In October 2023, this column asked, “So…Who Needs ‘New’ Mixes?” and questioned whether remixing classic tracks in Dolby Atmos is a great idea. Then November looked at “Speed Bumps in the Immersion Transition.” After a holiday break in December, now it’s time to complete the trilogy with a peek into the future—where’s Atmos going? Will it take over the world, or will it fizzle like previous efforts to market surround? So, I bought Walmart’s “Nostradamus Jr. Crystal Ball” ($1.99 on sale), asked it those questions, and after the obligatory “always in motion is the future,” here are its predictions.
A TALE OF THREE MARKETS
People who say it hasn’t gained traction among consumers haven’t been to a movie theater in 10 years. By the end of 2022, more than 10,000 movie theaters had either installed or committed to install Atmos playback systems. Atmos is a slam dunk for movies. Who wouldn’t want to be in the middle of the action instead of just watching it?
Naysayers saw attendance plummet during the pandemic and predicted the end of movie theaters. Not so fast, said Barbie, J. Robert Oppenheimer and Taylor Swift. If you do something better than just shove recycled franchise movies down people’s throats, they won’t only go to movies—they’ll turn out in record numbers.
Sure, many theaters still have surround systems instead of Dolby’s format, and some “Atmos” mixes are really surround mixes so that they’re more universally compatible on playback. Still, the handwriting is on the wall: If studios produce content people want to see on the big screen, movie theaters will have an incentive to augment the moviegoing experience with increasingly immersive sound.
Gaming isn’t going anywhere, either, so neither is Dolby in its quest to make games more entertaining. According to PC Gaming Wiki, there are at least 70 Atmos-enabled game titles, and the list keeps growing. Also, games don’t necessarily require a full-blown home Atmos system. Headphones with head tracking are good enough for many, if not most, gamers.
And then there’s music…
THE FUTURE OF ATMOS AND MUSIC
Music technology rides on the coattails of mainstream technology. Personal computers weren’t invented for running DAWs, the Internet wasn’t developed for streaming songs, and immersive sound wasn’t invented for music. It was designed as surround-sound technology for movies, with a side hustle of “Cool, this would work for music, too!” It took five years after the first Atmos-enabled theater opened before the first Atmos music release appeared. That gives a hint of the industry’s priorities.
Talk to some installer friends, and you’ll hear the main Atmos markets are studios that work with major labels, indie studios with FOMO who want to get into remixing for Atmos, and the kind of C-level elite executives who buy “aged” Les Pauls for $8,500 and want a new toy for their mansion. As mentioned previously, Atmos is part of the ongoing widening of the dividing line between the haves and have-nots…for now.
We also need to consider demographics. The baby boomers who amassed enough wealth to buy a big Atmos system, and for whom music was a near-universal cultural touchstone, are dying out. By the end of 2022, millennials accounted for only 14 percent of new home purchases. That’s not conducive to feeling rooted enough to set up a gorgeous audio/video system in a starter house that doesn’t even have enough space for a home theater.
That’s okay; Dolby has a secret weapon for ultimate consumer acceptance: Scalability. Engineers can mix for as many speakers as they want, and Atmos will scale to the playback system—whether it’s a binaural rendering for headphones, a 2.0 (stereo) setup, standard 5.1 surround system, or a 7.1.4 “gold standard” home Atmos system—so consumers aren’t forced to do anything different. They can stick with stereo, listen to music on a cheap surround setup with sound bars, or get addicted and upgrade to a fantastic system. Atmos doesn’t change—consumers choose whether to change.
THE TRAIN IS ROLLING…
Overall, Atmos has taken a lead that will be difficult, if not impossible, to overcome or ignore. Streaming services are building up content with Atmos soundtracks, it’s used in the majority of cinemas with immersive sound, and despite the license fee, even affordable soundbars and AV receivers have built-in Atmos.
Over time, competing systems will fade into the background. Exposing more people to the format will create demand for more made-for-Atmos mixes. To ease the transition, the Dolby Renderer does a credible job of downmixing to stereo, so it’s easy to mix for Atmos and generate a stereo version, too. Slowly but surely, Atmos will shake off the term of being “promising,” and long term, become the standard way people listen to music.
At least that’s what my Walmart crystal ball said. Then again, it said that King Arthur: Legend of the Sword was going to be a box-office hit, so we’ll just have to see what happens.
