• Thanks for visiting the Kaleidescape Owners' Forum

    This forum is for the community of Kaleidescape owners, and others interested in learning about the system, equipment, services, and the company itself.

    It is run by a group of enthusiastic Kaleidescape owners and dealers purely as a service to this community.

    This board is not affiliated in any way with Kaleidescape, Inc.
    For official technical support, product information, or customer service, please visit www.kaleidescape.com

  • You are currently in "Guest" mode and not logged in with a registered account.

    The forum is free to use and most of the forum can be used by guests who are not registered....

    ... but we strongly encourage you to register for a full account. There is no cost to register for a full account.

    Benefits of registering for a full account:

    • Participate in the discussions! You must have a registered account to make posts on the forums. You will be able to start your own thread on a topic or question, or you can reply to other threads/discussions.
    • Use the "Conversation" feature (known as "private messaging" on other forums) to communicate directly with any of the other users here.
    • Access the Files area. The "resources" area of the forum contains many "Favorite Scene" and Script files that can dramatically increase the enjoyment of your Kaleidescape system. Go directly to great scenes in your favorite movies, created by other owners, and add automation to playback of your system with Scripts.
    • You won't see this annoying notice at the top of every screen!😊

    It's easy and free to register for the forum. Just click the "Register" button in the upper right corner of this page, and follow the instructions there.

Immersive by Design - Lossless Atmos Music

I got mine from Kurvenal as well, and the content is incredible... gave me new appreciation for my audio system.

How amazing of him to offer this to our community. Thanks Kurvenal!

I've just made Kurvenal an honorary "Premium" forum member for his generosity to the community.
Check out his shiny new "PREMIUM" badge in his profile, and he now gets the benefits of the paying members - expanded personal messaging, unlimited ability to edit his posts, and full access to the Marketplace as a seller.
Hi Josh,

Thanks for the unexpected upgrade to Premium status! I must have let my membership lapse, so your gesture is much appreciated.

A few people who have received discs from me have commented on Oracles. The music on Oracles is distinctive and even hypnotic, and this is one recording that was designed to be immersive from the start so that when you listen to it you almost feel like you are floating in sound. It comes with video, but I listen to it both with and without the video depending on my mood since like all other Pure Audio Blu-ray discs it can be controlled with Blu-ray remote commands without an OSD.

I was not familiar with the music of Astor Piazzolla until I listened to the Alessandro Quarta disc included in the attached updated sampler list, (although I found out later that I had heard Piazzolla’s music at least once since a piece of his is used for a key theme in the soundtrack for 12 Monkeys). It turns out that this year is the 100th anniversary of Piazzolla's birth, so I thought I would share the attached article since his music defies easy categorization into any particular genre.

As you can see from the attached list I have not run out of discs yet, so keep those requests coming.
 

Attachments

  • Pure Audio Blu-ray Sampler Updated List.pdf
    141.2 KB · Views: 14
  • Astor Piazzolla Article.pdf
    4.7 MB · Views: 3
Last edited:
Kurvenal was kind enough to quickly ship 3 discs. John Williams in Vienna, The Gordian Knot and Oracles.

The first night I watched the John Williams concert twice, the second time with my wife. It was awesome. When I closed my eyes it felt like I was sitting in the middle of the Vienna Musikverein. The acuity of each of the instruments was amazing. it didn't sound like a reproduction of the instrument, it sounded like the instrument was in the front stage of my theater. The video was also very well done and I enjoyed helping my wife understand all the various concert instruments. The direct object based sound and the reflected sound just added to the belief that I was there. John Williams is truly an American treasure and the Vienna Philharmonic was incredible.

Here is a link for a review of the actual concert:
John Williams Conducts the Vienna Philharmonic at the Musikverein

1639072143375.png

Last night I tested both the Oracles and The Gordian Knot discs. These were mastered for Atmos and I'd say they both took full advantage of that immersive format. The seamless movement of sound around the space reinforces my belief that if movies made more use of these channels it would be a net positive. Of course to get that isolation and clarity the soundtracks need to be recorded with Atmos in mind. There were some bonus videos on the Gordian Knot disc. The recording studio was clearly set up to keep sound of some instruments separate from the wind instruments. The keyboard, drums, bass and guitar were all in separate recording rooms while the brass and wind instruements were miked up in stage band style.

I have a dedicated 3 row home theater space in a 7.2.4 layout. I have Aerial Acoustics speakers for LCR and Surround, B&W rear and Revel C763L in the ceiling and two SVS Ultra 16 subs. The system is driven by an Arcam AV40 with more than adequate Adcom and JBL amplification and I continue to tweak the room with Dirac. I also have Buttkickers in the main listening position. I knew the system was great for movies but I haven't used the space that much for music. With immersive audio like this i think that will change.

All three of these discs allowed easy switching of source audio modes by using the Red, Green, Yellow and Blue buttons on the remote. I suggest trying the stereo modes first before progressing to Atmos. That is the best way to fully understand the extra dimension(s) provided by immersive sound. The soundstage was very good in stereo mode but progressing through the other options showcases this format.

Kurvenal has been great to work with. I had disks in my mailbox a few days after I first touched base with him. Give him a shout! Hopefully KScape brings immersive content to the store.

HTRaleigh
 

Attachments

  • 1639072177058.png
    1639072177058.png
    541.8 KB · Views: 8
I received my Disks and they are spectacular!
The sound quality is tremendous!
Very much appreciated Kurvenal...I didn't realize what I was missing until I heard this.
 
In completely unrelated news Kurvenal has opened an immersive music store and was quoted as saying the first hit is free.
:ROFLMAO: I only wish that were true!

The one immersive music store that I would like to see open is the K online store.

For those of you who have just had a chance to listen for yourselves, and for anyone else who is interested, do you think it would be a good use of K’s resources for them to dip their toes into the lossless immersive music market?

On the surface, if one considers that:
  1. K would be the only source for lossless Atmos music distributed over the internet, and
  2. A large proportion of K‘s existing customers no doubt already have themselves set up to be able to appreciate the benefits of lossless playback vs. the lossy alternatives available through streaming services,
then this suggests that lossless immersive music could be a fruitful avenue for K to explore.

Thoughts and comments are welcome.
 
Last edited:
Shout out to @Kurvenal for sending me the below discs. It was a real treat to get these and evaluate! The discs are as follows:

Gordon Godwin’s Big Phat Band: The Gordian Knot
Hoff Ensemble - Polarity - An Acoustic Jazz Project
Hazar: Reincarnated

Initial Notes:
  • Inserted the BR discs into my Premiere system and all three loaded.
  • They all got the Artist and Album name but nothing else initially. I put in the UPC codes and a few days later all of the cover art showed up.
  • No bookmarks available and not able to mark scenes on the audio tracks. However, 2 discs had bonus videos which COULD be marked (however they only have PCM audio tracks)!
  • All had “Play Disc” in order to pull up initial disc menu to set audio and play the albums or individual tracks.
  • All discs played perfectly through the Kaleidescape system including Dolby Atmos and Auro-3D tracks.
Listening Impressions:

All three of these discs sounded outstanding! The Atmos track was my favorite and what I mainly listened to:

The Gordian Knot - this was a Big Band/Jazz fusion ensemble and it was the one disc that had some object movement on some of the tracks. Sound was excellent overall and a fair amount of movement so fun to listen to.
Polarity - This was a Jazz Ensemble (piano, bass, drums and other instruments from time to time). This was recorded in Sofeinbery Church on Norway. This albums acrostics are excellent and you can tell from the outset that it was recorded in a church-type setting. Just really well recorded.
Hazar: Reincarnated - This is a Jazz Ensemble featuring Hazar on guitar. On first listen, this recording does not seem to add much with immersive audio. However, when comparing to LPCM 2.0 24/96kHz, the Atmos track is much fuller and more detailed (even when using an Upmixer).

Summary:
Put me in the camp that would like to see immersive audio titles in the Store (and not just immersive but any BR “audio only“ titles). For me, Music/concerts are the types of titles that I play over and over again compared to movies so I don’t mind paying more to have it available on K.

But I am not naive enough to think that there wouldn’t be some roadblocks to overcome to add something like these. If I were looking at this, I would research adding one “Studio” (like 2L) who seems to “own” the rights to a group of content and see what is possible. But I freely admit I know nothing about “rights” in the music world.

John
 
As per this previous post in another thread, I am offering a free Pure Audio Blu-ray immersive music disc to anyone with a 3D speaker layout who wants to experience lossless Atmos music (as opposed to the VERY lossy version of Atmos music available through streaming services such as Apple Music and Tidal).
Have to ask from the peanut gallery: there's a lot of gushing, but did anyone [particularly directly] compare it to the ATMOSesque streaming options?
 
Have to ask from the peanut gallery: there's a lot of gushing, but did anyone [particularly directly] compare it to the ATMOSesque streaming options?

Good question.

How much of a difference there is will depend on the recording and the playback system.

You may not notice a big difference if, for example, your surround/height speakers only have a limited range and you play a mix without much LFE that is only sending crowd noise between tracks to the surrounds.

If, on the other hand, you have a mix designed to give a “middle of the band” effect or there is a lot of object movement, then you are going to have much more going on in the surround and height channels so if you play that back through full range speakers you should hear a bigger difference since a lot more information will be lost with the streamed version. Since LFE also eats up a lot of bandwidth, then a recording with a lot of bass will also sound completely different if it is played back on a system with good subs.

It is not easy to do a direct A/B comparison because most of the recordings on the discs I sent out are not yet available in Atmos on either Tidal or Apple Music.

One exception is Point by Yello. It is available in Atmos on Apple Music but I just did a quick search on Tidal and did not find it there. I have one copy of Point left if someone is interested in comparing the Dolby TrueHD Atmos mix on the Blu-ray disc to the Dolby Digital Plus version on Apple Music and reporting back to this forum. This is probably a good test because it has a fair amount of object movement and LFE.

For a completely different type of comparison I can suggest a recent 2L release called Solacium that is available on Blu-ray disc through Amazon, and also available to stream in Atmos on Tidal and on Apple Music.

I happen to have a lossless Auro 3D version of Solacium embedded in FLAC files. Send me a PM if you are interested in downloading some Auro 3D tracks and comparing them to the Atmos versions on Tidal or Apple Music and posting your impressions.
 
Last edited:
I got my discs the other day and had some time to load them into my Premiere system and check them out today… Oracles, Quarta, and Organ. Not my usual type of music, but each was stunning in Atmos and I expect each will get frequent play. I was disappointed the Kaleidescape did not recognize any of them. I entered barcodes for the 2 of the 3 that had them. So, we’ll see how that goes.

Another nudge to Kaleidescape to PLEASE add these and more immersive music to your store. 😏

And, another “thank you” to @Kurvenal for his advocacy on this topic!!
 
Have to ask from the peanut gallery: there's a lot of gushing, but did anyone [particularly directly] compare it to the ATMOSesque streaming options?
I took advantage of the holidays to do some comparative listening, and I see now that my initial reply to @Transepoch was not sufficient.

The last time I compared Atmos music on a Pure Audio Blu-ray disc with the same content on a streaming service, first with Tidal and then when Apple Music came out with their spatial audio offering, streaming was so much worse that I just had to switch it off.

Tidal still sounds terrible and did not have as many Atmos albums, but I was actually shocked by how much better immersive music sounds on Apple Music played through an Apple TV 4K in my home theater. I compared Solacium and Stale Kleiberg Concertos from the Norwegian label 2L, Yello - Point, Konstantin Reymaier - The New Organ, and Booka Shade - Dear Future Self, and in each case I thought the Apple Music version sounded very, very good.

Someone told me recently that I should not be fooled simply by the difference in the audio bitrate between the “lossless” Dolby TrueHD codec used on Pure Audio Blu-ray discs and the lossy Dolby Digital Plus codec that streaming services use to conserve bandwidth. Apparently Dolby did some internal research a while ago that showed transparency with Atmos is achieved at 768kbps, which is the maximum bitrate for Dolby Digital Plus. I would not have believed this before, but now I am not so sure.

Is anyone aware of recent changes that Apple has made on their end to improve the spatial audio sound quality? Also, I would be interested in whether others are hearing the same thing that I am hearing.
 
Last edited:
I also use Roon for my music and for my distributed audio, and it is great, but so far they are not supporting Atmos. Agree that it would be great if they could work something out with Apple.
 
I think the issue is Apple is too big to even give Roon a chance. It would be amazing if Apple just buys Roon.
 
Between getting my Kaleidescape Premiere system recently for my concert and Blu-ray Discs and getting an AppleTV 4K with Apple Music’s Atmos selection, I haven’t turned my Roon system on in months. I am getting to the point of cancelling Tidal and Roon and selling my Nucleus.
 
Back
Top