Article: Scalable Dolby Atmos Music System

[bobfa]

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[The Computer Audiophile]

@bobfa! 

 

Welcome to the world of immersive audio!

 

Thanks so much for this first article documenting your journey. Great stuff!

[bobfa]

Chris,

 

Thanks for kicking off this whole set of projects.  I have learned so much in the last six months.  I have a lot more to share:  so "Hang Loose."

 

A.M.A.  I will try to help.

 

[DuckToller]

WHAT??? Audioquest didn't offer the cable as a loaner ??? 🙂
 

My utter respect, Bob. I can imagine your wife saying:  OK,  but you'll be finished the week before Christmas!

Hope, she enjoys going to the concerts with you to your living room as well ...
Happy festive season, Tom
 

[bbosler]

quite a journey Bob, thanks for sharing. I appreciate the seemingly endless decisions that have to be made. Looking back I would have done mine a bit differently but we always end up in that space. I applaud your decision to go with a pro audio interface. Can you select consumer audio output levels instead of pro audio levels to tame the output? Most offer that option. 

 

I currently have my system based on a Trinnov processor, power amps, and passive Paradigm  speakers except for a powered Genelec for the center and powered Genelec subs. If starting over I would seriously consider powered Genelecs all around. I could get rid of 5 stereo amps and one 5 channel amp along with miles of speaker cable. The long XLRs could just plug into the speakers instead of the amps. Of course I would  have to get an AC outlet within a reasonable distance of each speaker.

 

I agree this isn't the place to debate cables so I'll just make this suggestion. If nothing else, it is a very inexpensive experiment at $1.59 a foot. It is what Benchmark recommends. I use this for my main channels and lesser cable for all the others.

 

https://www.markertek.com/product/4s11ft/canare-4s11-star-quad-14awg-4-conductor-speaker-cable-grey-per-foot

 

I also use this for all of my main interconnects

https://www.markertek.com/product/l-4e6s-rd/canare-l-4e6s-star-quad-microphone-cable-by-the-foot-red

 

in any case,,,, bravo to an excellent article and all your efforts

 

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I may have missed something but the only reference to volume control that I see is:

"Set the Volume control to internal and the Core Audio settings to exclusive and max the software and hardware buffers."

How are you controlling overall volume on-the-fly?

[bobfa]

Kal

 

Great catch!

 

I use the internal volume control in JRiver and Apple Music.  So the remote apps work great from a mobile device.

 

I am still configuring Audirvana and their internal works well also.

 

 

[bobfa]

7 hours ago, bbosler said:

Can you select consumer audio output levels instead of pro audio levels to tame the output? Most offer that option. 

Mine does not. In the future, it may be less of a problem.

 

We looked hard at powered speakers; in the end, the EMIT speakers made more sense with the Emotiva Amp. Also, as you will see, speaker matching is more critical in these systems. I would not mix and match.

 

I have some experience with cables, and like I said in the article, that discussion is for another time.  

[bobfa]

9 hours ago, DuckToller said:

but you'll be finished

I was supposed to finish the bathroom remodel by Halloween.  I did not finish until the first week of December.

[phoenixdogfan]

Useful article.  Unfortunately, can't use the M1 with JRiver to decode Atmos for online streaming movies from Netflix or Amazon Prime which would be my prime desired use case.  I have no desire to create such as system for Atmos music offerings.  But we seem to be getting closer.  the Motu Ao, as I understand it will accept 24 channel USB LPCM and output analog of up to 48(?) channels via Phoenix connectors, so it could be used along with a Mac M1 Mini as the control center of an Atmos system.  Would Dirac Live work in such a system?  Have a feeling it would since the plugin processor seems to offer that many channels.  At the point where you have codec decoding and a suitable mulltichannel DAC with all the channels on the same clock, you could use whatever amps and speakers you want.  I, for example, have four LS 50s, 2 SB2000s. and the center and 5 satellite Kef HTS 3010 SE which I could use for center and height channels. Since I already have the 5.1 system set up, I would just need to find poles for the Kef heights and and suitable amps (hello Aiyima A07!) and I could have a 5.2.4 Kef based Atmos system for the price of 4 poles, a coupla Aiyma A07, a Mac M1 Mini, and a Motu Ao.  

 

But obviously, the missing link here is the capability of decoding Atmos codecs (excepting Apple) withing either an Apple or Windows box.

 

 

[El Guapo]

Congratulations for your new immersive audio systems 🤩 and also thank you for sharing your journey! 😃 Immersive audio is so much fun!

[bobfa]

9 hours ago, phoenixdogfan said:

which would be my prime desired use case.

Your use case is very different from mine.  I have no need for video in my system.   From my listening and measurements one of the keys of these systems is keeping the speaker characteristics aligned, thus my use of all EMIT line speakers in the mains and surrounds.   

 

As far as DIRAC is concerned I have not used it outside something like an ARCAM processor so I cannot comment on it.  I am working with @mitchco using Audiolense XO .  I will be talking about that process and experience soon.

 

You are correct about selection of amps and speakers, the world is pretty open.  I am very excited about multi-channel amplifiers like the Emotiva XPA-11 I am using.  There are others out there.

 

I have not experimented with 5.x audio systems.  I have played with 5.1 video systems, but my TV system will be SONOS with the ARC soundbar. That is a discussion for another time.

[jrobbins50]

@bobfa, thanks for a great article.  Welcome to this fun new way to listen to music!  I’m glad you are enjoying it. As a @mitchcofan myself, I look forward to your tale of working with Mitch on optimizing your system with DSP.  I use Audiolense XO and have been very pleased with the results. 
 

I have a 5.1.2 setup. With the right Atmos tracks, the immersive effect with just 5.1.2 can be substantially different than legacy 5.1 multichannel material.  And then, there’s a whole new set of music that is out in Atmos that never got the legacy multichannel treatment to begin with. Pretty cool. 
 

One thing of potential usefulness for Roon fans of an eight -channel 5.1.2 Atmos array over the optimal 7.1.4 or higher is that Roon supports eight channels. As I find albums on Apple Music that I want to play multiple times, I use Audacity to record in FLAC a 5.1.2 Atmos playback of the album in Apple Music on my MacBook.  When saved on my NAS, the album is then directly playable through Roon.  Downside:  tracks aren’t separated and there’s no metadata.
 

For @phoenixdogfan, I believe that if you use the latest version of the Dolby Reference Player on the Mac, it will support 4K video playback and Atmos audio decoding for up to 9.1.6.   JCR 

[El Guapo]

1 hour ago, jrobbins50 said:

there’s no metadata.

I'd like to suggest this app https://www.mp3tag.de/en/ very handy and convenient.

[jrobbins50]

@El Guapo, thanks for the tip. I think the real issue is that the Roon-playable album file is one long track for the entire album. My recording method doesn’t create a timing reference for tracks.  Are you suggesting that the app can “listen” through an album for each track, break them up and apply the metadata?  JCR 

[El Guapo]

15 hours ago, bobfa said:

I will be talking about that process and experience soon.

Suggest to own a measurement mic like Earthworks M23, M30 or M50 first and use it for frequency sweep. 😉

[El Guapo]

13 minutes ago, jrobbins50 said:

Are you suggesting that the app can “listen” through an album for each track, break them up and apply the metadata?

The ID3 tagging software can only help you build the album metadata. If you need to split the entire album... I think @The Computer Audiophile has smarter way to do it? 🤔 My method is quite old school: when rip the blu-ray I choose chapter splitting and set the auto recording threshold in Audacity then record it chapter by chapter.

 

Since most of the pure music blu-rays also contain Auro3D, I no longer use such DRP-Audacity old school way. My 24/96 discrete 12 channels music all restores from Auro3D which is more simple, very very fast and inexpensive from license fee perspective.

[bobfa]

7 hours ago, El Guapo said:

Suggest to own a measurement mic like Earthworks M23, M30 or M50 first and use it for frequency sweep. 😉

I have been using the UMIK-1. 

[grinner]

Thank you in particular for the cost breakdown. For an installation with as many components as this, that is essential. I wish more reviewers did this. 

[bobfa]

Thank you for the comment.  I think it is very important to be realistic.  As I go forward with the project I will continue to document that part of the project .

 

 

[PeterG]

Great piece, Bob, and a very cool system!  

 

One interesting thing about your system is the reasonable price.  A few months ago, before he detailed his choice of gear and budget, I asked Chris what he thought of the tradeoff between spending his budget on 12 speakers and their amps compared to spending the same money on stereo.  As we know, Chris's choices showed that he was not concerned with budgets.  (Awesome!)  But I am still interested in understanding tradeoffs...Did you consider spending the same $20K or so to upgrade your stereo system?  Having listened to a $20K immersive system and $20K stereo systems, what are your thoughts on how they stack up for a person trying to lose themselves in the music?  Thanks

[The Computer Audiophile]

43 minutes ago, PeterG said:

Great piece, Bob, and a very cool system!  

 

One interesting thing about your system is the reasonable price.  A few months ago, before he detailed his choice of gear and budget, I asked Chris what he thought of the tradeoff between spending his budget on 12 speakers and their amps compared to spending the same money on stereo.  As we know, Chris's choices showed that he was not concerned with budgets.  (Awesome!)  But I am still interested in understanding tradeoffs...Did you consider spending the same $20K or so to upgrade your stereo system?  Having listened to a $20K immersive system and $20K stereo systems, what are your thoughts on how they stack up for a person trying to lose themselves in the music?  Thanks

I talked to Bob many times throughout his research and one thing we talked about was the fact that most people won’t start from scratch when building such a system. Many will have a solid two channel system and perhaps 20k speakers for stereo already. Adding the Atmos channels will be much cheaper than a whole system. In a way it may be a false choice between 20k spread out for 12 speakers or 20k for 2 speakers because many people have the stereo pair already. 

[PeterG]

41 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I talked to Bob many times throughout his research and one thing we talked about was the fact that most people won’t start from scratch when building such a system. Many will have a solid two channel system and perhaps 20k speakers for stereo already. Adding the Atmos channels will be much cheaper than a whole system. In a way it may be a false choice between 20k spread out for 12 speakers or 20k for 2 speakers because many people have the stereo pair already. 

Yes, I agree with that specific example, and I do not mean to pose a false choice.  But the basic cost issue is still there.  Maybe the stereo upgrade is trading in the current speakers and spending that plus $20K on  new pair, or going from a Yggy to a Berkeley Reference DAC?

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

8 minutes ago, PeterG said:

Yes, I agree with that specific example, and I do not mean to pose a false choice.  But the basic cost issue is still there.  Maybe the stereo upgrade is trading in the current speakers and spending that plus $20K on  new pair, or going from a Yggy to a Berkeley Reference DAC?

 

 

I agree that cost is always important. As Bob laid it out, people can see the details and adapt them to their own needs. 

[bobfa]

I thought long and hard about starting this project from scratch.  I still to this day feel it was the exact right thing for me to do.  Yet, I would not expect many people to go that route. I changed rooms re-arranged the space and more.

 

Scaling a 2-channel to ATMOS should be a very common path.    I do not feel that comparing $$ to $$ helps the conversation. What I know today is that the experience with well mastered ATMOS music is now an integral part of my listening.  

 

 We have proven that we can scale Immersive Audio systems.  Using the tools in macOS  we can put multiple DACs together to add channels as needed.  With DSP we can correct much of what playback systems introduce that damage the sound.  I know that we can the cost down further.

 

I leveraged the knowledge that @The Computer Audiophile has shared, my own research, network of professionals and  personal experience along with three things:

 

1. Apple Music Spacial Audio with Dolby ATMOS

2. The ability of macOS to natively decode the music  and play it back.

3. The availability of multi-channel interfaces used in the pro audio.

 

 

This may be the most exciting thing I have seen in decades of listening to music.  

 

Well maybe it was hearing "The Lark Ascending" played on a  Stradivarius!

 

RJF