Article: Embracing Immersive Audio

[Sal1950]

Good article on immersive audio Chris.

Archimago hits the nail on the head with his post.

Sadly, Stereophile has actively pursued a anti-surround music path for decades. That was highlighted in 2002 by the original founder and owner J. Gordon Holt leaving its ranks when the new boss John Atkinson refused to allow him to write about surround sound. We had the excellent run of Kal Rubinson's "In The Round" articles but sadly they are also gone.

A magazine that is supposedly interested in bringing the news of SOTA audio to it's readers has instead taken different paths. They would rather continue to support MQA after the audio community at large had rejected it, exposing it's lies and deceitful practices.

It would be so simple and honest for them to take the same position everyone did with lossy 2ch streaming and encourage a change to lossless Atmos, instead they stated,  "We should hope for its demise"!  What is this agenda they have? Maybe the time has come that Stereophile has outlived it's value to high end audio enthusiasts around the world and we should "hope for it's demise".  ;)

 

As a side note Stereophile's main competitor in High End Audio,  "The Absolute Sound", has been dipping it's toes in Atmos music with some music reviews, etc; and in the Oct 2023, the magazines "Editor In Chief" Robert Harley wrote a great 8 page article on the building of his new Home Theater/Music Room.

 

Some eyes are being opened.

The futures so bright, I gotta wear shades

[Sal1950]

I got my December issue of The Absolute Sound yesterday. Continuing their coverage of options for SOTA surround  sound was a review of the Audiopraise PRO HDMI Extractor box. For folks that worry over possible clocking issues with the multichannel HDMI interface and wishing to use ultra high quality external DAC's, this may be of interest. Chris I think your already doing something along these lines, as is member @Kal Rubinson .  Maybe a good piece for a AS review..

 

[Sal1950]

I got the email from Stereophile today that the As We See It editorial from the Dec2023 issue has gone public.

Jim Austin's nonsense "As We See It" attack on Apple music's streaming of Atmos music went public today.
I had steam coming out of my ears when I read it a week for so back. The bottom line being because of Apples
choice to stream Atmos in a lossy form, he choose to call for "Atmos" demise.

"For those of us who care about perfectionist audio, Atmos, as conceived by record-company executives, is not the answer. We should hope for its demise."

https://www.stereophile.com/content/beatles-last-stand

For decades we tolerated 2ch being streamed in various lossy forms till the pressure from us (those who cared) grew
loud enough that most all streamers now offer lossless options. But instead of calling for Apple (and the other Atmos streamers) to upgrade to a lossless form, he instead calls for it's (Atmos) demise. Just another example of Mr Austin pursuing an agenda that is in some way financially motivated rather than putting audios current SOTA multich sound delivery codec at the top of it's priories. Exactly the same as his continued support for MQA.  I have posted this response there.

"Rather than wish for a SOTA quality lossless Atmos stream as we did for many years with 2ch, Mr Austin wishes for its demise.
What I would wish for is Mr Austin's position at the helm of Stereophile to have it's demise and someone more akin to J. Gordon Holt to once again take the reins, he was a man with a deep understanding and appreciation for multich music production. Mr Austins view of SOTA audio is way too narrow minded for this job."

 

 

[Sal1950]

On 11/25/2023 at 2:22 PM, Archimago said:

With nonsense like MQA gone, maybe it's a good time for audiophiles to think about the future and evaluate the direction that will expand this hobby, improve the music production quality, open creative freedom for artists we love, and pave the way for hardware progress that can extract the best from these recordings.

Thanks Archi and others for your support!

Stereo music presentation was a wonderful invention for bringing some dimensionality  to our listening experience. Great recording artists and engineering teams use the 2 channels in the same way a great painting artist uses brush strokes, oil thickness, light & shadow and color to add dimension to what otherwise would be a flat canvas.

Multich and Atmos especially uses it's tools to bring another paradigm to recorded music. Instead of just peering thru that "open window into the concert hall", immersive uses this new technology in the way that Michelangelo brought his vision to the Sistine Chapel.  Walking into that room, rather than just staring at a small canvas brings a whole new experience to painting artistry, Multich-Atmos offers the same toolkits to music artists. Yes, you do have to accept this new presentation paradigm, it is completely different. But for me I always felt it took a big exciting step forward in the presentation of a musical event.

 

[Sal1950]

11 hours ago, ARQuint said:

We should remember that every so often, Frank makes an insightful observation and it's something he hasn't already remarked 50 times.

I've known Frank across multiple websites and I'm not sure I've heard him make a single truly "insightful" observation.

He seems to personally revel in trolling threads wherever he goes, looking to make contrary deductions of whatever the current subject attempts to discuss. Individual "ignore" blocks does little to stop his success at fouling the flow of intelligent discussion on the subject at large. The main reason he ends up being banned is the fact that he'll ignore all calls from the admins & moderation teams to tame his disrupting banter as he's shown here with Chris.

JMHO

[Sal1950]

12 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

100%. 

 

It's just a disservice when the old guard turns into armchair engineers and questions those creating the mix and their artistic decisions, without a clue as to what they were trying to accomplish. The guys making the recordings can't stop laughing at comments like, "I'm saying that quite often, choices made for Atmos aren't as good as those that have been made previously with speaker-based multichannel formats." 

The biggest issue IMO is when the old guard insists on calling/seeing much of immersive audio "gimmickry".  If they can't begin to understand and accept the new artistry paradigm of the recordings being done by the leading multich engineers and recording artists, how can they ever begin to understand why X choices have been made? Listening to recordings such as Yello - Point, Booka Shade, Pineapple Thief, Bruce Soord, Steven Wilson, etc, if you can't begin to accept what they are trying to do, the art they are producing, you will never be capable of making a relevant observation.

[Sal1950]

3 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

What I would not care to see would be a wholesale, perhaps automated, repackaging of classical recordings just to spread things around for novel effect. 

On this point I would agree with you, for classical or rock. That's not art, it's greed.

There is much of that going on everywhere, what was there to be gained in the old Beatles albums

being reissued in Atmos from old mono or 2 channel tapes of which no stems ever existed, besides making money.

But that's just the way of the world partner, little different from whats been going on in the 2ch reissue market for many decades now. Come up with any excuse to claim it "sounds better" and make a bunch of dough. Of course no scientifically supportable evidence is ever required.  I'm thinking MQA here.  LOL  ;)

[Sal1950]

3 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

Despite my seniority, I do not accept the label of "old guard" because I support everything you say, especially for the examples you cite.

BTW, we're exactly the same age.  LOL

[Sal1950]

3 hours ago, Jud said:

If they want to do immersive with the results also, I've got no problem with it, as long as the same degree of care is taken.

 

3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I totally love the Atmos releases. I have no attachment to the originals and find them a touch boring. The Atmos version breathed new life into these tracks that made me much more interested. 
 

I’ll happily listen to a new mix of anything and much prefer a new mix to a new master. 

I understand what your saying, If there's modern technology that can reach into those 60+ yo recordings and

come out with improved SQ, better revealing of inner detail, lower distortion, etc;  fine. But that should be just as easily accomplished then in 2ch mode.

But AI or no AI, I don't believe you can take a mono or simplistic ancient 2ch recording and turn it into something that realistically can be called a genuine immersive recording.  I use my AVR's included DS, DTS, and Auro software daily to upsample 2ch sources, but I still don't consider that immersive, just a psychacoustic trick. In the big picture I feel these money grab releases only shed a bad light on the intended purpose of the artistry from serious musicians and engineers.

YMMV

[Sal1950]

Just thought I'd mention, I did my first full listen to the Peter Gabriel - I/O  BluRay disc last night.

Most excellent, better than I expected.

YMMV

[Sal1950]

21 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Ah yes, preaching Atmos abstinence is a sure fire way to… checking notes … prove one is an out of touch celibate preacher who is an Atmos virgin. 
 

@Jim Austin admits to never listening to that which he excoriates. Rather than teach people how to get the best out of what’s available, he wishes for its demise and appeals to authority. 

 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/dolby-atmos-bleak-shadow

See my recent reply to the his sad rant there.  Let's see if it survives.

 

"Sal1950

Submitted by Sal1950 on January 19, 2024 - 5:57am

Why the constant negativity towards Atmos or anything multich for that matter? Rather than promote the SOTA in immersive audio and then encourage a change to a lossless stream, all you can do is continue to berate. Lossless Atmos files are huge and very demanding of bandwidth but it could be done if the market demands. It took us decades of asking for the lossless streaming of 2ch before it became a reality. Stereophile has had it's head on backwards towards surround sound ever since J. Gordon Holt left over the issue and the loss of Kal's Rubinson's "In The Round" put the final nail in it's coffin at this magazine. While over at The Absolute Sound multich coverage continues and expands with things like Robert Harley's October 2023, 8 page article on the building of the new HT/Music room in his home.
Mr Austin, your short sighted vision of High Fidelity's SOTA is slowly leading this magazine into the stone age and to it's demise. I highly suggest you step down and turn the reins over to someone with a wider view of High Performance Audio.
Sal1950"