Play Dolby Atmos tracks in Surreal Sound Pro

[Daniel2022AT]

I bought the SS Pro “upgrade” frankly because of the chatter on here about Dolby Atmos. I have been a Tidal Hi-Fi subscriber for years. I never realized my vehicle had the SSP hardware. In fact, I had problems connecting with Tidal or Sirius for the first couple months so I sort of ignored it. After getting everything to work, I started really enjoying hi-res music on Tidal and Dolby Atmos in particular motivated by everyone’s comments here. Now I’m hooked. It is a phenomenal audio system in my opinion.

It is a shame Lucid never explained any of this.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

Comparing the car to my home Atmos setup, I actually prefer the car, it has better clarity and fullness at the same time. The system has been tuned to the car including the glass surfaces, angles and absorptive surfaces like seats and carpet, whereas my home setup isn’t tuned to the room. Honestly my favorite aspect of Atmos in the car isn’t the surround or height channels, it’s the center channel. I swear that speaker sounds every bit as good as some top of the line studio monitors I’ve heard. Maybe it’s just near field listening that’s tricking my ears, but guess what folks, the human voice is mono, it shouldn’t play out of left-right stereo, it should come from the center if you’re looking for realism.

 

[Worldwide Beagle]

Comparing the car to my home Atmos setup, I actually prefer the car

Is that because you wife won't allow appropriate volume levels in the house?

 

[PaulC]

Yeah Atmos overrides any balance control because that’s the whole point, Atmos is mixed with certain things sent discrete to individual channels at the mixer’s discretion and it would be very resource intensive to take a minimum 7.1.2 mix and make it pannable in the space. But yeah do try out the Atmos test tracks and that should isolate most of the speakers, here’s one: https://tidal.com/track/243820594

As others have stated, Atmos tracks are mixed selectively and do not always just send things to the height, woofer and surround channels. That’s up to the mixer who engineered it. Most audio engineers I know tend to use surrounds/height for room reverberation effect to make it sound more naturalistic, and often use the center channel for vocals more than left/right.

Also are you sure you’re subscribed to Tidal HiFI Plus and that you’ve turned that option on in the car? Tracks that will instantly make the surround channels noticeable are Prince’s When Doves Cry Atmos Mix (the opening guitar spins around the surround speakers, Princes lead vocal is cleanly isolated to the center channel with backing vocals spread wide) :

https://tidal.com/track/126181057

The Doors Riders On The Storm (sounds like you’re in the studio with them, and the rain storm makes excellent use of height and surround channels): https://tidal.com/track/126176118

And here’s proof the Lucid has enough bass, INXS Mediate (in Atmos you can mix a discrete subwoofer track and this definitely has discrete LFE elements): https://tidal.com/track/222435050

Great info. I had to take my 2023 Touring into Tysons this AM to check my charger cable (just after 2.1.10 had red lights on charger car port/"change cable" on dash) and told them when I played the Cinema 7.1.2 Atmos speaker directionality audio, I was able to hear directional sound on rear and overhead speakers, but not on front right and left speakers, only front center speaker. Kurt tried to check out same Atmos audio on other vehicles at Tysons, but none had Tidal subscription. I called customer care to escalate the query, but they had not heard of the issue before and said they would make a note. Has anyone else had this experience?

 

[Bunnylebowski]

I think one issue with that demo is the voice itself comes out of L/C/R but it doesn’t discretely isolate sound to only those channels for some of it, making it a little harder to tell for sure whether the car is correctly sending audio to the correct speakers. I still haven’t found a good Atmos test track that plays only a certain speaker and not others simultaneously.

 

[Bobby]

I think one issue with that demo is the voice itself comes out of L/C/R but it doesn’t discretely isolate sound to only those channels for some of it, making it a little harder to tell for sure whether the car is correctly sending audio to the correct speakers. I still haven’t found a good Atmos test track that plays only a certain speaker and not others simultaneously.

Perhaps @borski can create one specific to our car.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

Perhaps @borski can create one specific to our car.

This would actually be tricky as you’d have to mix it in encoded in Atmos then upload it to Tidal. I’ll as my friend Nat if he can do something like that or if he knows of a resource as he’s regularly mixing tracks in Atmos.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

My friend Nat to the rescue, try this album, I don’t have my car at the moment so can’t test it: https://tidal.com/album/275058829

 

[Tesla2.0]

Anyone have good symphonic or instrumental Dolby ATMOS tracks to recommend?

 

[joec]

Anyone have good symphonic or instrumental Dolby ATMOS tracks to recommend?

Apple's new Classical app has a great selection of tracks, but not sure how many of them are available on Tidal.

 

[Neurio]

Anyone have good symphonic or instrumental Dolby ATMOS tracks to recommend?

Post in thread 'Atmos playlist Megashare' https://lucidowners.com/threads/atmos-playlist-megashare.5146/post-125637

There's also this one from Tidal:

https://tidal.com/playlist/8be28798-a48f-4cdc-817b-dca00604c6a5

 

[Bunnylebowski]

I confirmed this album is the test to use if you are worried SSPro isn’t playing Atmos. Tracks 6 https://tidal.com/track/275058835
and 7

Dolby Labs - Channel ID 7.1.4 (Ltf:Rtf:Ltr:Rtr)

Listen to Channel ID 7.1.4 (Ltf:Rtf:Ltr:Rtr) on TIDAL

tidal.com

identify each Atmos channel in isolation so it should help you trouble shoot your system.

 

[hydbob]

I confirmed this album is the test to use if you are worried SSPro isn’t playing Atmos. Tracks 6 https://tidal.com/track/275058835
and 7

Dolby Labs - Channel ID 7.1.4 (Ltf:Rtf:Ltr:Rtr)

Listen to Channel ID 7.1.4 (Ltf:Rtf:Ltr:Rtr) on TIDAL

tidal.com

identify each Atmos channel in isolation so it should help you trouble shoot your system.

Just tried this on my drive down and it works wonders. Freaked my kids out so that was also a plus.

 

[Andretex]

I gave in and signed up for Tidal hi-fi Plus. Wow, it does make the sound system sound much better. Amazing really. I will only use it now for my Sonos system at home. I listen to a lot of news on Sirius Xm. Hopefully, Tidal adds some of these channels too so I can stop SiriusXM.

 

[Lucken]

I gave in and signed up for Tidal hi-fi Plus. Wow, it does make the sound system sound much better. Amazing really. I will only use it now for my Sonos system at home. I listen to a lot of news on Sirius Xm. Hopefully, Tidal adds some of these channels too so I can stop SiriusXM.

Do you hear a difference in all tracks with Plus relative to Tidal Hi-Fi or just the Atmos tracks?

 

[Andretex]

Do you hear a difference in all tracks with Plus relative to Tidal Hi-Fi or just the Atmos tracks?

Good question. I have only listened to atmos music so far. Let me do a test today and I will get back to you.

 

[Andretex]

On the Iipad version of Tidal, you can search for Dolby Atmos only.

 

[Andretex]

Do you hear a difference in all tracks with Plus relative to Tidal Hi-Fi or just the Atmos tracks?

Ok I tested it out with a couple songs. Here is my summary.

Tidal song quality is better than music thru Apple car play or SiriusXM (in car).
Tidal Dolby Atmos is best quality but really because it feels more spatial or 3d as the speakers move with the music or play selected instruments. But the same song in Atmos vs just Hifi is same quality in terms of base, crispness, etc… Just that atmos puts you in the center of it.

On my Ipad, I searched Colby atoms and pressed favorite on a bunch of albums. In the car I can see these albums in my collection. For now I am happy and prefer Tidal.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

On the Iipad version of Tidal, you can search for Dolby Atmos only.

For me when I click on Atmos, at least on the iPhone, it does come up with some Atmos content but it seems pretty limited as there are many Atmos mixes on Tidal that don’t show up under selections when you click on Atmos.

 

[Neurio]

Ok I tested it out with a couple songs. Here is my summary.

Tidal song quality is better than music thru Apple car play or SiriusXM (in car).
Tidal Dolby Atmos is best quality but really because it feels more spatial or 3d as the speakers move with the music or play selected instruments. But the same song in Atmos vs just Hifi is same quality in terms of base, crispness, etc… Just that atmos puts you in the center of it.

On my Ipad, I searched Colby atoms and pressed favorite on a bunch of albums. In the car I can see these albums in my collection. For now I am happy and prefer Tidal.

I'd you'd like some Atmos playlists, see here:

Atmos playlist Megashare

A thread to share playlists to get the best out of SSP. Previous reference Thread 'Song Recommendations to get the best out of the Air sound system!' https://lucidowners.com/threads/song-recommendations-to-get-the-best-out-of-the-air-sound-system.1736/ Will try my best to keep it updated as...

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