In my last blog/newsletter I was very bah-humbug about the proliferation of surround sound channels and processes. The next day I got an announcement from Sandy Gross of GoldenEar Technology raving about a new “Dolby Surround” surround format that is part of Dolby Atmos. You may have guessed that I don’t give a flip about having sound high, low, and all swirly around me so I think of Atmos as just more excessive tech. But now Sandy says a sub-program of Atmos makes for “extraordinary” two-channel listening.
Sandy says:
At a recent CEDIA EXPO GoldenEar was demonstrating our first big Atmos enabled system and I tried listening to my two channel demo tracks using the Dolby Surround feature. I was absolutely blown away by the amazing results. The sound, which was excellent in stereo, became extraordinary, reminding me of my big over-the-top home reference system. As I sat there I remembered earlier iterations of Dolby’s pseudo-surround, which were none too exciting, but this was the real deal.
Clearly this is the result of signal processing trickery by Dolby, which would make me immediately suspect it, but when Sandy Gross endorses it he makes it credible. Of course I would like to hear it but I don’t have Atmos. Maybe some of you have an Atmos system and could try it and report back.