Dolby Atmos for Headphones and Earbuds
Hello everyone, I've been going down a bit of a rabbit whole trying to understand Dolby Atmos and I need someone to set me straight :D
My understanding is Dolby Atmos proper refers to movies and games that provide a speaker receiver with 3D positional data that can then be processed according to your speaker setup to create a truly immersive sound. Then there was Dolby Atmos for Headphones which was a regular old binaural audio HRTF that doesn't use positional data and instead simply virtualizes a regular audio signal. I don't know if that is still true or the technology has advanced.
I recently bought the Technics AZ100 earbuds which have Dolby Atmos support. The app clearly says to make sure you enable Atmos on your connected device to enjoy Atmos content. That seems wrong as the earbuds themeselves are processing the audio. Both spatialization and head tracking work great on the buds when atmos is disabled on my Samsung tablet. Enabling atmos on my source seems to double process the signal making it loud and worse, even with Atmos content.
Then I've on the PC side of things with wired headphones, I've been trying out the Dolby Access app there to use Dolby Atmos for Headphones. Enabling Atmos modifies the sound, but there's an option called surround virtualizer which then further modifies the sound even on Atmos content.
My assumption would be enabling atmos but disabling surround virtualizer would pass through regular audio signals without processing but process any atmos signals. Then enabling surround virtualizer would allow for virtualizing 2.1 / 5.1 / 7.1 signals. But that's not the case. Both atmos and surround virtualizer modify regular and atmos signals. I don't get it. I can't find a help page or wiki for Dolby Access. The FAQ is useless. There's no tooltips. The app is so barebones.
If I want to play Battlefield--which has Dolby Atmos support--on my Windows PC, what do I need to enable to get the Atmos experience? Presumably I need to enable Atmos in game, and enable Atmos on my headphones, but what about the surround virtualizer on Dolby Access?
If I want to watch a Dolby Atmos movie on my Samsung tablet then I enable Atmos on my Technics, but do I also enable Atmos on the tablet? The app tells me to but it worsens the sound quality.
I am so confused...