Dolby Atmos on PC with speakers (Cavern)

[mononymous]

Did a random search and stumbled upon Cavern^{1, 2}. Has anyone tried this?

TL:DR of the video: Demo of Dolby Atmos sound trailer being decoded on the pc with the positional sound being animated in software

 

Since I only have a standard 5.1 setup, I can't test it's effectiveness. 

 

Source:

1: http://cavern.sbence.hu/cavern/

2: https://github.com/VoidXH/Cavern

 

[Psittac]

You're going to find that most PC enthusiasts aren't using a surround sound system on their machines.  I used it for many years but when I moved 6 years ago I changed over to a desk setup and onto headphones.

[cmndr]

1. Youtube is in stereo so you're not getting a proper "atmos signal" You can still get a good sense of immersion if the content is well encoded though. 
2. You get diminishing returns at some point. More speakers/better codecs only go so far. People have a hard time positioning things in vertical space and we're more sensitive to things in front of us. Also 
3. I have a 7.1.4 set up (about as high as you can go without stupidly expensive processors). It's nice. 

Practically no one will be running a 27 channel (plus 5 subwoofers) set up as pictured in that demo. The Trinnov units commonly used for very high channel count set ups are $10,000+. The lowest cost high channel thing I'm aware of would be the 13 channel STR-AZ7000es for $3300 and a step above that the 15 channel Denon AVR-A1H at $6500. Outside of that you're hunting down used gear (not a bad idea, it'll probably work for 10-30 years and it's like half or a third the price). I'm personally waiting until I can get a 13 or 15 channel AVR for around $1000-1500ish and until them I'm riding out what I've got. 

[mononymous]

5 hours ago, Psittac said:

You're going to find that most PC enthusiasts aren't using a surround sound system on their machines.  I used it for many years but when I moved 6 years ago I changed over to a desk setup and onto headphones.

Figures with your forum sig.

3 hours ago, cmndr said:

2. You get diminishing returns at some point. More speakers/better codecs only go so far. People have a hard time positioning things in vertical space and we're more sensitive to things in front of us. Also 
3. I have a 7.1.4 set up (about as high as you can go without stupidly expensive processors). It's nice. 

Still trying to figure out a way to mount height speakers for a 5.1.2 setup. I'm using a cobbled together 5.1 system so making that a solid setup would be a better upgrade path. 

Quote

Practically no one will be running a 27 channel (plus 5 subwoofers) set up as pictured in that demo. The Trinnov units commonly used for very high channel count set ups are $10,000+. The lowest cost high channel thing I'm aware of would be the 13 channel STR-AZ7000es for $3300 and a step above that the 15 channel Denon AVR-A1H at $6500. Outside of that you're hunting down used gear (not a bad idea, it'll probably work for 10-30 years and it's like half or a third the price). I'm personally waiting until I can get a 13 or 15 channel AVR for around $1000-1500ish and until them I'm riding out what I've got. 

Cheapest processor so far that I've seen was the Tone Winner AT-300 (Summit Hi-Fi USA) for US$1.4k supports 16 channels. Doubt many would go to the used market since its a niche brand. Still using a receiver that was released in 2007 that I bought used in 2012. The other way would be using an audio interface for audio engineers and pair that with an amp. 

[cmndr]

15 hours ago, mononymous said:

Still trying to figure out a way to mount height speakers for a 5.1.2 setup. I'm using a cobbled together 5.1 system so making that a solid setup would be a better upgrade path. 

Cheapest processor so far that I've seen was the Tone Winner AT-300 (Summit Hi-Fi USA) for US$1.4k supports 16 channels. Doubt many would go to the used market since its a niche brand.

Small satellite speakers and wall mounts. Ideally ones you can angle. 

16 channels but 3 of them are subwoofers... which would make it a 13 channel AVR by most other definitions. Not necessarily a bad choice (I haven't researched enough to say one way or another) compared to the 13 channel STR-AZ7000es at $3300, but you would need separate amplification or to use speakers with built in amplification. For bass out you can usually get away with a single out (with a relatively high time offset) and a mini DSP to branch out to an arbitrary number of bass out. 

Researching MOAR CHANNELS is on my backlog for my own set up, it'd be wiser just to spend more time and energy enjoying what I have... maybe play some switch games on it, that sort of thing. 

[VoidX]

On 2/28/2023 at 5:53 PM, mononymous said:

Since I only have a standard 5.1 setup, I can't test it's effectiveness. 

You absolutely can. Use the Driver, and move one rear to the center and another one to the ceiling. Select Cavern Driver as the render target in the converter or just play something. Actually I might just add the 4.1.1 layout, here we go.

 

On 3/4/2023 at 2:03 AM, cmndr said:

You can still get a good sense of immersion if the content is well encoded though.

The track is the official encoder's HRTF, it's actually Dolby Atmos for Headphones.

 

On 3/4/2023 at 2:03 AM, cmndr said:

People have a hard time positioning things in vertical space and we're more sensitive to things in front of us.

Correct. Without visual aid, my test subjects had issues even on the Z axis.

 

On 3/4/2023 at 2:03 AM, cmndr said:

I have a 7.1.4 set up (about as high as you can go without stupidly expensive processors).

I can do 7.1.6 with an 8 channel soundcard for $20. There are analog matrixing hacks, which are possible with Cavern. Sounds great, actually, but I can only do 5.1.4 at home, since the room is that small, but that's also with matrixing on the rear wall.

 

On 3/4/2023 at 2:03 AM, cmndr said:

Practically no one will be running a 27 channel (plus 5 subwoofers) set up as pictured in that demo.

The Dolby decoding IC locks up at 16 channels, the super multichannel decoders like StormAudio just duplicate the surrounds. They never go beyond 16, only Dolby's own processors (and Cavern) can, but those are to be used in actual theaters.

 

On 3/4/2023 at 2:03 AM, cmndr said:

The lowest cost high channel thing I'm aware of would be the 13 channel STR-AZ7000es for $3300

Focusrite 18i20 per every 10 channels for $600 with a PC. That's *very* hard to get working though.

 

On 3/4/2023 at 5:53 AM, mononymous said:

Still trying to figure out a way to mount height speakers for a 5.1.2 setup.

I recommend 5.1.2 front. It's the best entry (full movement on the front wall) and the rears are merged if you select that option. Your hearing is best on the front anyway.

 

[cmndr]

5 minutes ago, VoidX said:

Focusrite 18i20 per every 10 channels for $600 with a PC. That's *very* hard to get working though.

By the time you've added on amplification, it's more expensive than a used SR6013 (11 channels + subwoofers) or similar and offers fewer channels.

Usually used, "not bad" AVRs are the way to go if there's a cost focus. Hard to beat mass production at volume. 

If you're referring to a path to getting ~20 channels via a lot of hackery, that could be a way forward. I'd need to do proper research so I wouldn't be speaking out of ignorance. 

[VoidX]

1 minute ago, cmndr said:

Hard to beat mass production at volume. 

I agree. There's always a China way, but that's for super price sensitive guys like me. I made Cavern instead of just buying this stuff lol. Doesn't really worth the hassle to always find the best value though, life is short.

[cmndr]

I'll have to look into it more. I skimmed this thread superficially and thought it was just an atmos demo. 
You're a level or 5 above me in terms of implementing this stuff (I pretty much just put gear near Dolby's recommended location and make some tweaks to get decent measurement results in REW and then run Audysey - most of my efforts go into getting a flat frequency response and picking out reasonably performant parts for my use case)