Streaming Atmos: Do you lose any fidelity with a Tidal Atmos stream compared to a Blu-ray Atmos?

[yerbas07]

@jimfisheye has been working on a 24bit live Atmos mix recently and compared the Source vs. the TrueHD encode vs. Dolby EAC3 encode (lossy streaming Atmos):

The Atmos mlp (TrueHD) sounds like the master when I A/B. The lossy streaming version of Atmos is audibly damaged vs the master.

I quoted Jim as I trust his pro engineer hearing vs. my 67 yo ears.

The TrueHD Atmos encode is around 5000kbps vs. EAC3 JOC streaming Atmos at 768kbps. TrueHD is multiplexed into 8 channels, EAC JOC into 6 channels.

I don't understand why such a low rate768 is currently used in streaming. If they want to convince the user of the benefits of Atmos, they should go up to 1700kbps and 7.1. With those parameters,
60mbs per song on average, the difference with TrueHD would be imperceptible.

 

[dabl]

I don't understand why such a low rate768 is currently used in streaming. If they want to convince the user of the benefits of Atmos, they should go up to 1700kbps and 7.1. With those parameters,
60mbs per song on average, the difference with TrueHD would be imperceptible.

Yep, we discussed this long ago when the format first arrived.

A shame they aimed so low when a higher bitrate could have easily been implemented.

It still could and eventually probably will be.

I think lossless atmos music streaming is inevitable just like with lossless stereo, which took a very long time to happen from the earliest days of lossy stereo streaming.

If/when a company like Apple, Amazon or Tidal thinks the market is big enough to make it worth doing they will and likely attempt to charge double the going rate for lossless stereo.

 

[jaap74]

Maybe we can get MQA to process ATMOS and make the stream rate lower and better sounding.........

Just kidding

 

[yerbas07]

Maybe we can get MQA to process ATMOS and make the stream rate lower and better sounding.........

Almost all portable dacs (daps) have adapted to MQA and platforms like Tidal opted for MQA, but in the end they switched to ATMOS. Currently there are no daps that process Atmos (neither for streaming nor playing m4a 24/48 atmos files). I mean that to listen to Atmos in streaming you can only use Android or the latest generation iPhones. Will dap players adapt to Atmos? That can be complicated, if there are hardware and software problems simultaneously, right?

 

[dabl]

DAC manufacturers adopting the trendy MQA decoding was just that, a trend that is thankfully now over.

There never was or is any relationship between MQA and Atmos.

Anybody taking streaming Atmos seriously (ie using speakers) using Apple equipment wouldn't be using an iPhone since it can't do that.

I use an LG TV to stream atmos from Apple Music to an AVR and speakers, else would use an Apple TV 4k.

No Apple equipment can stream lossless atmos audio, an area where they have been and are still weirdly operating way in the past and out of touch with current technology. Perhaps a holdover from when Steve Jobs ran things and had a huge bug up his ass about blu-ray.

My preferred box for streaming lossy atmos music from non-Apple service providers is an Nvidia Shield TV which more importantly can also bitstream lossless atmos audio.

 

[pat bateman]

DAC manufacturers adopting the trendy MQA decoding was just that, a trend that is thankfully now over.

There never was or is any relationship between MQA and Atmos.

Anybody taking streaming Atmos seriously (ie using speakers) using Apple equipment wouldn't be using an iPhone since it can't do that.

I use an LG TV to stream atmos from Apple Music to an AVR and speakers, else would use an Apple TV 4k.

No Apple equipment can stream lossless atmos audio, an area where they have been and are still weirdly operating way in the past and out of touch with current technology. Perhaps a holdover from when Steve Jobs ran things and had a huge bug up his ass about blu-ray.

My preferred box for streaming lossy atmos music from non-Apple service providers is an Nvidia Shield TV which more importantly can also bitstream lossless atmos audio.

There is a glimmer of hope for Apple, maybe. 15.0 Sequoia introduced HDMI pass-through. The big however is it's only on native Apple apps right now and it's unclear if Apple is going to let third party apps access HDMI pass-through, and if they did, if they restricted it to EAC3. 15.0 has been available since July, and no apps like VLC have enabled it, so I'm going to guess the answer is no.