New sound immersion processes

BTW, the most immersive system I ever had was a 5.1 and what made it sound like you were absolutely engulfed in the sound field wasn't more speakers but ceiling treatment.

All HT is really kind of a mess. The vast majority of buyers of TV’s and music still want zero more speakers or 2. The number of speakers required, extra hardware, wiring, etc. makes it a very unappealing add-in for most homeowners.

I mean, yeah, I have a HT receiver and an integrated in my living room, but of my neighbors 100% of the rest of them have just a TV with TV speakers built in and some portable Bluetooth speakers.

We’ve been through this before with Dolby Pro Logic. There was a rush to convert brands from stereo to 100% HT which ended up being the wrong way to go.  It also became prohibitively expensive, I suspect due to the HDMI licensing and copy protection issues, though HDMI came after HT.  It seems to have paralyzed Theta Digital for a few years.

Don’t get me wrong, I love HT and it’s technology for movies but in terms of 5.1 or more speakers it is an absolutely niche market compared to 2 channel music systems.

Should also point out that Dolby is, by-and-large, in the special effects business.  Their business model is to over saturate the senses, not to bring realism.

Not saying it's bad, but two-channel stereo listeners are looking for fundamentally different things than an action director or cinematographer want to bring to your living room.  I'm sure there will be a handful of Atmos music videos, and that's all they'll be. 

Given this is a 2 channel forum, my thoughts are that object-oriented sounds don't really lend themselves to any type of purity testing.

Consider for instance a close-miked guitar that you put into an immersive audio recording.  Well, now you don't have a specific L, R or even S recording of that guitar.  You have a guitar recording which can be placed anywhere in the sound field, and whose exact bit shape will vary from system to system.  Seems wrong for music, but probably good for live music reproduction, when trying to capture an auditorium, but seriously, those types of features have come and gone from many vendors.  2 channel stereo has never been shaken.

Sorry Kota but yes, Atmos is a type of surround sound.  It may be now considered "next generation" and far more compute and software intensive than the previous generation of discrete digital or analog formats but it's very much a type of surround sound.