Though movie theaters (and some home theaters) aim to enhance the sense of immersiveness by placing the speakers above the audience, the sound is mixed as if those five or seven positions will be on a flat plane – no height.īy contrast, Dolby Atmos adds height channels – up to 10 of them, but more typically 2 or 4. But those five or seven positional channels would be spread across what’s essentially assumed to be a flat plane. In this case, the major strength and innovation of Atmos is the introduction of height channels.Ī traditional surround sound system would have five or seven channels for positional audio, and one subwoofer (hence 5.1 and 7.1). Maybe you’re not like me – maybe instead you’re looking at surround sound systems for your home theater. But first… ATMOS FOR HOME SETUPSīut let’s back up for a second. Of course, I’m most interested in Atmos for Headphones. But Atmos is pretty widely-implemented in theaters, and it’s coming quickly to home audio. It’s not the only player out there: competitor DTS:X is another similar form of surround sound. So why am I writing about Dolby Atmos? Well, Atmos is working to alleviate a lot of those problems for me as a chronic headphone listener, by embracing an “object-based” form of mixing rather than the traditional channel-based method. No surround sound for me – when I watch movies, all the surround sound audio is mixed down to stereo anyway, which often leaves things sounding flat and unnatural, not immersive in the slightest. Why? Well, in my cramped apartment in Brooklyn, any given room is far too irregularly-shaped to be made acoustically optimal, and my roommates will probably chew me out anyway if I play the weird noise music I typically listen to out loud.Īs such, I watch movies, play games, and listen to music exclusively on headphones. First things first: I’m a headphone enthusiast, not a home audio enthusiast.