Atmos vs 5.1

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Sunk cost fallacy, right? That AVR was expensive!
I'm beginning to believe that's a real thing. You spend big money on a non Atmos rig (or even worse, a non HDMI rig). Maybe you even had to go into debt to get it. After a few years you become bitter because the tech has moved on and your super expensive but outdated components are nearly worthless on the used market because they can't process the newest formats that everyone is raving about. Not to mention the formats the old gear can process arent being produced anymore. The easiest way to justify your original decision is to keep that old gear and convince yourself all that new tech is total crap. It makes sense. It happened with the transition from LPs to CDs, from tube TVs to flat-screens, and the transition from analog inputs to HDMI. Why wouldant it happen with the 5.1 to Atmos transition.
 
I'm beginning to believe that's a real thing. You spend big money on a non Atmos rig (or even worse, a non HDMI rig). Maybe you even had to go into debt to get it. After a few years you become bitter because the tech has moved on and your super expensive but outdated components are nearly worthless on the used market because they can't process the newest formats that everyone is raving about. Not to mention the formats the old gear can process arent being produced anymore. The easiest way to justify your original decision is to keep that old gear and convince yourself all that new tech is total crap. It makes sense. It happened with the transition from LPs to CDs, from tube TVs to flat-screens, and the transition from analog inputs to HDMI. Why wouldant it happen with the 5.1 to Atmos transition.
If people want to add Atmos compatibility to an 'all analogue' AVR they just need to buy a processor such as the Emotive BasX MC1, IOTAVX AVX17 or ToneWinner AT-300 and maybe a few more analogue stereo amps.
 
I'm beginning to believe that's a real thing. You spend big money on a non Atmos rig (or even worse, a non HDMI rig). Maybe you even had to go into debt to get it. After a few years you become bitter because the tech has moved on and your super expensive but outdated components are nearly worthless on the used market because they can't process the newest formats that everyone is raving about. Not to mention the formats the old gear can process arent being produced anymore. The easiest way to justify your original decision is to keep that old gear and convince yourself all that new tech is total crap. It makes sense. It happened with the transition from LPs to CDs, from tube TVs to flat-screens, and the transition from analog inputs to HDMI. Why wouldant it happen with the 5.1 to Atmos transition.
the 'tech' is removing physical disks numbnuts
 
I'm curious about something. I'm not an Atmos guy. And I'm unlikely to actually change around my system to get it. But, there are a lot of Atmos recordings now that, in theory, I can play through my 5.1. Many are only available in Atmos.

One of my recent purchases that had both a 5.1 and Atmos mix (I forget which one. Possibly Hootie and the Blowfish) automatically defaulted to Atmos on my OPPO. It sounded "fine" on my system. But when I finally decided to look at the menu, I realized it was the "wrong" version I was playing. 😳 When I flipped it to 5.1 I was stunned on the difference. Fuller, brighter and more surround sound coming from my system.

Now, there are some Atmos releases that don't offer that option. They are just Atmos.

When they mix something that is only in Atmos, do we know if someone is actually checking to see the compatibility with 5.1? Is it like back in the days of quad matrix, that someone checked compatibility with stereo?

Just curious
I believe that Atmos files are typically a lot smaller than 5.1 from what I've seen. The would account for something!
 
The .mlp Atmos file is about half the size of the uncompressed 12 channel .wav file. Just like we have come to expect from mlp. Compressing to wavpack instead results in the same about half size file.

I think DTS-MA is bigger than half size of the original uncompressed .wav file. I don't own the DTS software at present but I noticed the bigger files next to the .mlp files too.

Yeah ya know, do the separates thing with your hi-fi and then Atmos is just adding the new amp channels and speakers and grabbing the new software. Yes the software licensing and availability is a shit show right now and very much by design! And that's not just trivial. But either is getting gaslit by some AVR maker and falling victim to planned obsolescence!
 
7.1.4 -> 7.1

L = 1, 9
R = 2, 10
C = 3
Lfe = 4
Lss = 5
Rss = 6
Lrs = 7, 11
Rrs = 8, 12

7.1.4 -> 5.1

L = 1, 9
R = 2, 10
C = 3
Lfe = 4
Ls = 5, 7, 11
Rs = 6, 8, 12

7.1.2 folds 9,10 into 11,12
The other permutations follow as expected.

The 5.1(side) vs 5.1(rear) faux pas rears it's head here!
If you have a media player that swaps the rear channels to the side speakers when playing 5.1 on a 7.1 system because of this format screw up, you get that here too. The rears and sides in a non-decoded Atmos file playing back in 7.1 will be swapped. (ie Playing the folded down bed with no decoder.) That means the middle and rear of the soundstage inverted.
 
Randomly downmixing something by algorithm can have random results and random results can often not be as good as intentional work.
But it isn't random. The TrueHD decoder downmixes according to Dolby's rules, so you know exactly what the downmix is going to sound like and the mixing engineers can listen to all the possible downmixes if they want to.
 
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