As a lover of Atmos, I am also a realist. Atmos is quite good, but you have to also keep in mind that it still relies on the person doing the sound mix. Some people/companies are better at it than others. Also some movies just don't lend themselves to getting much value. An example would be a romantic comedy. Heck, even the first DTS:X title (Ex Machina) really didn't seem improved as they only added subtle environmental elements. Something that a lot of people would miss unless they could do an A/B test of the material. Based off of movies like that, it would be completely not worth it.

That being said, there are a lot of movies that really do capitalize on it. Heck, even movies that you would never think would benefit do. Age of Adeline has a spectacular car crash scene that is very Atmos worthy. It last about a minute. The rest of the movie doesn't hardly touch the overheads, so you aren't getting an immersive effect beyond regular 5.1 or 7.1 at that point.

So even movies with really good native Atmos content probably still only effect 10-15% of the whole movie as a norm, others will have longer sequences (imaging the ridiculously long cars chasing down the military plane scene in Fast & Furious 6 where the runway must have been 100 miles long or something silly). That chase scene lasted a long time. IF it would have been in Atmos, then that would have made that movie exceed that number. It isn't in Atmos, but just saying. It is possible.

So you have to decide if that really great improvement for only a small portion of a movie is worth it. Now, upmixed movies do utilize overhead speakers more, but usually it is very subtle through the whole movie until any action scenes or ones where the volume increases and then you notice it more.

So you have to figure out if that is worth the price of admission so to speak. Is Atmos really the next generation in sound? Absolutely. Does it come cheap? Not really... You can get a fairly inexpensive receiver, but usually are limited to 5.1.2 or maybe 5.1.4/7.1.2 but you will pay a little more. Then you need more speakers, and don't think that you can skimp on the speakers. Bose Cubes won't cut it. The more "full range" the speaker is, the better. That costs money too. Plus you need to run more wires, maybe get speaker mounts for the ceiling depending on your room, etc.

Again, choice is up to everyone. I bought an Anthem MRX-1120, traded in my four QS8 surround (which I got credit for, but not a ton), and bought eight on-wall M3s... You do the math and that is almost $2000 in speakers (might have been around $1500 after trade in), and a $3500 MSRP receiver. I get a lot more benefit than just Atmos and DTS:X with the Anthem receiver, but 7.2.4 Atmos all in one single box was the primary driver. Money certainly does not grow on trees in our back yard. I had to do some of the purchases over time, like swapping out the QS8s for M3s for regular 7.2 over a year before doing anything else, and I had to work some side jobs to fund the upgrade, plus a small bonus from work certainly helped (came the exact time that I wanted to make the receiver purchase. I hadn't had an opportunity for a bonus in over 15 years, so it was unexpected.)

Worth it for me? Absolutely. I am so happy that I did it, but the pain of the price tag has been gone for a year now, so it is easier to say that.

Farewell - June 4, 2020