You’ll never go back to old-school surround sound after you install Dolby Atmos in your custom home theater
What is a Star Wars movie without John Williams’ score, a musical without songs, or an action movie without the fight sounds and explosions? The answer: A hollow experience. Any piece of media, whether it’s a movie or TV show, depends on sound to bring you more fully into its world.
What that means for you when you sit down in your custom home theater is that you want the best sound possible, and that means you want Dolby Atmos. Today we’ll show you how Dolby Atmos systems work and why you want this sound system for your Armonk, NY home theater.
SEE ALSO: Prepare Your Home Theater for the 8K Revolution
STANDARD SURROUND SOUND
The basics of surround sound are simple enough, but it’s worth going through a quick primer so you can see what sets Dolby Atmos apart. What both Dolby Atmos and traditional surround sound installations aim to do is recreate what it’s like to watch a movie in a commercial theater by deploying speakers all around you for greater immersion. The way you do this is by placing speakers in front of you as well as to the side or behind you (or both). Once your speakers are in place, your receiver will direct the sound to the different channels, so you hear whatever’s on screen from multiple directions.
HOW ATMOS IS DIFFERENT
At the basic level, Dolby Atmos isn’t too dissimilar from the way you set up typical surround sound. We’ll still install speakers in front of you, to the side, and behind you. Atmos systems also include speakers mounted in the ceiling above you, which creates an extra dimension for added immersion. But what really sets Atmos apart is the system software and how it distributes sound throughout your theater space.
Instead of funneling the sound mix to different channels, Atmos works by making each sound element into a specific audio object. Once that’s done, each object is placed accordingly in a 3-D sonic landscape created by the speakers in front of you, behind you, to the side, and above you.
Describing the system this way may not sound like it makes that big of a difference but trust us: Atmos brings unheard of clarity and detail to every element of the soundtrack. (In this case, the soundtrack refers to all the audio that’s part of the movie or TV show, not just the musical score or any songs heard as you’re watching.) You’ll hear bullets whizzing by overhead, people and vehicles move from left to right as if it’s happening right in front of you, every subtle vocal inflection during a dramatic monologue, and everything else as if you truly were in the middle of the action on screen. If you’re a diehard movie or TV viewer, you owe it to yourself to upgrade your home theater sound system to Dolby Atmos today. To get started, call us at (914) 765-0461. You can also visit our contact page or chat with a customer service associate below. You can also look at our online portfolio for inspiration.
