Sooooo. Now here it is 2022. Any of the naysayers from 2019 changed their minds?
Looking back at early posts, I think it's funny now the comments about "adding more equipment, more money". While this could certainly be true for some, it was not for me.
Before I had an inkling what "Atmos" was I already had an AVR that would decode it, and being 7.2 capable there was already room for the 5.1 + 2 height speakers + 2 subs.
So how much did it cost me to "upgrade to Atmos"? Two bookshelf speakers (not those tiny little things) + some speaker wire, low cost mounts. Since I already had the speakers and the mounts then just call the cost speaker wire and a little sweat equity. Since then the only thing I've upgraded were the height speaker mounts....about $12/pair monoprice mounts...and recently bought new speaker wire and a "cable concealer" kit to hide all those 12 & 14 gauge wires running along/up the walls. So call my total investment (not including what I already owned) about $100.
New formats don't faze me. I was an early adopter of Quad, probably when a lot of you were kids or not even born. The only thing that limits me in my musical pursuits is lack of folding money. I bought into Quad as soon as I saw it, before I ever heard it, it just seemed intuitive (to me) that it would be better than stereo. That even my close friends saw no benefit in it did not deter me one bit. It's a fact that stereo is just plain good enough for some folks (or even listening to music on a phone only), and I got no problem with that.
Even now I would certainly like to see more good Atmos mixes, but I've heard enough to convince me the height speakers can certainly add to the listening experience. If you don't like it, and your only experience is with Tidal/Apple etc (*note I don't have either service, however) then I suggest you listen to a good BluRay that's Atmos encoded. If still not convinced, fair enough. Plenty of people think 2 speakers is enough and I say, if you enjoy what you like then that's absolutely great! No sense beating a dead horse, as they say. But I'm in!