Dolby Atmos Remasters
Saturday 11th May, 2024 12:22
Many years ago the band Underworld released a DVD containing live performances from their 1998/99 world tour. They also released it on CD, and I played "Underworld live; Everything, Everything" so much that I bought a second copy after the first one got badly scratched. I enjoyed the album so much that it inspired the name of this website.
Unlike the CD, the DVD came with Dolby Surround. At the time I was lucky enough to have a fairly basic surround sound system connected to my PC. It was great for watching a couple of scenes in The Matrix, but it also introduced me to the concept of surround sound audio. Unfortunately very little (good) music was mastered in surround sound back then.
Many great albums were still being mastered in stereo to CD audio standards. And if I'm honest, I was fine with that. I like the idea of high resolution lossless audio, but the reality is I don't think I can hear the difference. At least not reliably enough to care about. I have a couple of decent headphones (beyerdynamics Amiron Home and first generation Shure SE846) and a couple of nice DACs (Chord Mojo and Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd Gen), and they make pretty much any content sound good. The only thing I have noticed is that they can make low quality MP3s and badly produced audio sound even worse.
It's previously been hard to make a direct comparison as much of Tidal's MAX content (which covers a mixture of frequencies and the use of MQA and FLAC) was originally remastered by Tidal and made available as MQA tracks. I'm not going to go into too much technical detail around MQA, but suffice to say I'm not a fan. But trying to compare an original CD release against a new MQA recording is pretty much impossible. They sound different because they sound different; not because of the codec or frequencies. Are some of the remasters better? Probably. I know many artists have gone back and remastered classic albums and made them sound better than the original release (e.g. Tori Amos).
Now that Tidal seems to be moving away from MQA to the use of FLAC (and appear to be using the same files as Qobuz), perhaps things will be a little simpler. However, it sounds like they're only using FLAC for stereo music. There is still a fairly limited amount of surround sound music available nowadays, but it seems to mostly be in Dolby Atmos. On streaming platforms this is the lossy kind. Again, not that I really care. It still sounds pretty good to me ears.
One of the first Dolby Atmos mixes I listened to on Tidal was REM's Automatic For The People. It was fine. Different, but fine. More of a novelty than essential listening. I tried a few more things, but as my current surround sound setup is in my lounge it's not something I can appreciate in the office; or during a lunchtime walk through the park. I've gone back to using Spotify.
Which is probably why I missed that Air have remastered a second album. Their 25th anniversary Bluray of Moon Safari contains a Dolby Atmos mix. I gather the Bluray uses Dolby TrueHD (which means it's lossless), while the audio streams on Tidal (and Apple?) are Dolby Atmos (essentially lossy Dolby Digital Plus). I decided to give Moon Safari a try on Tidal and I was impressed.
Sure, it's still a bit gimmicky, and there were a couple places where I would have mixed things differently. But there are parts of Moon Safari that sound better. That sound like they were always intended to sound that way.
Will I listen to it again? Yes. Do I prefer it over the original stereo version? Probably not. Will I mostly listen to the stereo version over Spotify? Probably.
Unlike the CD, the DVD came with Dolby Surround. At the time I was lucky enough to have a fairly basic surround sound system connected to my PC. It was great for watching a couple of scenes in The Matrix, but it also introduced me to the concept of surround sound audio. Unfortunately very little (good) music was mastered in surround sound back then.
Many great albums were still being mastered in stereo to CD audio standards. And if I'm honest, I was fine with that. I like the idea of high resolution lossless audio, but the reality is I don't think I can hear the difference. At least not reliably enough to care about. I have a couple of decent headphones (beyerdynamics Amiron Home and first generation Shure SE846) and a couple of nice DACs (Chord Mojo and Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd Gen), and they make pretty much any content sound good. The only thing I have noticed is that they can make low quality MP3s and badly produced audio sound even worse.
It's previously been hard to make a direct comparison as much of Tidal's MAX content (which covers a mixture of frequencies and the use of MQA and FLAC) was originally remastered by Tidal and made available as MQA tracks. I'm not going to go into too much technical detail around MQA, but suffice to say I'm not a fan. But trying to compare an original CD release against a new MQA recording is pretty much impossible. They sound different because they sound different; not because of the codec or frequencies. Are some of the remasters better? Probably. I know many artists have gone back and remastered classic albums and made them sound better than the original release (e.g. Tori Amos).
Now that Tidal seems to be moving away from MQA to the use of FLAC (and appear to be using the same files as Qobuz), perhaps things will be a little simpler. However, it sounds like they're only using FLAC for stereo music. There is still a fairly limited amount of surround sound music available nowadays, but it seems to mostly be in Dolby Atmos. On streaming platforms this is the lossy kind. Again, not that I really care. It still sounds pretty good to me ears.
One of the first Dolby Atmos mixes I listened to on Tidal was REM's Automatic For The People. It was fine. Different, but fine. More of a novelty than essential listening. I tried a few more things, but as my current surround sound setup is in my lounge it's not something I can appreciate in the office; or during a lunchtime walk through the park. I've gone back to using Spotify.
Which is probably why I missed that Air have remastered a second album. Their 25th anniversary Bluray of Moon Safari contains a Dolby Atmos mix. I gather the Bluray uses Dolby TrueHD (which means it's lossless), while the audio streams on Tidal (and Apple?) are Dolby Atmos (essentially lossy Dolby Digital Plus). I decided to give Moon Safari a try on Tidal and I was impressed.
Sure, it's still a bit gimmicky, and there were a couple places where I would have mixed things differently. But there are parts of Moon Safari that sound better. That sound like they were always intended to sound that way.
Will I listen to it again? Yes. Do I prefer it over the original stereo version? Probably not. Will I mostly listen to the stereo version over Spotify? Probably.