Madeleine Peyroux “Let’s Walk” - new album with Elliot Scheiner Dolby Atmos & Auro-3D mixes! (streaming/download)

[ted_b]

S

To play in what, a DAW? I think it would just cause confusion, since most listeners seem to be using HDMI.

The decoded Auro nulled out almost completely with the source files, so you can easily make your own 10-channel wavs using the Auro-3D Export plugin (which I think is available to the public?).

So, what is that format that you’re offering for Auro, embedded wav? I’ve played embedded flac and regular MKVs but nothing else for Auro 3D so far. Thx

 

[sjcorne]

So, what is that format that you’re offering for Auro, embedded wav? I’ve played embedded flac and regular MKVs but nothing else for Auro 3D so far. Thx

Yep, embedded WAV - that's what the encoder produces. Before we put them up for sale, I always test with the Auro-3D Export plugin to make sure they 'up-fold' back to 5.1.4 or 7.1.4.

Whenever I try to convert these embedded WAVs to FLAC (using a variety of different encoders included FLAC Frontend, Foobar2000, AudioMuxer, etc), I always end up with a corrupted file. So I'm not sure how other folks, like 2L for instance, are producing embedded FLACs.

 

[mkt]

Is there something better than this for Auro on a Mac? I don't really want to use jriver and I'm not finding the plugin.

 

[mrcond]

The Atmos mix of this is excellent. The album starts slowly and gets more adventurous as it goes. Good variety of musical styles. Let’s hope Mr. Scheiner stays unretired!

 

[sjcorne]

Let’s hope Mr. Scheiner stays unretired!

I know he has at least one more immersive project in the pipeline

 

[AYanguas]

@sjcorne, I'm going to buy Madeleine Peyroux's Let's Walk in Auro-3D at IAA.

I have never tried Auro-3D WAV files in my system. (Only from Blu-Ray). I hope I can play it with Oppo/Dune to my Denon 8500 AVR.

@sjcorne, can I get first any Auro-3D WAV file for testing from IAA?

 

[ted_b]

An Auro 3D test wav on the site would be nice, but when I’ve tested embedded flac converted to wav they played fine (Jonathan reminded me we tested this months ago).

 

[AYanguas]

An Auro 3D test wav on the site would be nice, but when I’ve tested embedded flac converted to wav they played fine (Jonathan reminded me we tested this months ago).

I never tested an Auro embedded Flac neither.

+1 for an additional Auro embedded WAV file test in the IAA site, the same way there are Atmos test files.

 

[ted_b]

Bought the Auro 3D files, downloaded them, and played them flawlessly via my Sony X800M2 bluray ray via USB (my only source that plays these embedded flacs and wavs flawlessly). Being that this is both Auro 3D (my fave format) and from Elliot Scheiner (one of my fave engineers) this should have been amazing. It was only very good. Why? Dunno, gonna give it another listen soon. Just not as good as her earlier albums IMHO. Too early to give it a rating. The mix is good, but not enough to wow me I guess....so far.

 

[Steve Bruzonsky]

Yep, embedded WAV - that's what the encoder produces. Before we put them up for sale, I always test with the Auro-3D Export plugin to make sure they 'up-fold' back to 5.1.4 or 7.1.4.

Whenever I try to convert these embedded WAVs to FLAC (using a variety of different encoders included FLAC Frontend, Foobar2000, AudioMuxer, etc), I always end up with a corrupted file. So I'm not sure how other folks, like 2L for instance, are producing embedded FLACs.

2Ls website offers Auro-3D downloads in embedded FLAC or MKV. Their blu ray discs are MKV and I would know as I have ripped a bunch of them in both Dolby Atmos and Auro-3D as available.

 

[Steve Bruzonsky]

I never tested an Auro embedded Flac neither.

+1 for an additional Auro embedded WAV file test in the IAA site, the same way there are Atmos test files.

+2 for an additional Auro embedded WAV file test in the IAA site.

What I find interesting is that with HDMI to my SSP, IAA Auro-3D embedded files only show the base 5.1 or 7.1 and not the 4 height channels as incoming, but the SSP shows all of the Auro-3D channels outgoing, so this alone doesn't make it clear if the SSP is synthesizing the height channels vs using embedded info to create them. I assume its using embedded into to create the height channels as intended, particularly as 2L has for years been in the forefront of Auro-3D and definitely knows what they are doing. My ripped MKV Auro-3D files show all Auro-3D including height channels as incoming as well as outgoing.

 

[sjcorne]

2L has for years been in the forefront of Auro-3D and definitely knows what they are doing.

I guess I'll have to touch base with Morten one of these days to see what his process is for creating Auro-embedded files, but I assume we must be using the same encoder software?

As mentioned before - I don't personally own an Auro-equipped AVR, but I have been able to successfully decode these embedded WAVs the encoder produces back to 5.1.4 or 7.1.4 using the Auro-3D Export plugin. However, just to fully do my diligence and ensure there were no issues with these files before they went up for sale on IAA, I also privately asked a few friends who do own Auro-equpped AVRs (including @ted_b) to try out an embedded WAV I created on their systems. I was informed these tests were all successful, so I'm pretty confident there aren't any problems with IAA's Auro downloads.

Additionally, just as a fun experiment, I tried ripping the Auro stream on my Mando Diao Aelita Blu-Ray to both FLAC and WAV using DVD-Audio Extractor. Both file sets were correctly recognized as Auro 9.1 and able to be decoded by the Export plugin.

(in the meantime, it would be great to hear more members' thoughts on the Madeleine album - even if you just streamed the Atmos mix)

 

[Steve Bruzonsky]

I also recently downloaded some Auro-3D albums from TRPTK. They are all in the MKV files

 

[humprof]

TapeOp podcast talks with Peyroux:

 

[humprof]

Madeleine Peyroux has been interviewed on a couple of podcasts recently about the new album. One--the Inside Musicast podcast--isn't very good, mainly because the interviewer isn't very good. But the guy hosting Broken Record is much smarter and more professional, and consequently Peyroux is a lot livelier and funnier in response. It doesn't hurt that Jon Herington is also in the studio, and there's a lot of back and forth about the songs they co-wrote--which is all of them. Apparently early on they sent Elliot Scheiner a few demos, and he agreed to come on board as co-producer only if they 86'd anything they didn't write together.

https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/broken-record/madeleine-peyroux

 

[gorman]

The test track is really big only because the video is uncompressed.

Leaving video at that bitrate is not a good idea. It simply creates problems for playback on a variety of platforms. The core of the file is the audio portion, that has to stay pristine. Video could and should be compressed to reasonable bitrates. With the average bitrate you have for the video portion you are exceeding Bluray UHD specs for no good reasons (140Mb/s average bitrate is absolutely crazy).

Take this as constructive criticism, because that's the only way I mean it. At the end of the day, for something you're making available for free, you're wasting bandwidth and, consequently, money.

A relatively sane bitrate of 19.4 Mb/s, with audio untouched, produced a 297MB file for me, using Handbrake with Constant Quality set at 18.

Edit: and this is compressing using H.264, the codec used in the original file. Considering pretty much all 4K material is encoded using HEVC (H.265), you could either raise the quality for the same file size or reduce the size further. I settled on a 4K HEVC 247MB file, encoded at Constant Quality 16.

Edit 2: back on topic, I was familiar with her past work, so I decided to gift me the Auro 3D version, as a test for my Denon AVR. Will report back with technical results and artistic impressions.

 

[gorman]

Recording sounds great but I'm not so sure about what's happening with the Auro3D format on my setup.

I use a CoreELEC box (Ugoos AM6B+), fully capable of bitstreaming all formats.
The AVR to which it is connected, through a quality HDMI 2.1 cable, is a Denon 3800, with Auro3D decoding.

Problem is the AVR sees regular 5.1 PCM input. A couple of times it identified Auro 3D/PCM input. But I am unable to replicate it now, with tens of tries.
Pretty disconcerting. I use Auro3D sound mode and that outputs to all channels in my 5.2.4 configuration. But since I see just 5.1 PCM input I am led to believe it's just using Auromatic to upmix.

I am trying to get it to detect PCM/Auro3D in order to get a picture to show what I mean... No luck so far.
I should have gone with Atmos considering all the doubts expressed on the format in this discussion.

Edit : I managed to get it to detect correctly the input format. See the difference in the picture.
Playing back the same file, on the same setup.

Edit 2: after an hour of testing... it's definitely upmixing when detecting simple PCM. I have blindly picked every time it was detecting Auro 3D/PCM fifteen times out of probably 50 or 60 playbacks (the difference can be told in just the few initial seconds of "Blues for Heaven").

Edit 3: time to dust off the old, trusty HTPC. With WASAPI output, so output completely untouched, Auro 3D/PCM is always correctly detected (and, at this point I conclude, sent from the HTPC). I say this against my best interests, probably, as I asked Immersive Audio to exchange my Auro3D purchase to an Atmos one... HTPC is definitely not my main listening device.
As an aside, the WAV files can be put inside .mka containers for a bit of tagging, and still correctly output Auro 3D/PCM. But I now see they're already tagged in WAV format (something I did not think was possible, but maybe it's an extension of the container, I admit my ignorance).

At least I've been thorough...

 

[gorman]

Edit 3: time to dust off the old, trusty HTPC. With WASAPI output, so output completely untouched, Auro 3D/PCM is always correctly detected (and, at this point I conclude, sent from the HTPC). I say this against my best interests, probably, as I asked Immersive Audio to exchange my Auro3D purchase to an Atmos one... HTPC is definitely not my main listening device.
As an aside, the WAV files can be put inside .mka containers for a bit of tagging, and still correctly output Auro 3D/PCM. But I now see they're already tagged in WAV format (something I did not think was possible, but maybe it's an extension of the container, I admit my ignorance).

At least I've been thorough...

Just a quick update to confirm that I've managed to arrive to a completely satisfying solution thanks to the cooperation of Immersive Audio Album.
They really went above and beyond, in my opinion, and deserve the credit for it. Thanks again.
I'll keep investigating on what's different between Kodi on Windows and Kodi on CoreELEC in this regard.

The album is a pleasure to listen to. Really liking it. It even has some catchy tunes (I surprised myself humming them during the day).