Dolby was wrong! Place your Atmos speakers here instead, Performance over Aesthetics

which one are you g to go for Aesthetics performance the choice is yours a few quick disclaimers we are going to be talking about building a home theater or putting together a home theater and so I am making the assumption that this is going to be for a dedicated room because a living room just has too many compromises and I know that's not all of us and some of this stuff will pertain but I am entering that mindset of putting together together a home theater in a dedicated space so that's the first disclaimer second disclaimer is I'm going to say some stuff that's going to ruffle a lot of feathers and some of you will start getting mad telling me in the comments I don't know what I'm talking about and I should go you know do something bad to myself or just unsubscribe or maybe you will subscribe I don't know let me let you in on a little secret come here come here closer I don't care okay there you go do you so that's the other disclaimer performance versus Aesthetics which one are you going to lean in toward so do you want a really Nic looking home theater or do you want something that sounds accurate accurate in in a sense like as the artist intended I hate that phrase artistic intent I hate it we we can talk about that later are you going for what the artist intended or are you going for Aesthetics cuz if you don't want to see any speakers chances are you're going for Aesthetics right and depending on your room that may or may not detract from the performance of the sound system right because essentially at the end of the day it doesn't matter what you have for a display could be a TV could be micro LED could be a projector the sound is what makes the movie the sound system is what gives you those feelings what are you going for Aesthetics or performance let me give you an example there's a Best Buy around here it's pretty nice they had a 7.1.4 Doby Atmos room but they did something odd they did something odd and that kind of brings up this whole performance versus Aesthetics thing their ear level speakers were actually not at ear level they were lower than ear level so they're kind of down in front then the rear surrounds were kind of next to us and the surround backs were above like just further back and above and I thought that was kind of odd I asked them to play some of my Atmos mixes and I know from my Atmos mixes if I make a sound go from the front all the way to the back I know what that's supposed to be like because I'm the artist and what I intended was for that sound to stay on the earplane and just go back that's it just go back but due to the way this room was designed with the speakers going at this angle that sound is now moving backward and above moving through the room and up why is it doing that that's because of the physical location of the speakers maybe they had an issue with the studs or there there was some maybe there was some ducting maybe there were some pipes in the wrong location or in a bad location for you to put speakers in so that's a perfect example I made the sounds go flat on the ear level but when I'm listening back in this theater it's going back through the room but it's going above a lot of people had a second row of seating and then that second row was elevated so they used an elevated Surround Sound Stage so here we are again how are you going to have the proper accurate artistic intent when your speakers are now elevated you're going to have the same sensation I had where the sound is going back into the room and then all of a sudden jumping up and maybe jumping up another level who knows depending on how you have it all set up if you want to have a better experience a more accurate experience to to where the artist intended it to be there would be no elevated rear surround sound station if you wanted to make it sound exactly like it was mixed no second row or no elevated rear surround sound stage like I said you can still have people back there just have your mother-in-law back there she'll be fine she'll be asleep throughout the movie anyway not a big deal and of course at the end of the day you're not going to notice right you're not going to you you don't make the atmos so you're not going to notice that it's wrong in your room but now you've watched this video now you're going to know hey well what would that have sounded like it's one of those things what came first is the or no it's the uh the tree falls in the desert and you know does it make an oasis if nobody's there and when we're talking about Dolby admos we cannot ignore the height Channel placement now there's a whole bunch of information on the internet do what you want to do and whatever works for your system now of course from my vantage point as someone that makes Atmos and has been doing this for about three years now I mean I learned a lot so did Joe we both learned a lot making this over 200 Atmos tracks went into the development of this product which has 160 Atmos tracks and you can't make that much Atmos and not learn a whole bunch and we did we learned so much about it that you know I'm I'm still amazed and I'm still learning so much more especially with uh the people I'm hanging out with who are insane atos mixers I I got to tell you guys by the way there is a live stream that's happening April 3rd I'll put the link uh in the description make sure you set a reminder for that one it's going to be awesome now this next part is going to be very controversial if I wanted to let's say learn how to write song I would go talk to someone that makes songs right that writes songs if I wanted to uh bake a cake I would go to somebody that makes cakes so if I wanted to learn about Dolby Atmos wouldn't I want to go to somebody that makes Atmos with all due respect I've been putting together and designing home theaters for the last 253 years Okay cool so you're an you're a designer you design the room does that make you an expert in Atmos or room design you might be an expert at at designing the room but are you an expert at Atmos or how about the people that actually do the construction that actually make and build the home theater are they the admos expert or are they an expert at construction and all that stuff and making it look nice where does that where when you when you boil it down to the core where's the expertise and I am not claiming to be an expert I I've been producing music since 2005 I've been a gigging DJ for over 20 years I've been a home theater and iast since the mid90s and I just so happen to make YouTube videos do I consider myself an expert when it comes to Atmos and Atmos mixing and creation no there's too much to learn let's say I wanted to bake a cake and I went to somebody and they showed me the recipe with all the ingredients to bake a cake and the directions to bake a cake and they just say to me oh well you get these ingredients together and then you put them together like this that's it that is that that is the level of their expertise just regurgitating what's on this piece of paper I'm not going to blindly follow a piece of paper I'm not going to just rely heavily on Theory I tested out everything in a practical fashion I had two home theaters one was the way I would set it up and one was via Dolby spec and there was so much disconnect in the two when I was creating and making admos content and then playing it back on the system that had the Dolby Atmos spec the optimal High Channel configuration I think for most rooms and this is a generalization obviously it's not going to apply to every room it depends six High channels I believe six High channels and you'll get a good representation of what's going on now before we jump into that we have to discuss a couple of things you see the speaker right here this SVS speaker in the background here the white one how much Dolby Atmos metadata is in this speaker zero right zero big fat zero there's no Dolby Atmos metadata in the speaker there's two speakers there let's say in a left and right how much Dolby Atmos metadata is in that speaker layout zero right so where where is this magical Dolby Atmos metadata where is it in the computer it's so simple it is so simple it's in the computer it's in the Dolby Atmos render it's very simple and I know a lot of these you know YouTube experts and self-proclaimed gurus they want to over complicate something that's actually very simple and if you were just to stop and think about it oh yeah this makes a lot of sense what I'm about to say if we take the Dolby Almos render and place signals that will only engage a single speaker this is what it looks like now this is seven speakers got front left Center front right surround right surround back right surround back left surround left now this gives you great coverage agreed can we all agree on that at least this gives great coverage so why not not mimic what we have down on the ear level above and get the same amount of coverage minus of course the center channel and what does that give us that gives us a 7.1.6 Dolby Atmos configuration we have great coverage already for the ear level then we can have great coverage up on the top now of course a lot of the experts and a lot of the people that follow the experts and just regurgitate what they say because they regurgitate something that Dolby says are going to say well it's all about angles listen if you have the proper coverage you'll have all the angles covered let me say it again if you have proper coverage you're going to have all the angles covered oh well Dolby only says we need to have you know speakers that are halfway to the main listening position in ceiling but if you look at dolby's own diagram here it contradicts itself right here in this same page where's the main listening position in this diagram is it at the center no it's not in the center it's a little bit back we look at this diagram over here on the same page where's the main listing position it's in now in the center but in this other diagram on the same page it's telling you something different like that is pretty confusing to begin with 7.1.6 I feel is the optimal and I'll tell you why if we have something on the screen like a helicopter helicopter takes off what direction does that go it goes straight up so that sound needs to stay in the front of the room if you have a Dolby atmo spec where the speaker is let's say half the distance between the main listening position and your front stage spec from dolby's own diagrams that sound is going to travel up and toward you into the room now of course you're going to be like no techno dad that's not what happened but like I think it was 2 years ago I put out a video with an Atmos file that you can try out in your system and there were hundreds I think over 600 comments and they answered in the way I assumed they would hey I thought it sounded pretty cool but what you said was right the sound went up and toward me into the room now I don't know what you guys think but I know right away like my brain's going to be like something's wrong with this the helicopter's on screen but the sound is now above me and the helicopter's not above me this just it's up the sound needs to stay where the helicopter is you know I was speaking with Nick Reeves uh who's a Grammy nominated Atmos mixing engineer he does all the atmos mixes for Phineas Billy ish he did the entire Bob Marley collection I was talking to him about this phenomenon and he 100% agreed and he said that in music it doesn't matter so much doesn't matter so much because there's nothing to tie everything to the front of the room but when it's a movie and you have a screen and you have to attach the sound sounds to things happening on screen you need to have that sound stay at the front of the room there was some uh talk about this uh in another like Facebook group and this guy was like well that's just an isolated incident nobody professionally that mixes Atmos puts any sound in the corners so I got to spend some time with a guy named Alan Myerson now you probably haven't heard of this guy's name uh but you've heard his work as he's done the immersive mix for Sherlock Holmes and what was that new one oh yeah Dune and dune 2 I got to talk with him I I even helped this guy right oh and he said my name like totally funny too te D I always get a kick out of that and we're talking and we're you know laughing and high-fiving and all this kind of stuff I got to hear a lot of his mixes and look look at the renderer from his mix that's actually in a movie look at this you want to tell me they're not going to use every centimeter of this box come on let's be real it's nothing against these people that have been you know designing home theaters for years like I understand it's tough to like accept new information it's like it's like me telling telling everybody that the world is round when everybody thinks it's flat so I guess I guess you guys got to decide are you a flat earther or do do you believe that the Earth is round I mean this this is this what we've like now come come down to damn people you know accept everything as as it is and then they tell a big company tells them something oh okay yeah sure this is it abcxyz right and they just can't take in this new information they just can't they just refuse and they refuse to even just try it I you know don't take my word for it try it download my atos track and and and try it I'll put it down in the the description it's from like years ago and there is just a huge disconnect with the people that make and design home theaters and people that actually make and mix Atmos there's a huge disconnect and I'm here to tell you I'm the guy in the middle I'm the missing link I'm here to tell you that there's a lot of similarities and all we have to do is just take a little bit from here and a little bit from here and boom we're going to have a better experience once we start listening to both disciplines and taking into account the problems in both and finding a solution and so I think the solution is to mimic the speaker layout in your home theater that's derived from the Dolby atal renderer because again there is no Dolby Atmos metadata in that speaker behind me there is no Dolby Atmos metadata in the speaker configuration the Dolby Atmos metadata is in the computer it's in the computer if the computer in the Dolby AOS renderer has a specific location where if you play a sound it fires in just that one speaker alone why not mimic those locations into the home theater this is very simple very simple this makes a ton of sense if we have seven ear level speakers let's remove move the center channel so we have six three on the left side three on the right side that gives us good coverage so why not mimic that up top to give us good coverage seems very simple I'm not here to over complicate something simple like everybody else I'm telling you exactly what I'm seeing there is a disconnect and I think this will now unify this disconnection between the creation of Atmos and the reproduction of Atmos in your home theater I think this is it I think this is the answer you let me know what you think which one are you going to go for Aesthetics performance the choice is yours see you in the next one peace

Channel: Techno Dad

Views: 51,845

Keywords: dolby atmos, dolby atmos home theater, dolby atmos speaker, dolby atmos speaker placement, dolby atmos speaker placement 7.1.4, dolby atmos home theater speaker placement, dolby was wrong

Id: 4CNneY6JtTU

Length: 15min 42sec (942 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 02 2024