Acoustics experts - a little help please

@deep_333  you're correct that I was not thinking of object-based surround or 3D audio at all. For my uses and room I haven't pursued expanding past 5.1 in my surround-sound music, and I only own one Atmos capable music disc (Abbey Road on Blu-Ray) anyway.

A point I was implying and not outright stating though should be clarified:  a simple, clean & accurate stereo setup in a moderately treated listening room can deliver spectacular results when playing back vintage, high quality stereo recordings delivered in any format. You might be blown away at the information you have missed, buried those records that you've listened to already 300 times. And if you're hearing more on headphones than from your pricey, well regarded home speakers (rather than vice-versa) the untreated listening room or indifferent speaker placement may be the problem.

@thom_oz 

The perception of detail is a relatively complex topic.

For example, i could play you a) a stereo mix on a pure stereo rig, b) move you to the next room -> run the same mix through an object based/3d audio upmixer and also c) compare the same stereo mix converted to a DTS X native mix played on the same

You will note that in the object based rig, you will perceive a lot more detail (previously submerged in stereo) because it is discretized, coming at you partially from a different speaker in 3d space other than the front stage with correct spatial nuance and phase information. You may think "holy crap, this was actually buried in that stereo recording?", yes it was....further, compression, etc is not an issue in such a dts x, atmos, etc mix, i.e. you can truly salvage some old legacy botched recording. In stereo, it is a reverberant field from a front stage and room interaction (correct phase? all bets are off). Your ability to perceive above mentioned detail could be a hit or miss.

I’ll leave headphones out (just a convenience thing really)...it has nothing to do with the reality of live music.

Here’s a interview with Darko and prog rocker Steven Wilson (he does a lot of atmos mixes). He left some things out, but,  gets into some pertaining line items.

https://youtu.be/NAEJYS5AFJM?si=aJUB38BxF9Vzr6-2

Room treatment is a basic foundation, room dependent, but, still follows a formula, stereo or otherwise.

thinking of object-based surround or 3D audio at all. For my uses and room I haven’t pursued expanding past 5.1 in my surround-sound music, and I only own one Atmos capable music disc (Abbey Road on Blu-Ray) anyway.

A point I was implying and not outright stating though should be clarified:  a simple, clean & accurate stereo setup in a moderately treated listening room can deliver spectacular results when playing back vintage, high quality stereo recordings delivered in any format. You might be blown away at the information you have missed, buried those records that you’ve listened to already 300 times. And if you’re hearing more on headphones than from your pricey, well regarded home speakers (rather than vice-versa) the untreated listening room or indifferent speaker placement may be the problem.

@deep_333  I have around a dozen of SW's 5.1 surround sound remixes and I'm a big fan (have not heard Atmos mixes of those yet of course). I wish Giles Martin had even half Wilson's skill at this.

I have zero interest in running my records thru object oriented surround sound extraction.  I'm happy to leave such separation to people with more skill and access to the multitracks.  Also, running 50 year old vinyl thru 50-65 year old electronics makes way more sense to me than to digitize them.

It's a rarity that a CD version of a vintage recording pleases me as much as the vinyl cut straight from tape (there are a tiny handful of exceptions where the original vinyl was botched - one example: Badfinger 'Ass' sounded pretty bad when released, the 2010 cd is a profound improvement..

 @thom_oz  It would be silly to put the output of a turntable/phonostage through any ADC conversion for a different eco-system. Keep it as is...

But, as we both know, vinyl either came from master tape or a hires digital studio master.

If you like the sound of analog master tape...there is a solution to get the sound of analog master tape from any digital file. It could be files ripped from a CD,  hires files bought from qobuz, etc.

You can put such files through Mark Levinson’s/Daniel Hertz Master Class Software. It converts the file and produces the sound of analog master tape (whatever the secret sauce is). Such files can be played in stereo, sent to Bacch, sent to a atmos processor and extracted into a multi speaker array, etc. The sound of  master tape remains....

If you bought a daniel hertz streamer/dac, above mention function to get the sound of master tape is built in. Otherwise.. software it it..

@deep_333 I have around a dozen of SW’s 5.1 surround sound remixes and I’m a big fan (have not heard Atmos mixes of those yet of course). I wish Giles Martin had even half Wilson’s skill at this.

I have zero interest in running my records thru object oriented surround sound extraction. I’m happy to leave such separation to people with more skill and access to the multitracks. Also, running 50 year old vinyl thru 50-65 year old electronics makes way more sense to me than to digitize them.

It’s a rarity that a CD version of a vintage recording pleases me as much as the vinyl cut straight from tape (there are a tiny handful of exceptions where the original vinyl was botched - one example: Badfinger ’Ass’ sounded pretty bad when released, the 2010 cd is a profound improvement..

I made a radical change. My music room is connected to a dining room and I've always had my speakers set up on the long wall of the music room. Had an epiphany and decided to treat the two rooms as one room and move the speakers to the 1/2 way point between the rooms and eliminating the stuff between the speakers. The front wall is now 12 feet behind the speakers. My soundstage is now 3D. Everything sounds completely different and better. My dining room is now a room with musicians in it. New setup photo in my virtual system pics.