Dolby Atmos is a phrase you’ll come across when you’re shopping for a new TV, soundbar, or home theater speakers. An extension of the more traditional 5.1 channel surround sound, Dolby Atmos aims to create a more immersive experience by adding height channels to mixes, creating a ‘dome’ effect that envelops you.
Dolby Atmos has now become a key feature of home theater technology through clever virtual processing by some of the best soundbars, such as the Sonos Beam Gen 2, and in physical form by some of the best Dolby Atmos soundbars, such as the excellent Samsung HW-Q990D, which uses up-firing drivers on the soundbar itself and the system’s wireless surround speakers.
When I review a soundbar connected to one of the best TVs that support Dolby Atmos, the Dolby Atmos sound adds a new layer to the viewing experience, with the added height effects in scenes like the Batmobile chase in The Batman and the final Death Star attackStar Wars: A New Hope acquire an even more immersive quality.
It’s no surprise that Dolby Atmos has expanded beyond movies to music, as well as podcasts and audiobooks. Classic songs are now even getting the Atmos treatment on streaming sites like Tidal and Apple Music (in some cases this may be called Spatial Audio).
As widespread as it has become, Atmos music has never won me over. To be fair, I’ve always been more of a traditionalist and preferred listening to a set of the best stereo speakers plugged into an amplifier while I DJed. Born to run by Bruce Springsteen for the hundredth time. For me, Dolby Atmos never added much to that experience, and at times I even thought it was too complicated. Call me old fashioned!
But then I got the chance to see what goes into the Dolby Atmos production process for music, podcasts and audiobooks at Dolby Europe’s headquarters in Soho, London, and everything changed.
Where the magic happens
Dolby’s 9.1.4-channel Atmos production room is compact, cozy and perfectly equipped for audio mixing. Something that wasn’t surprising when I saw how much work went into the 34-speaker reference theater.
In any case, my experience started with a Dolby Atmos audiobook excerpt of a character traveling through time. When the time machine was activated, a swirl of sound enveloped the room, with pulsating sounds and the time traveler’s calm voice creating a Doctor Who-esque atmosphere. Another character’s voice came from behind, which gave a real sense of space and drew me into the action. It really felt like a movie.
Shortly afterwards I heard an excerpt from another podcast/audiobook, this one being a military drama where the thoughts in a character’s head wandered around the room. I heard footsteps moving throughout the room, while whispering, buzzing voices could be heard everywhere.
It was great to hear that these audiobooks took on a life of their own, giving me the same sense of immersion I get from watching movies with Dolby Atmos soundtracks.
Press the music
Then came music. The first song played was Believer by Imagine Dragons. It’s a song with great production and a stadium-like atmosphere, and every element sounded balanced. The drums pounded the floor, hand claps were carefully placed to the side of the room and the layered vocals came at me from all over, engulfing the room and sounding incredibly clean.
I wasn’t surprised that this is a modern song Believer sounded great in Atmos, but then the next song was Elton John’s Rocket man, queued up, I was curious to see how an older song, remixed for Atmos, would fare. Here was my opinion on Dolby Atmos music Real changed.
Rocket man in Atmos conveyed the atmosphere of the space and expanded it on a grand scale. The slide guitars created the sound of stars and ships running from the back to the front of the room and passing through the height channels overhead. The bass and pianos sounded well balanced and when a chorus of voices subtly appeared in the mix, it was something I had never noticed before when listening to the song.
The space opera feel of Rocket man getting the sense of scale that Elton John intended when he first wrote it was, for me, the best demonstration of what Dolby Atmos can do for music. Crucially, the buttery, warm quality of the original recording was still present – as if the original vinyl was being played on a Linn turntable through some Wharfedale speakers in a 1970s British living room.
While all this was happening, a visual display above the production room’s mixing console tracked the movement of the sound elements across the speakers, showing how much detail was in a Dolby Atmos mix.
Final thoughts
My time in Dolby’s Atmos production room finally opened my mind to Dolby Atmos music. To get its real benefits, though, you’ll need a system that can utilize its full capabilities, with full surround sound and overhead speakers, and admittedly that won’t be cheap.
Does this mean I’m done with stereo? No, not by a long shot. But it does mean I want to listen to more Dolby Atmos music – someone, give me some Bowie. When it comes to Atmos music, as the Monkees once sang: “now I’m a believer”.