Multichannel/Atmos 3D Audio Walkthrough. The idea that DACs sound about the same. Countercultural & honest audiophiles?

Hey audiophiles, I've been wanting to do this for awhile now. Back in 2021 when I wrote about "Spatial Audio" music streaming on Apple Music, in the back of my mind I was thinking it would be pretty cool to not just listen to the music and consider whether this kind of content is worthy of audiophile exploration, but to actually fire up a DAW (digital audio workstation) and play around with Dolby Atmos myself to create a little something that I can also use as a demo or to help with set-up in my own room.

Nothing too fancy of course since the intent is to demo spatial capability rather than wow the listener with overly complex sounds or movements. It's also a fun way for me to learn how to use the software and to go a bit deeper into 3D audio - beyond just expressing opinions on the consumption side.

So, over the Spring Break with a little more time available, I bought a copy of DaVinci Resolve Studio 19 (currently US$300) and got to work on figuring out how to author some 3D audio content. The price is very reasonable for such a powerful piece of software which I plan to use in other audio/video projects. Other packages that allow Atmos audio mastering include Avid's ProTools, Steinberg's Nuendo and Cubase, Ableton Live, Apple's Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro.

Once I figured out how the Fairlight "audio console" module in DaVinci Resolve worked and got the immersive pieces authored, a friend who works in audio professionally helped with the Dolby Media Encoder (US$400/year subscription) side to bring the track over to Dolby Digital Plus / EAC3-JOC, TrueHD-Atmos, and AC-4 IMS.

Putting the video and Atmos authoring together ended up being a bit easier than I had initially thought. I suspect anyone with some audio editing/mixing background should have no problems after reading/watching a few tutorials although I'm sure a formal course would really be helpful!

Here's the simple in/out patch from my project. Notice up to 128 channels can be sent to the Atmos renderer. First 10 channels are assigned to the "bed" which means up to 9.1 typically for cinema TrueHD, and usually 7.1 in the home. For this demo track, I'm using 5.1 bed only. The rest of the channels - up to 118 - can be used for object information.

So, put on your headphones for the generic binaural YouTube video (~11 minutes total with chapters to specific portions embedded for easy access) of the project with "Space View" showing so you can see the placement of objects and the movements. In the video, I'll chat a little about this blog, audiophilia, and some info on Atmos. You'll hear 5.1 bed channel material along with object movements correlating the sound with visualization:

While binaural can be enjoyable, it's still a limited representation of the spatial positioning that's achievable in an actual multichannel speaker system - soundstage "solidity" or stereós is still limited. Unless you're lucky to have ears that conform to the generic setting, your own customized binaural HRTF would sound much more authentic than this generic downmix.

For fun, try listening to the binaural audio using crosstalk cancellation (XTC) on stereo speakers.

YouTube states that if you have a supported device like newer TVs after 2021, Chromecast, AppleTV, Roku, XBOX, PS5, you can play in multichannel 5.1. It's still a shame that versatile computer playback through a browser is stuck in 2-channel in 2025.

Here it is uploaded to YouTube in 5.1 (AAC512 encoding, no volume compression applied so DR18) - look for the surround icon if needed to turn multichannel on:

Turn on 5.1 surround sound on AppleTV YouTube app.
I see YouTube is streaming audio as EAC-3 for 5.1.

You'll be missing the object height panning but still experiencing the surround bed layer. Without multichannel playback, the 5.1 Mix video will be folded down to plain 2.0 by YouTube without binauralization, so you can compare the sound of flat stereo with the Binaural Mix video earlier. Make sure to turn up the volume if needed since conversion from 5.1 down to 2.0 tends to drop output level (typically -6dB).

For those of you with multichannel Atmos surround systems, here's the real deal - download this MKV file and play it through your system (don't just stream it from Google Drive):

Archimago's Atmos Walkthrough MKV (April 2025)

(MKV audio/video file - TrueHD, EAC-3, and stereo mixes - 417MB)

You'll see that this file includes multiple audio tracks you can quickly select between for comparison:

It has the TrueHD-Atmos "lossless", Dolby Digital+/EAC-3-JOC Atmos "lossy" (768kbps, same bitrate as streamed Atmos music off places like Apple Music), 2.0 stereo, and 2.0 binaural headphone mixes selectable in different tracks. Some variation in output level between the tracks is pretty well inevitable. The difference between 2.0 stereo and binaural should be obvious. Heck, even "tin-ears" should have no difficulty hearing this in a DBT, reminding us that the actual production/mix is way more important than say the sonic difference between reasonable DACs or obsessing about "audiophile" tweaks and wires! 🫣

Playing this on an Atmos system with 5.1.4 speakers (sub really not needed for this) along with proper positioning and calibration should achieve the intended results, even better if you have 7.1.4. The Dolby-encoded tracks were created basically using default settings except for "Music Light" DRC profile instead of "Film Light" in Dolby Media Encoder taking as input the Dolby Atmos ADM (Atmos Definition Model) master file I exported from DaVinci Resolve Studio.

I'd be curious to know if one could take the ADM file and encode DTS:X with it, or if you'd need to create a brand new mix. For efficiency, given how accessible Atmos authoring is already, it would seem a bit tedious if one could not just import the file and re-encode to DTS:X, Auro-3D, maybe MPEG-H, tweaking further as needed.

Make sure to play the file through your bit-stream capable source, likely through HDMI out such as a computer or something like the nVidia Shield TV (discussed recently) if you want to experience the full TrueHD Atmos effect. In the picture above, I'm play the MKV file on a Windows 11 computer using MPC-HC (Media Player Classic - Home Cinema) which is part of the excellent K-Lite CODEC pack to my receiver.

Turn on HDMI audio bit-streaming in K-Lite Codec Pack.

Some devices like the AppleTV 4K currently can bitstream the lossy EAC3-JOC Atmos track but player apps (like Infuse) would at best transcode the TrueHD-Atmos to 7.1 multichannel PCM due to the AppleTV's unfortunate bitstream limitation (as discussed years ago). One could still upmix the base multichannel to the height channels using Dolby Surround Upmixer, dts:Neural-X, or "Auro-Matic" depending on your receiver.

For those who can and want to try listening to "next generation" lossy Dolby AC-4 IMS "IMmersive Stereo" which is said to be even more efficient at encoding high quality sound at lower bitrates, here's the audio track encoded in 256kbps:

Archimago's Atmos Walkthrough AC-4 IMS (April 2025)

(Dolby AC-4 IMS "Immersive Stereo", 256kbps .mp4 file, 23.5MB)

I noticed AC-4 encoding is slow - even slower than TrueHD-Atmos. Notice the Dynamic Range Compression (DRC) options for different types of devices like home theater receivers, TVs, portable speakers, etc. For higher quality devices, I used "Music Light". Lower quality devices like TV and portable speakers, let's set as "Music Standard".

AC-4 IMS is basically a 2-channel system to render stereo to mobile devices. It has settings for different kinds of target devices and depending on what you're playing it on, can sound "virtualized" (like binaural headphone mix) or a flat "LoRo" (Left only / Right only) stereo mix. In Windows, you can download the AC-4 decoder here and play the track with Windows' built-in Media Player. While I can appreciate the high compression quality achieved by AC-4, at this time there are still limited number of devices that can decode directly.

Currently Tidal and Amazon Music can stream some content as AC-4 IMS for binaural headphone listening which will save on bandwidth and computation compared to streaming full EAC-3-JOC which then gets binaurally rendered. AC-4 IMS is not intended to be decoded beyond 2 channels, it's not the full AC-4 feature set with core 5.1 multichannel, and side 7.1.4 with object-based audio. For now at least, if you're interested in true multichannel/Atmos, stick with the lossy DD+/EAC3-JOC Atmos format or better, TrueHD-Atmos if available.

The latest generation of broadcast digital TV is the ATSC 3.0 Digital Television System standard in which both Dolby AC-4 and MPEG-H (base codec for Sony 360 Reality Audio) are used as the potential audio codecs. Since AC-4 is proprietary, it's a bit of a pain for open-source development (see the note/concern about the policy, as expressed by FFmpeg).

General thoughts on multichannel and audiophile evolution...

Recently with my Integra DRX-8.4 receiver, I've updated my sound room system to 5.2.4 (4 height channels), applying Dirac room correction, and I've noticed that I almost never play straight stereo any more without at least upmixing to use the surround channels. The only exceptions are when I'm reviewing a 2-channel product (like the 3e Audio A5 stereo amp late last year). While there are ways to improve envelopment and "surround" effects on a 2-channel stereo mix (like processing using QSound or SRS), the simulated 3D effect is not as well defined and stable/solid as true multichannel with properly spaced and calibrated speakers around the listener. 

I still believe that the path forward for audiophiles is, as per J. Gordon Holt back in 1994 - 31 years ago (also discussed previously):

"As long as we remain stubbornly committed to two-channel stereo, further advancement in reproduced realism just won’t happen. Sure we can continue indefinitely to tweak what we have now, for a minuscule improvement here and a subtle improvement there. And while such endeavors are worth-while, it’s time we faced the fact that trying to reproduce 3-D space from a 2-D system is ultimately futile. Surround-sound is the only way to do it. Many audiophiles will prefer the familiar to the challenge of the new. But the world will pass by those audiophiles who insist that two-channels up front are all they will ever need to reproduce acoustical space."

Often, it takes awhile for a vision of the future to materialize. Time has passed, and the difference between the mid-'90s to now is that the technology has very much caught up across the production and playback continuum. The music content is finally here in relatively compact, very high quality, digital streams, ready to be experienced at home whether through binauralized headphone playback at a basic level, or scaled up for audio enthusiasts with the physical space and multichannel speaker layout.

Obviously not everyone will have space for a full multichannel set-up which likely will always be a minority of systems although I hope many audiophiles can aspire to this - time, space, resources available. Let's be clear, I believe there's nothing wrong with 2-channel because it can already sound great, and multichannel content can always be downfolded into 2 speakers. However, my belief is that fiddling with ever-more expensive anachronistic turntables, tapes and vinyl records, while fun for some as collectors' items, will not really advance sound reproduction towards the immersive or realistic experiential targets I believe the high-fidelity audiophile pursuit is ultimately going after.

I know that John Atkinson lodged his disagreement about Holt's statement all those years ago. Atkinson was right though, even if lacking in vision, in that the last few decades have provided an opportunity for the 2-channel "high end" Industry to continue catering to higher fidelity 2-channel products while computer audio and digital streaming evolved to become the dominant method of content delivery and playback today. However, we are clearly well into a time where high-fidelity products are very mature now, with performance available at lower prices within reach of most audiophiles while the "high end" segment stagnates with little new features to offer but many stories and heroes to promote! A recent example might be the Oneiros loudspeakers ($650k/pair) being marketed to the luxury car segment.

Even worse, with no real advancement, unscrupulous companies (like this) will target their products to take advantage of audiophiles who seemingly are happy to be sold fantasies. Be careful, audiophiles, as there continues to be all kinds of nonsense articles promoting such companies as they feed the magazines/shows/Industry with advertising dollars. I believe individuals who run these companies are predatory, pushing products of no value, targeting those who are overly trusting.

With "high end audio" companies selling luxury products like the dCS Varèse, silly expensive "audiophile" computers, >US$10k plywood plinth or megabuck-priced speakers, it's looking less and less like these are meant for hobbyists or even serious enthusiasts than targeting oligarchs and billionaires who have nothing else better to buy. In the last number of years, I believe that serious audiophiles who seek hi-fi sound are being well served by reasonably-priced products out of companies from Asia (especially China) that can leverage their high-tech assembly lines to make objectively high performance goods. This understandably will draw some ire from certain salespeople (conspiracy, are you sure!? 🤣).

[An interesting aside: I came across this dCS Varèse review from HiFi-News. While -140dBFS J-Test sidebands (I assume the test signal peak is 0dBFS?) would not be audible, they are indicative of jitter present with these extremely expensive DACs! 

As usual, audible jitter typically has not been an issue for years now.

These days, inexpensive DACs less than US$1000 can achieve lower jitter performance than that US$200+k dCS stack!

That result should not be surprising though. One has to be suspicious about external clock boxes likely worsening jitter performance! I see that dCS is asking £32,500 (currently about US$42k) for the Master Clock box which is simply absurd. Again, that is a lot of money for such a DAC/digital playback stack to still find jitter in the measurements.]

My interest in multichannel audio doesn't mean I'll totally stop procuring 2-channel gear or ye olde post-WWII bop jazz remasters 😏 (in fact, I have another 2-channel hi-res DAC coming soon). It does however mean that in my listening time, I'll be gravitating more to the immersive content being released and products that can be used to expand the capabilities of such systems. In the last few years, this has also meant exploration of newer music and artists.

For more 3D sound and video demos, head over to Demolandia. There are various Atmos Test Tones to download, as well as Atmos trailers; my favourite being Shattered and Audiosphere. While not as popular as Dolby Atmos, check out the dts:X demos also. Or just catch a good Atmos-encoded movie - Mad Max: Fury Road, Top Gun: Maverick, Gravity, and Blade Runner 2049 come to mind (many more here).

If you want to watch more educational info about Atmos, here's a video from an audio professional using ProTools. And a thorough post about Ableton Live and Atmos for those interested in that software package.

I've got some studio-quality stems for songs to play with here from a local artist; it'll be fun making my own Atmos mixes using this material!

Have fun listening and maybe even making your own immersive mixes with the tools if you're interested in that kind of thing! 😉

--------------------

The Rebel Audiophile.

On DACs sounding about the same & audiophile countercultural honesty...

In other news, apparently there has been some YouTube discussions about the idea that modern DACs basically sound the same as per this:

While I would not use as strong a word as "scam" in the title since I don't believe all higher-priced DAC manufacturers hype up sound quality. I can appreciate the concern raised that too much emphasis is being placed on supposedly "better" sound quality with expensive items without evidence though.

And there's a follow-up video with these results for the listening challenge:

Yeah, no big surprise, right?

Years ago, we discussed here that various devices playing back 16/44.1 music basically sound similar despite price differences, and last year we discussed the result that multi-thousand dollar Linn streamers sounded similar to the US$10 Apple dongle DAC when recorded using a hi-res RME ADC that can surpass human auditory resolution. The idea of "perceptibly perfect" has already been talked about for years here already.

The idea that modern DACs sound about the same is consistent across measurement results using what we generally know about the limits of human hearing, and for confirmation, once we do any kind of reasonable blinding, the listening responses are also consistent with measurements.

As consumers, I don't see why the idea of transparency being quite easily achievable would be an issue at all since this means we're free from wasting time worrying about whether our DAC is already transparent (reasonable devices of course, not the very cheap ones!). The only people unhappy presumably would be the audiophile "high end" industry not liking this idea being perpetuated because it cuts into whether and how much money they can extract from consumers, but that's IMO their problem. 😏  Sure, they can hype up their wares with whatever advertising method they feel they need (subjective reviewers, magazine ads, social media influencers, etc.) so long as they maintain truth in advertising. If they produce no evidence or just frankly lie, then rational music lovers, enthusiasts, and audiophiles should call out the snake oil and jewelry as a matter of common sense honesty.

The other day, a friend at work who's not particularly into music or audio hardware came up to me over lunch and told me he heard that "vinyl is the best sounding music format". Obviously, I don't believe that, not for hi-fi sound at least, so we had a little discussion about this. When the mainstream public starts spewing what over the decades have been mythical beliefs like this (including many people believing that hi-fi DACs sound very different as in the videos above), to me it's just an indication that the audio Industry has done its job advertising to the point of penetration into the mentality of average consumers.

If this is the case, what of the individual audiophile? What is our role in response if we advance ourselves as enthusiasts who presumably have thought deeper about audio topics and understood the technologies beyond the average person on the street? Do we just follow what the Industry tells them/us in line with general public perception? I hope not. Because maybe there is still value in the audiophile hobbyist who seriously knows what he/she's talking about to speak in an honestly countercultural way to truthfully educate the public.

Speak truth audiophiles; not based on mere opinions of others or "High End" Industry fantasy claims, but make sure to look more at objective evidence. I believe honest audiophiles who have meticulously tested and heard many DACs already know that there are many other more important factors that determine sound quality. Yet another new transparent hi-fi DAC among the multitude of options the Industry already sells us with no new added features to push the frontier is really no longer exciting given current technological maturity.

In the second video above, he ends by saying "blind tests are... like kryptonite for audiophiles". That's not quite true. You see, Superman actually does have super powers. Yet there are essentially no "Golden Ear" audiophiles with super hearing ability (especially often given the age of many reviewers/writers). I'm afraid blind tests are not as powerfully extraterrestrial as kryptonite to nullify all that energy from the yellow sun that Superman harnesses. Blind tests are not scary for those with an open mind, but for those who boast, who have poor insight, or purposely want to mislead, they're more like Wonder Woman's Lasso of Hestia to compel the truth.

As usual, I hope you're having fun audiophiles, enjoying some nice music, understanding how the technology works, knowing what claims are worthwhile, and which demand a more critical reception.

Some new music to end - Allison Russell & Annie Lennox "Superlover" (2025):

It has been a long time since I've heard new material from Annie Lennox!

And for a more rockin' sound - Envy of None's (EON) "The Story" from Stygian Wavz (2025, DR7) with guitarist member Alex Lifeson of Rush fame: