General view on Atmos

[GratefulMed]

I've had my Air Pure since September and have enjoyed SSP. BTW, I have 2.5 with the tape fix not required due to May 2024 manufacture date. I've used the Tidal trial account to listen to many Atmos tracks. They're fun and the sound is clear, but the fact that I am sitting in the front driver seat 100% of the time is a dramatically different experience from the rear center seat where Atmos sound stage seems attuned. From the rear center seat, Atmos is a fabulous complex sonic experience. From the driver seat, it may be worse than basic stereo as high front channels meant to give height and subtle audio cues are to close to my ear and become to much the center of what I hear. Compared with my other cars with good stereos, the Atmos tuning almost seems gimmicky. Basic stereo sound gives a good sound stage for the driver and can be balanced to optimize it for your seat location. Atmos will not allow any manipulation at all aside from volume. It sure seems like it is designed for home stereo/theater and car integration is an afterthought. I wish I could simply change with R/L balance. Knowing where the driver always sits, this seems like a predictable problem for car integration which is not ready for prime time. Just wondering if others agree.

 

[McGriddle]

Prior to 2.5.0, I had been exclusivity listening to YouTube Music via Apple CarPlay. I had tried Tidal and Dolby Atmos, but I wasn't impressed enough to keep it. Now, after the 2.5.0 update (along wit the TSC completed for the footwell speakers), I've subscribed to Tidal to try it out again.

In a nutshell, some Atmos songs are now truly a revelation! Effects can dance around you and voices, particularly in groups with multiple singers, certainly appear to float in different points in space, as do certain instruments and effects. The improved bass of 2.5.0 really helped to fill out songs that were previously clear, but lacked presence, and also improved vocals coming from the center channel which were previously more muted relative to the other channels. I'm quite happy with the update and may be keeping Tidal for a while.

However, this seems to truly depend on the care of the sound engineering for each song. Even within the same album, some songs are completely unimpressive--dull and lifeless with little additional clarity or immersion compared to stereo. Other songs, even on the same album (oddly), can truly shine, however. I would say to be sure for anyone using Tidal and Atmos to be sure try a broad variety of songs across multiple artists and even across different songs within the same album.

 

[GratefulMed]

Are you getting this soundscape while sitting in the driver’s seat? Or are you referring to the listening experience in the rear center?

 

[McGriddle]

Yes, from the driver’s seat.

 

[borski]

I've had my Air Pure since September and have enjoyed SSP. BTW, I have 2.5 with the tape fix not required due to May 2024 manufacture date. I've used the Tidal trial account to listen to many Atmos tracks. They're fun and the sound is clear, but the fact that I am sitting in the front driver seat 100% of the time is a dramatically different experience from the rear center seat where Atmos sound stage seems attuned. From the rear center seat, Atmos is a fabulous complex sonic experience. From the driver seat, it may be worse than basic stereo as high front channels meant to give height and subtle audio cues are to close to my ear and become to much the center of what I hear. Compared with my other cars with good stereos, the Atmos tuning almost seems gimmicky. Basic stereo sound gives a good sound stage for the driver and can be balanced to optimize it for your seat location. Atmos will not allow any manipulation at all aside from volume. It sure seems like it is designed for home stereo/theater and car integration is an afterthought. I wish I could simply change with R/L balance. Knowing where the driver always sits, this seems like a predictable problem for car integration which is not ready for prime time. Just wondering if others agree.

Atmos respects the EQ, just not the balance.

 

[Ktw13]

Hopefully they will have some input on this in the next update.

 

[Lucken]

You have to be scratching your head reading these wildly different assessments of the change in the audio tuning. Wow!

 

[GratefulMed]

My issue is not with the new tuning. It is just an opinion on ATMOS in general. Since this is originally intended for use with home theater and then with home stereo, it presumes you will be sitting in the central sweet spot to experience the soundscape (which appears to be the center rear seat in the lucid air). But in a car, you are sitting way upfront and way to the left, right next to some of the speakers in the pillar unique to the multi channel sound. In my opinion, you’re just not getting the intended soundscape and, on the contrary, you are getting overrepresented sound from a channel that is meant to provide only certain effects. On some songs, it still sounds great but on others, I think the weird mix getting to the driver seat is worse than just basic stereo. I’m really just wondering if others have the same opinion or am I just overly critical? And, if people agree, does anyone know if there is some move with Dolby to allow altering the balance with ATMOS to shift the sweet spot towards the driver seat.

 

[ccarroz]

I've had my Air Pure since September and have enjoyed SSP. BTW, I have 2.5 with the tape fix not required due to May 2024 manufacture date. I've used the Tidal trial account to listen to many Atmos tracks. They're fun and the sound is clear, but the fact that I am sitting in the front driver seat 100% of the time is a dramatically different experience from the rear center seat where Atmos sound stage seems attuned. From the rear center seat, Atmos is a fabulous complex sonic experience. From the driver seat, it may be worse than basic stereo as high front channels meant to give height and subtle audio cues are to close to my ear and become to much the center of what I hear. Compared with my other cars with good stereos, the Atmos tuning almost seems gimmicky. Basic stereo sound gives a good sound stage for the driver and can be balanced to optimize it for your seat location. Atmos will not allow any manipulation at all aside from volume. It sure seems like it is designed for home stereo/theater and car integration is an afterthought. I wish I could simply change with R/L balance. Knowing where the driver always sits, this seems like a predictable problem for car integration which is not ready for prime time. Just wondering if others agree.

I think there is more going on here with the current Atmos implementation vs its mainly a problem with where we are sitting. Been trying to get in contact with the surreal sound dev team and have not been able to get a response from anyone. I have a few home set ups in the house with one being in the my office with less than idea speaker placement and sit and work from the corner of the room and would be the equivalent to sitting in the front passenger seat. The spear measurements in this room are set/configured for couch in the center of the room vs where I set when I work (this is a important call out as Atmos will recalculate levels sound object placement way different if I set things up from my working position). I will tell you that in our cars there are sound objects(Atmos is object based sound) that are all but missing in our cars. I know what does and does not sound good is highly objective but trust me when I say this is not a what sounds good to me and truly this are missing. In some tracks I have knottiest objects abruptly popping in and out (at first I thought I might be turning my head at the wrong time and it is also not that) vs fading away. To me it kind of feels like they are using some sort of virtual Atmos filter almost like DAP is being used vs our head unit calculating on the fly where the sound objects are being played from speakers based on where they are set to be in the room(cabin?) and where the objects are in the sound.

I agree with you it would be super nice if we could at least adjust the individual speaker levels and or turn off the rear seat placement from speaker placement calculation.

 

[ccarroz]

Prior to 2.5.0, I had been exclusivity listening to YouTube Music via Apple CarPlay. I had tried Tidal and Dolby Atmos, but I wasn't impressed enough to keep it. Now, after the 2.5.0 update (along wit the TSC completed for the footwell speakers), I've subscribed to Tidal to try it out again.

In a nutshell, some Atmos songs are now truly a revelation! Effects can dance around you and voices, particularly in groups with multiple singers, certainly appear to float in different points in space, as do certain instruments and effects. The improved bass of 2.5.0 really helped to fill out songs that were previously clear, but lacked presence, and also improved vocals coming from the center channel which were previously more muted relative to the other channels. I'm quite happy with the update and may be keeping Tidal for a while.

However, this seems to truly depend on the care of the sound engineering for each song. Even within the same album, some songs are completely unimpressive--dull and lifeless with little additional clarity or immersion compared to stereo. Other songs, even on the same album (oddly), can truly shine, however. I would say to be sure for anyone using Tidal and Atmos to be sure try a broad variety of songs across multiple artists and even across different songs within the same album.

Your assessment is true here in regard to how the engineer mixes things, but I am confident that more then that is going on here. There is a lot of sound objects missing in our car that are clear as day at home. Something is off in terms of how things configured in the car.

 

[McGriddle]

Your assessment is true here in regard to how the engineer mixes things, but I am confident that more then that is going on here. There is a lot of sound objects missing in our car that are clear as day at home. Something is off in terms of how things configured in the car.

You make an interesting point. Perhaps the Atmos mixes now become hit or miss depending on how well they happen to work with the new SSPro sound tuning. Indeed, having additional audio options for adjusting the sound focus (e.g., front passengers vs. all passengers, etc.) would be ideal.

I've found that in some songs, that the overall volume level is also encoded to be quite low compared to others. For example, I've had to turn up some tracks to about 40 - 50% volume to equal other tracks playing at about 20% volume.

 

[Alex]

FYI: In case you don't have Tidal and you want to try it out at low cost ($2 for 60days). Just go to tidal.com and select the "Start Free Trail" button. You need to create a new account, if you have already subscribed at some time. They will charge you $10.99 after the 60 days, but you can cancel as soon as you sign up and decide later to cancel your canceled subscription. You 60 days of service is not effected.

 

[GM!]

I have Tidal. Taking into account I'm not an audiophile like some, why aren't we allowed to adjust the balance with atmos tracks in our car?

 

[borski]

I have Tidal. Taking into account I'm not an audiophile like some, why aren't we allowed to adjust the balance with atmos tracks in our car?

Atmos very specifically and carefully arranges where sounds come from (in the mix and mastering process) and balance. Changing that balance would no longer make it Atmos.

 

[ccarroz]

You make an interesting point. Perhaps the Atmos mixes now become hit or miss depending on how well they happen to work with the new SSPro sound tuning. Indeed, having additional audio options for adjusting the sound focus (e.g., front passengers vs. all passengers, etc.) would be ideal.

I've found that in some songs, that the overall volume level is also encoded to be quite low compared to others. For example, I've had to turn up some tracks to about 40 - 50% volume to equal other tracks playing at about 20% volume.

I allways assumed this was more of a tidal issue vs a Atmos thing. At home set ups, Tidal Atmos levels are low and need to be turned, but on outside of Tidal Atmos tracks (admittedly everything I have is THDD) I don't need to turn things up.

 

[ccarroz]

Atmos very specifically and carefully arranges where sounds come from (in the mix and mastering process) and balance. Changing that balance would no longer make it Atmos.

In the way you are talking about it, like it is in a car, you are correct, but at home we can tell it how far the speaker is from the seating positions and also individually adjust the level of each speaker. So they would have to open those features up to us or give us a option to only consider the front seat as a seating position and that tell the head unit that those rear speakers are farther away and thus turn those speaks level up to accommodate the mix.

 

[borski]

In the way you are talking about it, like it is in a car, you are correct, but at home we can tell it how far the speaker is from the seating positions and also individually adjust the level of each speaker. So they would have to open those features up to us or give us a option to only consider the front seat as a seating position and that tell the head unit that those rear speakers are farther away and thus turn those speaks level up to accommodate the mix.

Correct; the speakers in the vehicle are a fixed and known distance, with fixed and known power, on fixed and known amplifiers. As a result, they are very specifically tuned to avoid reflections, etc.

That's why you can't adjust the balance for Atmos.

They could provide the option, but I suspect it's Dolby that tells them not to, not Lucid.

 

[Cosmo Cruz]

did Lucid re-calibrate the audio for the cars with a solid roof ?

 

[rfc805]

Atmos very specifically and carefully arranges where sounds come from (in the mix and mastering process) and balance. Changing that balance would no longer make it Atmos.

Having listened to Atmos post-upgrade for a while now, agree this is how it's supposed to be.

Unfortunately a lot of tracks on Tidal seem like they just had some sort of automated or AI based remixing for Atmos, and they sound at best "weird", at worst they just sound really bad and lose the entire feel of the original song by being remixed poorly.

I actually find myself often wishing for a "disable atmos" quick button now.

The ones that have been mixed well sound really good. One that comes to mind was a Tom Petty track but I can't recall which one. Extreme other end of the spectrum was an REM track that was so off-putting I turned it off. There was a Fleetwood Mac track that also came on and made Stevie Nick's voice sound static-y and tinny and just overall unpleasant, but also made it sound very singled out in a bad way.

On the flip side, non-Atmos stuff sounds almost universally really good post update. The only part I agree is a problem is the bass in the rear seats is super boomy even at flat EQ where it sounds good up front.

 

[ccarroz]

Correct; the speakers in the vehicle are a fixed and known distance, with fixed and known power, on fixed and known amplifiers. As a result, they are very specifically tuned to avoid reflections, etc.

That's why you can't adjust the balance for Atmos.

They could provide the option, but I suspect it's Dolby that tells them not to, not Lucid.

I doubt its a Dolby requirement as they are not even that strict with their studio setups. Also since Polestar puts speakers in the headrest and other cars implementation seem to be completely different, that tells me that Dolby probably doesn't have strict rules on implementation and set up. I don't think reflections are the issue here as bi-polar designs are supported at home and that means a lot of reflections.

Unfortunately a lot of tracks on Tidal seem like they just had some sort of automated or AI based remixing for Atmos, and they sound at best "weird", at worst they just sound really bad and lose the entire feel of the original song by being remixed poorly.

I think this is a virtual filter being used by Lucid or something with the configuration. This is not how Atmos is supposed to be. In the Home set up I have yet to run into a that is completely missing in the Atmos miss like we have in our cars.