According to Roon, the Nucleus Titan or Nucleus One should be able to stream multi-channel formats such as Dolby Atmos via Roon to a receiver / amplifier via HDMI. But is this also possible via an Apple computer such as the Mac Mini M2 on which the Roon Core is installed? Or, if so, what external devices do I need to connect in order to be able to pass the music, which is available in Dolby Atmos format on the Apple computer in Roon, to my Arcam AVR21 amplifier? Unfortunately, I have not yet seen a solution from Roon and I am not even sure whether the Roon Core can process Dolby Atmos music coming from Tidal on my Apple computer and then pass it on to the amplifier? So at the moment I’m still using the Apple Music app on the AppleTV 4k Gen. 3 to output Dolby Atmos music to the Arcam AVR21 via HDMI. But if Tidal also offers more and more Dolby Atmos content and Roon can also do this, the question ultimately arises as to which of the services I will ultimately keep Tidal and Roon or Apple Music. Being able to listen to Dolby Atmos is clearly more important to me than 192 KHz stereo and I hope Roon also has a solution for this, i.e. without having to buy a Nucleus because of my large library.
What does the Roon solution for Dolby Atmos look like and when will it be available?
From what I know and have experienced, discrete 7.1 PCM is currently the limit for any HDMI out. I do not see a possibility to process genuine Dolby Atmos in roon.
If the HDMI out of the machine is 7.1 ready and showing up as an onboard sound output in roon, it should be possible. But again, this does not include a capability of playing Atmos, just 7.1. I am not even aware of a possibility to see Atmos albums sourced from Tidal in roon for playback as 7.1 downmix.
Ok, thanks for all your feedback, which is also in line with my experience. I will now download Mac OS Sequoia Beta Public 2 where, according to Apple, Dolby Atmos can be output via bitstream and, with a new HDMI passthrough setting, the decoding of the audio signal can be left to an AV receiver, for example, if the respective app is also compatible.
Currently, the procedure apparently only works with Apple TV, Apple Music and QuickTime Player.
Now Roon is in demand, because there is no longer any reason to ignore Dolby Atmos and not to take it over from the streaming services and to be able to pass it on 1:1 to the amplifier via HDMI passthrough, as this is possible with the new MAC OS 18 directly from the MAC to compatible devices. This should apply to most current devices. Apple is likely to publish a list of these, but a support document could not be found at the moment.
The apps currently supported already include Apple’s own apps.
However, there is no central system setting (yet?), instead the setting must be made per app. It is unclear whether there will also be an API for third-party developers. In addition to Dolby Atmos, Apple also supports other Dolby audio formats via HDMI passthrough.
In the OS beta, I also set Passtrouth in the Apple Music app and Dolby Atmos to automatically select and it works absolutely brilliantly.
My Arcam AVR, which is connected directly to the Mac Mini via HDMI, automatically switches between Dolby Atmos and Hi-Ress Lossles up to 24 bit / 192 kHz depending on the mix of the piece of music in Apple Music.
I am excited to see what Roon an Tidal does now. My decision to stay with Roon and Tidal or to dive back into the Apple universe completely will depend on whether or not they implement 3D audio for Mac OS. In any case, Apple is going full throttle and has also announced that the new Apple Airplay can do multi-channel and higher resolutions and their music catalog is fantastic, especially the Dolby Atmos content, which is well produced, stereo and even surpasses the fantastic multi-channel stereo of the Arcam.
I made a significant in architecting my system to play multichannel from Roon. Playing multi-channel over Ethernet doesn’t work for me, so the only way I could do it in my system was to set up a fanless ROCK next to my AVR and send it over HDMI (which, kind of ironically means none of the normal Roon on-screen content). A couple of great Atmos mixes (DSOTM, Peter Gabriel iO) convinced me that Atmos is the future. I’ve learned to really appreciate the things Roon does, but if they can’t figure out a way to do Atmos, Roon’s advantages may soon be outweighed by that omission.
As I see it, the other streaming services are gaining in terms of their ability to offer both Atmos and HiRes and to improve their libraries. And Roon will lose out if they continue to be unable to offer Atmos for streaming content. What’s more, Apple Music, Tidal and the others are also better than Roon when it comes to mobile streaming. Roon Nucleus and Roon One are also not absolutely necessary, as I already have much more performance / computing power for Roon with a Mac M2, especially as Apple is getting better and better in terms of high-quality audio streaming, soon even in Atmos via Airplay.
