Immersive Audio: How Engineers, Artists & Industry Are Changing The State Of Sound

[Ron Resnick]

What Is Immersive Audio?: How Engineers, Artists & Industry Are Changing The State Of Sound | GRAMMY.com

Immersive audio technology "loosely defines something that’s above and beyond," allowing sound technicians to think and work in three dimensions instead of two. GRAMMY.com takes a deep dive into the past, present and future of immersive audio for home, the studio and live audience.

www.grammy.com

 

[Tim Link]

This is an interesting technology. If recording studios start to use this increasingly it will be important to know how well will it work on standard 2 channel set ups, and how to get it to sound best in those set ups. The sound file has to be down mixed to however many speakers you have, and appropriately for your configuration of speakers. I've been listening to Atmos mixes on Apple Music, but using a non-Atmos capable 5.1 receiver. Apple Music (I think) chooses a 5.1 mix for me, and I've noticed that how it does this varies a lot from song to song. Some songs practically ignore the center channel, while others blend it in lightly with the standard left and right for a phantom center image. This suggests to me that whoever did the Atmos mix actually made two objects for the center panned vocalist and placed them at equal distance off center to force the creation of a phantom center image rather than having the center speaker take over.
If I leave Apple Music with Atmos turned on, but then have my downstream equipment output setting to 2 channel, the down mixing seems to be pretty bad. I'm not sure what's happening there. Perhaps Atmos doesn't mix to my liking down to 2 channels? Or Apple has separate 2 channel mixes for when Atmos is turned off?
If I switch back to 2 channel audio playback in Apple Music, then I get good sounding 2 channel mixes again. If I then run those through an up-mixer on my end, like Dolby Pro Logic or whatever, I can actually get more control over the sound distribution to my speakers, like choosing to have the center image taken over by the center speaker, which I prefer, or mix the side speakers back in to create more of the phantom center image sound which many listeners are highly accustomed to, and I think have come to perceive it's artificial sonic signature as a depth effect. On the whole I'll have to say I prefer more speakers. Having a speaker generating sound closer to the direction that the sound is supposed to be coming from is music to my ears. In all these years of enjoying 2 channel playback and being amazed at how good it can sound when set up properly, I've never been able to totally ignore it's quirks, and find the addition of more speakers to be a relief - if done well. Overall I think the upside potential of music reproduction with more than 2 speakers is quite high. I've been amazed at how well even simple and antiquated Dolby Pro Logic can add space between sounds and unravel complex mixes in a way that's near impossible with just 2 speakers. Even if it's "wrong" in some purist sense it really sounds better in a lot of respects.