I recently streamed the Taylor Swift Eras concert movie through Apple TV (Dolby Atmos) and Amazon Prime (Dolby DDS I think?) to compare (through a Denon X6200W with a 9.1 speaker setup).

Yes, I paid the $19.89 two times. For science.

The audio quality with Atmos was substantially better.

The confusing thing about Atmos is that there are basically two versions of it. There is the TrueHD version that you get on BluRay discs which is the highest, uncompressed quality. And then there is the streaming version which uses Dolby Digital Plus as a wrapper for a compressed version of the audio signal.

Atmos on its own really just tells you that there are height channels. Dolby has made all this stuff quite misleading and confusing to the average user.

I would be interested to know the actual audio setup of most video watching ...

I suspect that even if you ignore whatever (probably huge?) percentage is on mobile, that much of it comes out of whatever TV speakers are being used.

Even my 7.1 receiver is down to a single laughable channel, because I've not been arsed to fully set it up and a wire is loose.

I expect most people use at most a soundbar. Which, regardless of what it advertises, is really just 2-3 channels and maybe a subwoofer.

And the rise of phones means there's a lot of stereo or even mono.

Bought a receiver years back, only ever bought two speakers - whole thing isn't plugged in since I moved two years ago, just the little speaker in the TV with no bass.

My guess is a lot of people with bigger TVs are getting soundbars. They are easy to setup and doesn't require wires. I won't switch from 5.1 setup but if I ever move I would give it a try. Built-in speakers I've used in hotels/airbnbs are not great.

Soundbar marketing has a lot of snake oil about bouncing soundwaves around a room to simulate 13 discrete speakers or something. I've got no science, but I do have some serious doubt whether the bouncing stuff works at all. In my imagination, soundbars are basically stereo, or maybe 2.1

I've always considered them the "Bose" of our generation (built on shitty engineering) - they sound better and bassy and so they sound "good enough".

I was skeptical for a while. But I have a friend who is used to a 5.1 setup and moved to a much smaller apartment. He has switched to a soundbar with Atmos and says it is on par. The fact that he "downloads" Dolby Atmos versions of movies even when they are available for streaming added some weight to his opinion. I still did not compare myself so would not go to fight over this.

I don't know your friend, but people are not good at listening. There's a whole industry catering to audiophiles with products that can't pass a blind test. Cynically, I might suspect that your friend is trying to justify their purchase to themselves. Or maybe I'm wrong. But the anecdote doesn't convince me either way.

Just wait a few years and you'll be like me, seven speakers and one good ear.

just in case anyone is wondering what happened to the audio on their ad tier videos next month…