[Buyer’s Guide] Kaleidescape Quality Compared to Blu-ray & other Digital Sources

[Broncowrangler]

The lack of object based mixes on some of the high profile/ popular titles is quite unfortunate. I don’t know if it’s due to some licensing limitations or other factors. There are plethora of titles which don’t have an equivalent immersive track like their disc counterparts, so I’m not going to list them out here.

I’ve heard some asinine (or delusional) arguments e.g. by engaging your favorite up-mixer you can mitigate that limitation. By that logic studios should fully abandon native immersive tracks (Atmos/DTS:X etc), cause up-mixing will fill that void.

 

[Furnace Inferno]

The lack of object based mixes on some of the high profile/ popular titles is quite unfortunate. I don’t know if it’s due to some licensing limitations or other factors. There are plethora of titles which don’t have an equivalent immersive track like their disc counterparts, so I’m not going to list them out here.

I’ve heard some asinine (or delusional) arguments e.g. by engaging your favorite up-mixer you can mitigate that limitation. By that logic studios should fully abandon native immersive tracks (Atmos/DTS:X etc), cause up-mixing will fill that void.

Plenty of people use BassEQ on these nerfed object mixes though so is it any different? They are just tools which allow us to either play as intended or adjust to preference and get an approximation.

Personally I always run native but I also don’t find 5.1 mixes lacking at all compared to DTSX/Atmos when done well.

What’s sad is that object mixes are 99% of the time not actually object mixes but just standard channel mixes with no objects moving around at all and the format is just wasted most of the time, on top of all the 30Hz filtering going on.

I’m still bothered by the missing object mixes compared to what I have on disc though even when they’re not outright better!

 

[Broncowrangler]

Plenty of people use BassEQ on these nerfed object mixes though so is it any different? They are just tools which allow us to either play as intended or adjust to preference and get an approximation.

Personally I always run native but I also don’t find 5.1 mixes lacking at all compared to DTSX/Atmos when done well.

What’s sad is that object mixes are 99% of the time not actually object mixes but just standard channel mixes with no objects moving around at all and the format is just wasted most of the time, on top of all the 30Hz filtering going on.

I’m still bothered by the missing object mixes compared to what I have on disc though even when they’re not outright better!

Well you have your opinion and I will respect the same. But that will not deter me from airing my own grievances regarding the absence of native immersive content on some of the titles on K. Plenty of people do indeed use BassEQ, I’m not one of them.

 

[Nathan28]

Plenty of people use BassEQ on these nerfed object mixes though so is it any different? They are just tools which allow us to either play as intended or adjust to preference and get an approximation.

Personally I always run native but I also don’t find 5.1 mixes lacking at all compared to DTSX/Atmos when done well.

What’s sad is that object mixes are 99% of the time not actually object mixes but just standard channel mixes with no objects moving around at all and the format is just wasted most of the time, on top of all the 30Hz filtering going on.

I’m still bothered by the missing object mixes compared to what I have on disc though even when they’re not outright better!

I use basseq… and some times it does help and improve it.. it also hurts some titles. It’s sad we have to have workarounds

 

[Rmarci]

What’s sad is that object mixes are 99% of the time not actually object mixes but just standard channel mixes with no objects moving around at all

Not sure where you're getting that 99% number from, but that's very inaccurate. While it's true that some mixes don't have much object movement, most Atmos mixes do make significant use of moving objects.

I'm not speculating here, I perform full Atmos movie analyses on my YT channel...

127 movies playlist here.

 

[Broncowrangler]

Not a fan of workarounds either, especially when the same title is available on another media, with a superior experience. Case in point Apollo13; the 4K disc supports a scintillating DTS:X track (borderline reference imho) but the K version is a 5.1 mix.

Now if we are talking about Nolan centric movies then you have a valid case. Fwiw, I would be inclined not to use the upmixer as I want to adhere to the creator’s intent/sound design. I love Oppenheimer and interstellar in its native 5.1 mix. I would never up-mix those glorious tracks

 

[MarvinTheAndroid]

Plenty of people use BassEQ on these nerfed object mixes though so is it any different?

Yes it is very different, I assume that this isn't a serious question other than moving of goalposts.