Pearl Jam albums in Dolby Atmos surround

The Rock said:

I have an Android device and Sony WH-1000xm3 headphones, and listening to Ten last night was an unbelievable experience. The separation of instruments is insane, especially on a song like Porch. 

Release is definitely a different vocal take. Still sounds great, but an odd choice to use this vocal. 

Is Gigaton in Dolby only available on Apple Music? I have a Tidal subscription and it's not on there. I don't want to pay for another service to hear Gigaton. 

Gigaton should be available where Dolby Atmos is available since it was recorded that way. 

strilo said:

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igotid88 said: Gigaton should be available where Dolby Atmos is available since it was recorded that way. 

Not to split hairs, but Gigaton was not recorded in Atmos. I don't believe anything is recorded in Atmos. Gigaton was recorded using normal multitrack recording, just like every other Pearl Jam album. This is usually analog recording for PJ, but they did try new things with Gigaton, so maybe it's their first digital recording, I honestly don't know. Either way, it was recorded in multitrack, then Josh Evans worked with the band to mix the album in stereo. Once that was done, well after, Josh Evans went down to Hollywood to work with a Capitol Records engineer to use the original multitrack recordings to mix the album (again), this time in Atmos. The Atmos mix is a completely separate mix from the stereo mix. There are subtle differences for sure.

And to my knowledge, I certainly could be wrong, but I think to date, the Atmos mix of Gigaton (with or without the visual album) is only available from Apple.

Maybe I read it wrong. But in the variety article it mentioned it was the first UMG album recorded for Atmos. 

strilo said:

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foriginalsin said:

One other thing. I read people saying this particular guitar part or whatever is missing or low in the atmos mix. I listened to buddy holly, weezer, and i found the same thing, a certain guitar harmony was almost gone from the mix.  I am wondering if this is because full atmos is 11.2.4. Thats a lot of channels and its possible certain parts are sent to channels that arent in the 5.1 mix. 

That's not exactly how Atmos works. It's not strictly limited to channels. Basically you tell your receiver what type of Atmos you have, how many speakers and where they are. Then when the Atmos stream is decoded, all channels/objects are routed to the setup you have. Basically, it sends things to the nearest speaker you have. So no objects or channels would be missing due to a 5.1 setup vs 11.2.4. The sounds we are referring to as changed, buried or missing are that way in the mix by design. Atmos in headphones has all of the content folded down automatically to left and right, and the sounds we refer to are missing there too. It's an artistic mixing choice by Josh Evans, not a byproduct of how Atmos is mixed and decoded.

This is true to an extent but the Atmos processing can only do so much. For example let's say you have three different sounds with their object positions as Front Left, Back Left, and overhead Left.

If you're listening to a 5.1.4, you will be able to pick out those three sounds moreso than if you're listening on your headphones, where it will mash all three together and to fake the positionality will adjust volume levels or add slight delays, etc. I think you need at least 5.1.2 to truly experience the Atmos, otherwise it's just just like any other fake positionality which is hit or miss and does not necessarily reflect what it sounded like in the Atmos mixing room.

chalon said:

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strilo said:

foriginalsin said:

One other thing. I read people saying this particular guitar part or whatever is missing or low in the atmos mix. I listened to buddy holly, weezer, and i found the same thing, a certain guitar harmony was almost gone from the mix.  I am wondering if this is because full atmos is 11.2.4. Thats a lot of channels and its possible certain parts are sent to channels that arent in the 5.1 mix. 

That's not exactly how Atmos works. It's not strictly limited to channels. Basically you tell your receiver what type of Atmos you have, how many speakers and where they are. Then when the Atmos stream is decoded, all channels/objects are routed to the setup you have. Basically, it sends things to the nearest speaker you have. So no objects or channels would be missing due to a 5.1 setup vs 11.2.4. The sounds we are referring to as changed, buried or missing are that way in the mix by design. Atmos in headphones has all of the content folded down automatically to left and right, and the sounds we refer to are missing there too. It's an artistic mixing choice by Josh Evans, not a byproduct of how Atmos is mixed and decoded.

This is true to an extent but the Atmos processing can only do so much. For example let's say you have three different sounds with their object positions as Front Left, Back Left, and overhead Left.

If you're listening to a 5.1.4, you will be able to pick out those three sounds moreso than if you're listening on your headphones, where it will mash all three together and to fake the positionality will adjust volume levels or add slight delays, etc. I think you need at least 5.1.2 to truly experience the Atmos, otherwise it's just just like any other fake positionality which is hit or miss and does not necessarily reflect what it sounded like in the Atmos mixing room.

I'm really curious about the technical aspect of this. 5.1 speakers are designed for movies/TV. The rear speakers, designed for special effects, are small and, if I am not mistaken, have a narrower higher frequency range. 

With ATMOS and 360, how do they push an instrument with a broad frequency range to a speaker that have a narrow range in the high frequencies?  Unless one of you knows, imma have to research this one on the AV forurms 

chalon said:

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KV4053 said:

I'm really curious about the technical aspect of this. 5.1 speakers are designed for movies/TV. The rear speakers, designed for special effects, are small and, if I am not mistaken, have a narrower higher frequency range. 

With ATMOS and 360, how do they push an instrument with a broad frequency range to a speaker that have a narrow range in the high frequencies?  Unless one of you knows, imma have to research this one on the AV forurms 

It'll just depend a lot on the speakers. Just like you can get tiny/bad stereo speakers you can get tiny/bad surround speakers. But you can also get huge and great-sounding surround speakers as well, so it's just dependent on the budget. It's a bit harder to get great in-ceiling speakers (the .4 part) because of the space constraints and costs.

I hear you, but I don't think the rear speakers of the vast majority of home theater systems are full range.... irrespective of budget

Zod said:

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KV4053 said:

I hear you, but I don't think the rear speakers of the vast majority of home theater systems are full range.... irrespective of budget

There's always in between.  My rear speaks are bookshelf speakers, but the fronts are towers

Yeah, but in that case you may have a better music experience listening to the music in stereo rather than involving the surround, which I think is what KV means.

For my speaker setup, the frequency response specs say:
Center: 51-35,000 Hz ± 3dB
L/R (both front and back): 100-20,000 Hz ± 3db
4x overhead: 70Hz – 20,000 Hz ± 3db
Subwoofer: 24-200 Hz ± 3db, substantial output down to 20Hz

I'm not sure if that meets KV's criteria of good enough frequency response range . I'm pretty sure for me I can't hear anything past ~16kHz, so it's not a big deal for me that it tops off at 20 kHz. You could argue the low end of the L/R isn't low enough, but I have my crossover frequency set appropriately so it meshes well and I don't lose the bass.

Also if I REALLY went all-out I could've gotten the L/R speakers that got close to the center (54-35,000 Hz) but they were significantly more expensive and also I didn't quite have the space to fit them .

Anyway, back to the original topic, I've not been able to listen to either albums in Atmos yet. It seems like the only way to get it onto my setup right now is if I buy an Apple TV 4K which has an Apple Music app which can output Atmos over eARC. It sounds like Tidal has an app for my TV (LG) that supports Dolby Atmos, but I guess the Atmos mixes aren't available on that yet?

nuzzer1 said:

just experienced release in Atmos on AirPods pros. Had issues syncing the right tracks (had to remove every studio version of Ten from my library due to iTunes Match issue) - but holy shit...this is outstanding. Agreed on master/slave even being notable. 

That iTunes Match drives me nuts. It completely messes up my live compilations!