By James Chevrette
Dolby Atmos is being adopted by a broad list of car makers and the technology is migrating to so many products — from cellphones to home theater — that consumers are starting to get exposure to the brand name.
If a customer came into your store, would you know how to address the topic? Here is some information that might help.
Dolby Atmos’ expansion into the automotive environment is gaining momentum. It has been reported that Atmos support has doubled in the past year from 10 to more than 21 manufacturers including Cadillac, Li Auto, Rivian, Mercedes-Benz, Polestar, Volvo and Sony Honda Mobility. Even microchip maker Texas Instruments is tossing its hat in the ring to support this technology.
In the aftermarket, Pioneer showed a Dolby Atmos system at KnowledgeFest last week and at CES last month that it may offer to the aftermarket as well as OEMs. Orca (Focal, Mosconi) showed a Dolby Atmos system for the aftermarket.
What is Dolby Atmos?
Dolby Atmos is an advanced surround sound technology that creates immersive, three-dimensional audio. Unlike traditional surround sound that works on a horizontal plane (like 5.1 or 7.1 systems), Atmos adds a height dimension to create a more realistic soundscape.
Here’s how it works:
- Instead of sending audio to specific speakers, Dolby Atmos creates “audio objects” (up to 128) that can be precisely placed (by the recording artist/producer) anywhere in 3D space.
- These sounds can move around the room naturally, like rain falling from above or a helicopter flying overhead.
- The system adapts to whatever speakers you have, whether it’s a full home theater setup or just a soundbar with upward-firing speakers and even an automotive environment of 2-22+ speakers.
This Technology is Already Being Marketed
Major streaming services are offering Dolby Atmos encoded music including Tidal, Amazon HD Music and Apple Music. Consumers have access to Atmos-enabled home theater, soundbars, cellphones, tablets, video games and Atmos is offered by Netflix, Disney+ and Apple TV+.
What Does the Aftermarket Say?
How does Dolby Atmos impact the car audio aftermarket? Andy Wehmeyer of AudioFrog, a surround sound expert, summed it up best in one statement “propaganda and confusion is all this is bringing to the 12 volt aftermarket.”
Wehmeyer explained that Atmos is about how the artist or recording studio wants the song to be reproduced. If the producer wanted to place the listener into the middle of a crowd, a system with front and rear speakers can reproduce this effect. But if the studio wanted to send signal (sound) to an overhead speaker, and there’s no speaker in that location to receive the information; Dolby Atmos cannot magically make the effect appear. This means there are significant limitations. This is why most theater or Studio Atmos systems have more than nine channels to reproduce height channels effectively.
Pioneer showed a system that combines CarPlay and Dolby Atmos, with a relatively simple 4-channel solution applicable to most vehicles on the road today, it said. Again, it may be offered to the aftermarket.
The Pioneer system used speakers installed in the vehicle’s original front and rear locations and four discrete amplifier channels (so there were no speakers in the headliners or roof).
At CES last month, Dirac and Denon teamed up to produce a 22-speaker system with exciters (bass shakers for those who remember) to create an in-car Atmos system. It did include height and headrest speakers with two-channel audio and up-mixing to achieve this.
Last year, Orca Design debuted the first aftermarket in-car Atmos system with 22 speakers built by German Schulmeister. Although this used a home Atmos-enabled processor adapted to the 12-volt environment, German told us “We built this car to show what’s possible in a car. Judging by people’s reactions after listening to the car, we succeeded.”
Photo courtesy of dolby.professinal.com
I personally listened to the pioneer car at kfest as was blown away by what it did. I would love to see what can happen with this technology. For the amount of effort the outcome was simply amazing. I would totally buy a car just to demo this unit it’s a ticket to print money too much fun.
Since I’m the one being quoted, I’d like to clear up a couple of things.
First, I am, in fact, an Atmos fan–especially for movies. For music, Atmos can be great or annoying, depending on how the mix is constructed.
Atmos includes a 7.1 surround “bed” this forms the basics of the effect. The object-oriented sounds that can be placed just about anywhere in a 360 degree sound field are encoded ON TOP of this surround bed. Those sounds include metadata that tell the Atmos decoder where in that sound field those sounds should be placed. In a receiver or a preamp for use at home, you can choose from a bunch of different speaker systems–from 2-channel up to the most speakers that your preamp will support. For Atmos to be actual Atmos, a pair of height speakers are required in addition to a normal surround system.
If you don’t have that, then the Atmos decoder will render the 360 degree sound field, to the best of its ability, over the speakers you DO have.
Don’t have a center speaker? No center image in more than one seat. Don’t have height speakers? Images intended to be heard from overhead will be sent to speakers you do have. Don’t have rear speakers or side speakers? Rear and side information will be sent to your front speakers.
Don’t have speakers and want to use headphones instead? Atmos will be rendered binaurally for use on headphones.
The confusion arises because the adoption of any new format requires that there is content in that format to be played. Many new formats have failed for this reason–SACD, DVD Audio are two good examples. In order for music makers to consider the additional expense and hassle of mixing and mastering for an additional content type, there have to be systems on which it can be played back.
So, it’s important to understand how much “surround” is possible from whatever speaker system you choose. Atmos over two speakers? Probably not a lot of “Atmos” happening there. Atmos over 4 speakers (front and rear)? You’ll get some surround effects and you’ll hear a center image in one seat so long as delays or some phase EQ have been applied to make that possible. Atmos over 5.1 or 7.1? You’ll hear surround and a center image (so long as sounds in the center have actually been mixed to the center)–and so will your passenger. Will you hear overhead sounds? No. Atmos for headphones? Yeah. Pretty cool. Atmos (Spatial–binaural rendering) over speakers instead of headphones? No. You’ll hear some more stuff, but it isn’t going to create a 360 degree sound field by including HRTF in the rendering.
This isn’t magic and all the normal laws of audio still apply. If you want Atmos surround the way the “artist intended”, you have to have a speaker system to support it. Will your customer know the difference? It seems Dolby is banking on the answer being “no” in many cases.
Customers who call you or come to your store to ask do that when they need ADDITIONAL help. they’ve already read everything on the web. Maybe we can actually help them understand and sell them something great instead of just contributing to more confusion.
With Dolby Atmos virtualizer technology, already used in home AVRs and soundbars, a car system could theoretically deliver height effects fairly effectively from an Atmos source without dedicated height speakers. I hope Pioneer’s aftermarket system has it.
Manufactures need to find reasons to sell new equipment. Anybody have NOS curved TV’s with 3D glasses?? 🙂
“propaganda and confusion is all this is bringing to the 12 volt aftermarket.”
Say it again, ONE MORE TIME FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK!
On another note. I have these fantastic surround oils that are guaranteed to provide better mid-bass response.