I’ve received some interesting feedback from My Thoughts on Music Delivery Formats and The Biggest Advance in HiFi as well as from Darko’s latest Podcast. Interesting because some people completely missed my point.
Here’s what I think about Dolby Atmos today:
There’s not enough music available to get me interested in investing in it.
Seeing as I have never heard an Atmos setup, which I stated very clearly in both places, my comments have nothing to do with how it sounds. Nor am I saying anything about the technology or its likeability. Again, never heard it.
What I am saying is for me to get excited enough about a new music delivery format to invest in new hardware, proper installation, and music, there needs to be a lot of music available in that format to make it worth my time, effort, and money. By a lot, I mean a significant percentage of the currently available music that exists in stereo (and mono) that interests me.
As of today there is, practically speaking, an endless supply of music between records, downloads, CDs, and streaming. More than any one person can listen to in a lot of lifetimes. This reality makes me endlessly joyful in part because I’ve lived through having very limited access to music. And let me tell you that could not suck more. If you’ve never experienced a dearth of music choices, pick ten records and listen to them for a year exclusively and get back to me. Spoiler Alert: it’s like prison.
Truth be told, I don’t like every single record that exists. Not even every one from Tidal’s limited 100 million track selection. Call me picky. If I use my calculator to figure the amount of music I enjoy let alone have time to listen to out of those 100M tracks, I come up with less than 1%. Now let’s say that there are, in rough numbers, 5,000 Spatial Audio/Atmos albums available today. Using my streaming % of albums of interest, that would leave me with less than 50 albums to choose from, i.e. back in prison.
What are my current thoughts on Spatial Audio and Atmos? There’s not enough music available to get me interested in investing in it.
