Steven Wilson - The Future Bites - Atmos

[humprof]

I also "chanced my arm" and tried it with VLC as below on MKV files. And it worked as well. (see previous disclaimers)

View attachment 62376

@Sixtyten: this is brilliant. The passthrough setting was all I needed to get VLC to play Atmos files over my (Marantz) AVR. Thank you!

 

[4-earredwonder]

I see the overhead Atmos speakers are all facing directly down. Are they not supposed to be angled in to the sweet spot? It looks like all the other ones are angled in to where he is sitting.

It's difficult to tell from the photo but they do appear to be slightly angled in towards the listener which is the beauty of having ATMOS speakers capable of being 'angled' versus employing stagnant in ceiling types, which, once positioned, are IMMUTABLE!

 

[key_wiz]

Just listened to this album first time on Tidal. Wow! I really like it! Love the retro 80s vibe. Kind of a Rundgren feel to it. Can’t wait to play it again and see if i keep enjoying it on repeated listens. And the mix is excellent of course. High marks!

 

[madship]

I noticed that too--the track breaks appear to be slightly off on a few of the songs. The last second of "Unself" is at the beginning of "Self", the last second of "Self" is at the beginning of "King Ghost", same thing with "Eminent Sleaze" into "Man Of The People", etc. I wound up going into Audacity and fixing the breaks manually.

I'm not familiar with Audacity. How do I fix my rips?

 

[RuudMans]

I'm not familiar with Audacity. How do I fix my rips?

How to fix your ribs? Maybe let them marinade or spice rub 'em and chuck 'em on the BBQ. Serve with some fresh salad and fries and a choice of sauces. Fixed!

 

[AYanguas]

It's difficult to tell from the photo but they do appear to be slightly angled in towards the listener which is the beauty of having ATMOS speakers capable of being 'angled' versus employing stagnant in ceiling types, which, once positioned, are IMMUTABLE!

They look clearly pointing directly vertically to the floor. Perhaps they are in a "rest" position, waiting for further optimisation. Or perhaps they have a very wide dispersion sound. Or Steven does not like a very aggressive sound stage from above.

Just google for "Atmos studio" pictures and you will see many Atmos heights/tops totally angled to the MLP.

Would that affect how Steven make the amount of sound content from above, in his Atmos mixes?

In my room I have Atmos speakers "in ceiling" "stagnant", but with orientable tweeter that I angle 45º to my head. I ended changing the Top Front Left tweeter to other direction to get more even Helicopter demo sound turning around. The room shape and reflections on the walls may change your perceived coming sound direction. But if you point a monitor shelf speaker exactly 45º direct to your head, I assume you will get full speaker performance and sound with minimum reflections on the walls.

 

[humprof]

They look clearly pointing directly vertically to the floor. Perhaps they are in a "rest" position, waiting for further optimisation. Or perhaps they have a very wide dispersion sound. Or Steven does not like a very aggressive sound stage from above.

Just google for "Atmos studio" pictures and you will see many Atmos heights/tops totally angled to the MLP.

Would that affect how Steven make the amount of sound content from above, in his Atmos mixes?

In my room I have Atmos speakers "in ceiling" "stagnant", but with orientable tweeter that I angle 45º to my head. I ended changing the Top Front Left tweeter to other direction to get more even Helicopter demo sound turning around. The room shape and reflections on the walls may change your perceived coming sound direction. But if you point a monitor shelf speaker exactly 45º direct to your head, I assume you will get full speaker performance and sound with minimum reflections on the walls.

In principle, when you install ceiling speakers, Dolby wants you to place them with a listening spot in mind, and they have some detailed guidelines about calculating distances & angles, etc. (They also recommend speakers with wide dispersion patterns--pointing downward, not angled.) And yet one of the points of Atmos is that there is no "sweet spot"; from any point in the room, you'll hear sounds coming and/or appearing to come from different locations.

 

[himey]

I noticed that too--the track breaks appear to be slightly off on a few of the songs. The last second of "Unself" is at the beginning of "Self", the last second of "Self" is at the beginning of "King Ghost", same thing with "Eminent Sleaze" into "Man Of The People", etc. I wound up going into Audacity and fixing the breaks manually.

Can you post the revised track timings?

 

[DuncanS]

It was at the top of the to listen to mountain, so I gave it a first listen to today, albeit with a little trepidation after reading some views, but I like it, nice mix & fidelity, and I can detect quite a lot of musical 'influences'. I'll give it a couple more listens to before I vote.

 

[Toto4Ever]

"TFB" just got even better this evening, with headphone listening on my Sony ZX300 after finding out about a firmware mod, that is basically the firmware of the £8.000 Sony DMP-Z1 player......sounds incredible !!! Sounds just absolutely popping out, very holographic ! Vocally too.....i'd swear to God Steven is next to me !

 

[GOS]

"TFB" just got even better this evening, with headphone listening on my Sony ZX300 after finding out about a firmware mod, that is basically the firmware of the £8.000 Sony DMP-Z1 player......sounds incredible !!! Sounds just absolutely popping out, very holographic ! Vocally too.....i'd swear to God Steven is next to me !

He may be......

 

[Toto4Ever]

He may be......

If he is, i've got a problem ! ( Mind you, after playing TFB for almost 4 days solid, i could start hallucinating ! )

 

[kvsawilson]

DVD-AE did convert it, but clipped 2 songs, so far that I am aware of. Self and Eminent Sleaze both have a hiccup during the transition to the next song.

Thanks for the reply. That sounds like an authoring typo or something. My software wouldn't even try to rip which was weird. But got through it and can listen without getting out of my chair now so life is good again.
Gave another listen and I feel like there is a lot to like on this one. It does sound vastly different than Raven or HCE but interesting music and a great mix with, to my ears, great sonics. I look forward to more listens in the near future.
K

 

[the tree 3]

Having issues with this disc, as another poster wrote on the poll page. Videos will not play. Screen locks up. I also have an Oppo BDP83

 

[sjcorne]

I’m bot yet equipped for Atmos listening, but I thought it’d be interesting to rip the 7.1 Dolby TrueHD stream using DVDAE and compare that with the dedicated LPCM 5.1 strean.

I’m obviously missing a huge piece of the picture by not being able to hear what’s been directed to the height channels, but my observation based on the down-mixed 7.1 is that the Atmos version is an entirely unique approach to the album in terms of panning/positioning the various elements. Just looking at the center channel (top = 5.1, bottom = 7.1), you can already see some notable differences.

The center speaker on the 5.1 mix is used almost exclusively for vocals and is frequently left silent. On the 7.1, the center has all kinds of other sounds (guitar, synth, bass, percussion, etc) bleeding in from the surrounding speakers. I wonder if some of this stuff is actually object information that's being folded into the center as part of the downmix process?

Here’s a center-only excerpt from the same section of “Eminent Sleaze” on both mixes. The 5.1 places the dry female vocal in the center channel and SW’s heavily processed voice in the rears. On the 7.1, the vocals seem to come from everywhere at once and the center contains isolated electric guitar.

 

[weekendtoy]

The instrumentals are in stereo only? I didn't see any way to play them in surround.

I was listening to the instrumentals from To The Bone last weekend and was looking forward to the same on The Future Bites this weekend.

 

[madship]

View attachment 62725

The center speaker on the 5.1 mix is used almost exclusively for vocals and is frequently left silent. On the 7.1, the center has all kinds of other sounds (guitar, synth, bass, percussion, etc) bleeding in from the surrounding speakers. I wonder if some of this stuff is actually object information that's being folded into the center as part of the downmix process?

I don't have Atmos, yet, but am curious about the down mix. Where does it take place? My surround receiver is capable of 7.1 but it from 2006, so is most likely Atmos ignorant. I have a SONY X800-M2. Would the SONY do the down mix?

 

[edisonbaggins]

Sounds like instrumental surround might be achieved (at least sans dry vocals) by shutting off the center speaker!

 

[sjcorne]

I don't have Atmos, yet, but am curious about the down mix. Where does it take place? My surround receiver is capable of 7.1 but it from 2006, so is most likely Atmos ignorant. I have a SONY X800-M2. Would the SONY do the down mix?

The downmixing could be done by either the disc player or the AVR, depending on how you set it up. If you set the Sony to send decoded PCM over HDMI instead of undecoded bitstream, it will ignore the Atmos object metadata (since there's no decoding chip for that in the player) and feed 7.1 PCM to the AVR. If you leave it set on bitstream, the same process will happen inside your AVR.

 

[FrankieZappa]

"TFB" just got even better this evening, with headphone listening on my Sony ZX300 after finding out about a firmware mod, that is basically the firmware of the £8.000 Sony DMP-Z1 player......sounds incredible !!! Sounds just absolutely popping out, very holographic ! Vocally too.....i'd swear to God Steven is next to me !

You're talking about Mr. Walkman mod...I can't try it, damn! I've got a Mac and it doesn't work there..I need to find a friend with a Windows Pc. Anyway..the album is great and it's a great listen even with the stock firmware!