Dolby Atmos becomes available to Utah homes

In this image released by Dolby Laboratories,

 it shows a home theater 7.1.4 Atmos setup. (Dolby Laboratories)

By Devin Brown

Some AV integrators and installers in Utah believe the new audio surround format, Dolby Atmos, isn't ready for installation into homes.

This month AV companies  from Yamaha, Denon, Marantz, Integra and Pioneer Elite will be updating their home AV receivers to play Atmos, an object-based surround sound coding format that makes every speaker in a room play different surround sound effects to immerse the listener into an “atmosphere” of sound.

Jared Walth, a salesman at AVWorx in Layton, Utah, hasn’t had many customers asking about the new Atmos format.

“Most companies are doing a downloadable update that you can put on their receivers,” Walth said. “Customers don't even know the update is available yet. The only company that we carry now that includes an Atmos chip is Marantz.”

Walth said he wants to have AVWorx’s main demo room ready for Atmos by the end of the year. He believes Atmos will change the AV world. He said Atmos will only sell if it’s demonstrated correctly.

“If you have a ceiling higher than eight feet you’re more likely to have in-ceiling speakers that will run Atmos,” Walth said. “We are going to have amplifiers on each speaker. We don’t want to run the whole system off a receiver. Most receivers don’t have enough power to run 11 speakers.”

In this image released by Dolby Laboratories, speakers enhanced
Atmos technology simulated a 7.1.4 setup. (Dolby Laboratories)

Claco Equipment, a commercial theater design company in Salt Lake City, Utah, designed the only commercial Atmos theater in Utah. The theater was built for Megaplex Theaters at Valley Fair Mall in West Valley, Utah. Claco used 48 speaker channels of audio in the theater; a channel refers to how many different audio tracks can be used. All the speakers were connected to their own individual amplifiers. The channels then were run through the $30,000 Atmos theater processor.

Eric Butterworth, a salesman for Claco, doesn't think the decoding — taking a recorded signal and converting it to audio — in Atmos will be the same as a commercial Atmos processor.

“In a commercial situation Atmos alone adds $100,000 on top of a normal theater build,” Butterworth said. “I don’t think it will be anywhere as good as the real thing.”

Butterworth said that the calibration for the Atmos Theater took one month. The basic calibration on a home receiver takes around 10 minutes. Claco had representatives from Dolby on site to help with any calibration issues.

Walth said the only Blu-ray Disc available with the Atmos format is “Transformers: Age of Extinction.” Additional Atmos ready Blu-ray Discs will be available next spring.

 

“We barely just got the specs on how to accurately set-up a home theater with Atmos,” Walth said. “There aren't really much options to even play Atmos.”