Listening to in Dolby Atmos Streaming, via Tidal/Apple/Amazon

[minimumtumbleweed]

The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Finally.

Of course it's not on Tidal...

 

[James Jay]

The Dolby Atmos mix of Yoshimi is great with the wildest use of ceiling Atmos speakers I have heard to date. The Dolby Atmos mix is quite different from the 5.1 DVD audio I have. This would be an instant purchase if they decide to release a Blu ray Dolby Atmos disc. I love this Dolby Atmos mix. Listening on a Apple 4k tv streaming device.

 

[atlantasteve]

The Dolby Atmos mix of Yoshimi is great with the wildest use of ceiling Atmos speakers I have heard to date. The Dolby Atmos mix is quite different from the 5.1 DVD audio I have. This would be an instant purchase if they decide to release a Blu ray Dolby Atmos disc. I love this Dolby Atmos mix. Listening on a Apple 4k tv streaming device.

The use of side speakers is also the wildest to date. Vocals are prominent, not just instruments.

 

[ted_b]

I applaud the Flips (or whoever authorized the new Atmos mix) cuz they could have easily skated by with a little height reverb added to that crazy existing 5.1 mix and few would have been offended. But to create a new Atmos mix and realize that the almost frenetic reputation of Yoshimi was on the line..and they outdid themselves. Bravo.

 

[Bretho72]

No matter how good Yoshmi is on Apple Music it’s still so much better in lossless 5.1, better dynamics, low end just everything. I’ve just listened to the first 4 tracks on both Apple and 5.1 dvd audio and I’ve stuck with the dvd audio to finish it. Oh Apple please go lossless

 

[DrKlahn]

It's rare that I find a Tidal atmos release without the problem sadly. I can easily provide example titles and the tracks for those titles that have wildly varying volumes within the same album

For the Pearl Jam (Dark Matter), that just happens to be one without any gross problems, however the tracks are encoded with a dialnorm value of -18 dB with some at -17 dB so will in general play much quieter than tracks encoded with a dialnorm value of -31dB

For a recent example Tidal album with the problem, see Wilco 'Hot Sun Cool Shroud'.

If your system has the problem I'm describing the first track will play LOUD and the second track MUCH quieter.

The first track is encoded with a dialnorm value of -31 dB (good) but the second track is encoded with a dialnorm value of -16 dB.

Track 3 is also encoded at 16 dB so won't sound radically different in volume than the previous track, however track 4 is back to LOUD (dialnorm value of -31 dB) if you have the problem I'm describing.

Just wanted to update this thread and report that the Wilco Atmos mix has the wild swings in volume (at least on my setup). Aside from that, I did enjoy the music and mix. I just had to keep an eye on things and adjust accordingly, I'm 99.9% sure all of the loudness settings are off in the preamp. I need to verify that something hasn't changed to be sure. So, listener beware this one can potentially damage something with the swings encountered here.

Edit: verified that all loundness/normalization settings are all set to off

Also gave Pearl Jam Dark Matter Atmos a listen. A very mixed bag. Some of the tracks have the vocals recessed in the mix, which is where I think the vocal complaints in the rating thread come from. Others are nice and clean with the vocals front and centered. Some of the Atmos is kind of a lazy and poorly implemented reverb/decay effect. I gave it a 7 on the poll because it does have its moments. But that might be generous. Might sound like I'm being harsh, but after listening to this I sampled some of the Who's Next tracks again. It's crazy how much more better that mix is to me. Too bad because the material in Dark Matter was pretty good. I might revisit it again and see if my opinion softens.

 

[himey]

better dynamics

What dynamics are you alluding to? Lossless doesn't add dynamics to a mix that wasn't there in the first place.

 

[stereoptic]

No matter how good Yoshmi is on Apple Music it’s still so much better in lossless 5.1, better dynamics, low end just everything. I’ve just listened to the first 4 tracks on both Apple and 5.1 dvd audio and I’ve stuck with the dvd audio to finish it. Oh Apple please go lossless

Aren't they 2 different mixes?

 

[himey]

Aren't they 2 different mixes?

The first mix was 5.1, this new mix is Atmos.

 

[dquad]

I've listened 4 times to the Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots album from start to finish. This is tied for my second favorite Dolby Atmos mix. It's incredibly descrete, spatious and wild. I can't wait until the physical release. Hopefully, this is included in Rhino's next set of Atmos Blu-ray releases.

 

[ted_b]

I've listened 4 times to the Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots album from start to finish. This is tied for my second favorite Dolby Atmos mix. It's incredibly descrete, spatious and wild. I can't wait until the physical release. Hopefully, this is included in Rhino's next set of Atmos Blu-ray releases.

Pray tell, what are the other two?

 

[dquad]

Pray tell, what are the other two?

#1: King Crimson - Larks' Tongues in Aspic
#2: Air - Moon Safari & The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
#3: Yes - Fragile & The Yes Album

 

[humprof]

Eliane Elias, Mirror Mirror. Gorgeous Grammy-winning album of duets with Chick Corea and Chucho Valdés. As far as I know, this was recorded live in studio with the pianos facing each other, yin/yang style. So no Atmos fireworks, but the format does add a lot of "space." Sounds especially good on headphones or a MacBook. A couple of other releases & re-releases on the revived Candid label (Terri Lynne Carrington, Wayne Shorter & Friends) have also gotten Atmos mixes--a good sign.

Chucho Valdés is a member of this year's class of NEA jazz masters--along with pianist Marilyn Crispell, centenarian saxophonist Marshall Allen (of the Sun Ra Arkestra), and writer Gary Giddens.
https://www.npr.org/2024/07/16/nx-s1-5041573/2025-nea-jazz-masters

 

[himey]

#1: King Crimson - Larks' Tongues in Aspic
#2: Air - Moon Safari & The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
#3: Yes - Fragile & The Yes Album

I would have to squeeze Kraftwerk 3D somewhere in there!

 

[Hereford]

M83's Hurry Up We're Dreaming is still not Atmos in Denmark (maybe Europe too?). is there any way to reach out for a solution

 

[stereoptic]

The first mix was 5.1, this new mix is Atmos.

Thanks, that was my point. 2 different mixes, so the bass will sound different on the new mix than on the DVD-A.

 

[dabl]

Just wanted to update this thread and report that the Wilco Atmos mix has the wild swings in volume (at least on my setup). Aside from that, I did enjoy the music and mix. I just had to keep an eye on things and adjust accordingly, I'm 99.9% sure all of the loudness settings are off in the preamp. I need to verify that something hasn't changed to be sure. So, listener beware this one can potentially damage something with the swings encountered here.

Edit: verified that all loundness/normalization settings are all set to off

What's amazing is the breadth of this Tidal problem and the length of time it's existed, since the beginning.

And yet no artist, mixer, or record company has even mentioned it to my knowledge, let alone insisted these gross errors with their product be corrected.

Any listener that happens to notice it and maybe report it is ignored.

I know I've harped on this forever and don't mean to derail the thread, but it's just incomprehensible to me a problem of this magnitude still exists and seems to go silently unmentioned and/or uncorrected.

I personally believe it's a simple mistake made by either inattentive or completely incompetent operators tasked with the lossy encoding step.

I can't imagine Dolby Labs are the ones making these mistakes. I somehow imagine these lossless files coming in to some digital dumping ground somewhere and being encoded, possibly by some batch process. Then again, some titles are encoded correctly so who knows. I'd love to know, just for my own sanity.

Meanwhile of course most of the world has moved on to or uses Apple so it's become even less noticed or cared about.

 

[DrKlahn]

What's amazing is the breadth of this Tidal problem and the length of time it's existed, since the beginning.

And yet no artist, mixer, or record company has even mentioned it to my knowledge, let alone insisted these gross errors with their product be corrected.

Any listener that happens to notice it and maybe report it is ignored.

I know I've harped on this forever and don't mean to derail the thread, but it's just incomprehensible to me a problem of this magnitude still exists and seems to go silently unmentioned and/or uncorrected.

I personally believe it's a simple mistake made by either inattentive or completely incompetent operators tasked with the lossy encoding step.

I can't imagine Dolby Labs are the ones making these mistakes. I somehow imagine these lossless files coming in to some digital dumping ground somewhere and being encoded, possibly by some batch process. Then again, some titles are encoded correctly so who knows. I'd love to know, just for my own sanity.

Meanwhile of course most of the world has moved on to or uses Apple so it's become even less noticed or cared about.

At least, so far, that's the only one I've encountered with such insane swings in volume. It's still quite worrying that this is OK to Tidal.

 

[dabl]

At least, so far, that's the only one I've encountered with such insane swings in volume.

Heh, there are TONS.

 

[himey]