There is now an app (sadly just for iOS users) that tracks your Apple Music library (if labels remove music, change anything etc).
It now notifies you when albums in your library have spatial mixes available:
There is now an app (sadly just for iOS users) that tracks your Apple Music library (if labels remove music, change anything etc).
It now notifies you when albums in your library have spatial mixes available:
Iām fairly sure that the Atmos mixes are being done by the labels, not by Apple. So the Atmos mixes on Tidal should be identical.
They are indeed identical, that being said, for whatever reason Tidal is missing a lot of spatial mixes (from my library).
ATMOS mixes are generally not trying to compete in the loudness wars, so that is a huge +1 from me in terms of the audio quality that we get. ATMOS might signal the end of DR brickwalling. Please Roon, support playback from native and streaming files.
Hi Nick,
Yes, the atmos mixes are done by the labels. Sorry for the confusion, I was referring to (in my mind) the ongoing mild debate over on the AVSforums about which atmos is better: āApple Music Spatial Audio vs Tidal Atmosā
Several people have argued that the apple atmos is better due to the algorithms used by apple. I do not subscribe to either as I am still deciding, but I have listen to both and I find it hard to say one is better than the other, both sounded amazing! I can post a link, but I am new here and not sure if it is allowed. Also, I prefer the TrueHD atmos disc to any streaming service due to the sound quality, but after hearing both Tidal atmos and apple atmos, I am rethinking my stance. Apple seems to have more choice.
Anyways, roon support for either atmos streaming service would be what I would be looking for at the moment. I added a vote to this thread, how many votes until they do something about it?.
Appleās Spatial Audio is nothing more than fake surround sound and is only supported on a handful of Apple products (mostly AirPods).
Atmos is an object-based surround sound format from Dolby. Any studio (movie or music) using the format must license it from Dolby. Apple and Tidal simply sell access to Atmos content. As long as the master/album version is the same they should sound the same across platforms.
The reason you prefer TrueHD is because it is lossless. Atmos on streaming is DD+ (lossy) based.
Atmos tracks are not mastered in the way two channel music is. So thereās way less limiting and compression and no loudness war nonsense going on. The mixes, when done right, are in fact more dynamic, literally speaking, not to mention the potential spaciousness and separation the format offers. So-called audiophiles dismissing Atmos is just baflling to me.
Roon team, PLEASE support ATMOS playback. I love love love Roon but it is dimishing my satisfaction with the platform and Iām boucning back and forth between Roon and Tidal again. I fully understand the concerns about disclosing roadmap information, but it would be great, especially for us paying yearly or lifetime, to know if it is even on a roadmap or being considered at all.
Thanks.
Exactly, I was so surprised Atmos tracks sound so much better on my Atmos AVR than just 2 channel.
I feel like all those qualities that audiophiles want can be had in an instant with a flip of switch to Atmos track.
Perhaps they havenāt had the chance to listen to Atmos? Or that they are so invested in 2ch stereo that they donāt want their money to go to waste?
After spending weeks here, I have not come across a recent post from anyone from Roon Team.
Either they are secretly lurking or posting as āunder-coversā which is fine for me, as long as they are reading.
I sincerely hope they base priorities on better indicators than just the rudimentary āvote countā.
What we can do is to get as many people as possible to vote for this feature. Roon is reading this, and more votes will ensure they read it more
And here another more vote for Atmos playback comparability via Roon. Been checking on this topic online every few months the last year to find no news and no response from Roon, which to me is rather disappointing.
All the labels and big artists are releasing new high quality remixes of all those classic albums we love, but the ones that care the most, us music reproduction fanatics (e.g. the Roon paying customers) are missing out.
Personally I donāt care for surround, but would love to listen to the binaural version (downmixes) of all those new Atmos releases/remixes of my favourite artist/albums.
So again, please add Atmos playback capability to Roon, and please finally respond to this widespread request by us your customers.
Another vote in favour of Atmos playback via Roon. Itās rare enough to get general agreement in the industry but all the big players seem to support it . Both Peter Gabriel and Pink Floydās latest releases have Atmos tracks available .
M
Aside from Roon not supporting āplaybackā of Atmos, I think it doesnāt even support import of Atmos tracks too?
I dropped a couple of Atmos encoded files into a library folder, but they are not recognized and show up as āSkipped Filesā in Roon Library.
Could someone confirm this? Thanks.
True, @RoonFan. If you want to use Roon to play lossless TrueHD Atmos files, you must first decode them to 5.1.2 format (8 channels being both the maximum that Roon handles and the minimum for Dolby Atmos) using the Dolby Reference Player and capture that playback stream in Audacity in wav or FLAC format. You can license the DRP from Dale Pro Audio ā itās pricey at about $400.
To play through the Dolby Reference Player, you must first take the MKV files from a Blu-ray rip or other download and convert them to .mlp format.
There is now a free software solution for this that starts with the MKV files and produces 5.1.2 .wav format files as an output, no Audacity required (but still requires the licensed DRP on your PC, which it calls for use automatically). See Music Media Helper (Tools for Multichannel Audio & Music Videos) | QuadraphonicQuad Home Audio Forum. This article explains how you use it: Lossless TrueHD Atmos Just Got Much Easier - Immersive Audiophile - Audiophile Style
For lossy Atmos carried via DD+, a Mac computer will do the decoding without any DRP required. If you want to play them out through Roon, you have to play the output of the Mac through Audacity to record it in FLAC 5.1.2. The downside: this produces a single track representing the entire album. You have to manually separate the tracks in Audacity and tag them.
Just think of this like the process to rip SACD disks and decode the DSD on them to DSF stereo and multichannel files for playback in Roon. Some upfront work per album, but then you are done and Roon simply plays the format as you intend to hear it. JCR
Well doesnāt this break the whole intent of Dolby Atmos? Which is object-based audio and should be decoded by the DSP engine, as opposed to channel-based audio?
Exactly. 5.1.2 is a speaker layout, not a format and the 8 channels being referenced sound like the bed channels (L R C LFE Ls Rs Lb Rb) and that isnāt Atmos. Thatās the fallback for AVRs that canāt play Atmos.
Multiple (if not all) mediaplayers are capable of atmos playback. I do recommend people here not to tell Roon how this should be done, Iām fairly sure they are more capable than us to do it right
Atmos is a format - it contains additonal info on top of 5.1 or 7.1 - if you stick to the format it will work regardless if your equipment handles 5.1, 7.1 or full blown Atmos.
Besides the the LFE channel only the objects are played back when Atmos is played. The bed channels are only there as a fallback (for systems that canāt play Atmos). I donāt know what āfull blown Atmosā is but speaker layout is irrelevant. Atmos can be played on just 2 speakers (but obviously the better your speaker layout is the better your experience will be).
You need a receiver/processor able to handle atmos decoding. Yes, you can play back atmos in 2.0, 5.1 or 7.1 - but āfull blown atmosā is systems capable of playback of 5.1.2 or above (personally I have a 9.4.9 system which support 9.1.8 atmos playback, the last speaker is for DTS:X/Auro3D only). It will never be ārealā atmos until you got ceiling speakers
My system got 36 dedicated channels (I currently just donāt have the room for more speakers, but might add Surround1 or Surround2 soon), which can all be assigned Atmos specific speakers and ultilized during playback of atmos content with audio objects (not all atmos-tracks got dynamically movable audio objects actually).
Iām assuming you are referring to pinned Atmos because of the dozens of 2k and 4k BR movies Iāve mediainfoād none of them had more than the LFE channel used during playback. I donāt think there is anyway to tell if the objects are pinned on a system like mine (6.3.4). Iām guessing that is a very different story on your system.