or not. Also, Tidal’s “explicit” content dominates their library which i am not a fan of.
Tidal funnily enough uses the same sources as Roon for album reviews. Personally I’ve found the credits to be ridiculously detailed on Tidal (sometimes more so than Roon to my great surprise).
What is missing from Tidal for you in terms of credits ?
You are right, the bios are exhaustive. I do like Roon having the artist bio shown as their music is playing along with artwork. Does Tidal have that feature?
Out of curiosity I listened to a few Atmos tracks on Tidal over the weekend via Android TV fed to my Dirac Live AVR, the experience completely blew me away!
All the qualities that audiophiles chase after like precision, depth, space, clarity, height seem to have been easily achieved without even a serious DAC in between.
I am sure not all Atmos mixes are like what I heard but the potential of this is huge!!
Then I found out Roon doesn’t support Dolby Atmos still. What is going on???
thanks for letting me know!
