My editor has insisted that I can’t call Atmos in a car “Catmos.” So anyway, Catmos is the latest implementation of Dolby’s object-based surround technology. We’ve talked before about how well it can add height to movie sound in theaters, how most mid- and high-end soundbars have some Atmos functionality and how even some headphones have it built in. But in a car?
Well, yes actually. These days the car is where most people listen to the most music. In some ways it’s also a great place to convincingly create surround audio, since the listening positions are fixed, and a system is designed to incorporate and compensate for exactly where the speakers are located. Neither of those things are possible at home, and even in a theater it’s not as focused.
One of the biggest issues with most car audio fidelity is ambient noise. One way to drastically reduce that issue is by removing the engine completely. A high-end electric vehicle makes for a best-case scenario in a mobile surround sound system, and to that end I was invited by Rivian and Dolby to hear their nearly 1,000-watt, 18-driver Atmos-enabled system in the R1S SUV at an event in Venice, California, conveniently 15 miles from where I live. It’s LA, so just shy of 2 hours later, I was all ears.
Atmos-to-Go
With Atmos (on the right), sound designers can pinpoint exactly where in a theater, any Atmos theater, they want a sound to “appear.” This includes overhead, or really, just about any place in the entire space of the cinema.
Let’s back up a second and talk about Atmos. It’s a fascinating technology, and its “object-based” approach provides a different way to mix movies and music. The traditional way of audio mixing, which has been around for decades, was to assign a sound or instrument to one of five surround channels or the subwoofer — also known as 5.1. Three up front, two in the back or sides. Some movies had even more channels, with seven channels becoming fairly common, allowing for side and rear channels.
Atmos changes all that up with the ability to treat a sound or instrument as an “object.” In the mixing process, the sound designer can move that object anywhere, and the Atmos encoder would understand where in physical space the sound designer intended. An Atmos decoder, in a theater, say, creates a virtual map of the system’s speakers and can translate “door creak in back left corner” so the audience hears it come from that position. This accuracy was difficult, if not impossible, before Atmos. A designer could want to place a sound in a specific location, but there’d be no way to adjust what that meant in a theater with five seats, 50 or 500.
Built on the same platform and sharing a majority of parts, the R1T is basically the same as the R1S minus a roof over the rear. It loses 2 speakers in the audio system too.
The double-edged sword in this case is that Atmos can work, at some level anyway, with far less elaborate systems. That’s why there are single-unit soundbars and even TVs with “Atmos.” They have upward-firing speakers at best — and, more often, extensive processing to simulate that height sound with varying levels of success.
Which brings us back to Atmos in the car. The listeners are all in known places, there can be height speakers, and it’s easy to have rear speakers since all modern cars — especially SUVs — are auditorium-sized anyway.
Rivian Premium Audio with Dolby Atmos
Like most electric vehicles, the R1S has few knobs or dials. Just about everything is controlled via a touchscreen.
You need Atmos-encoded content to get a real Atmos experience. To that end, the in-car entertainment system has integrated Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music and Audible. During my demo, we listened to several tracks, including Ariana Grande’s 7 Rings and As It Was by Harry Styles.
The track that took full advantage of Atmos was Pink Floyd’s Money: The iconic cash register opening distinctly started somewhere behind the rear passenger-side door, then progressed to above the dashboard, then working its way around the interior. The actual instruments then filled the space in a way that traditional stereo would have struggled with (this Atmos mix was painstakingly approved by the band). I can’t fully judge the sound quality based on a demo of pre-chosen music, but overall the treble was clean and the bass punchy, especially with the Styles track.
Drivers in the A-pillar and dash.
Based on my three-song demo, I can’t say where the Rivian’s system stacks among the high-end car audio systems I’ve heard (which is quite a few). However, I can say the surround aspect was pronounced and more natural-sounding than anything I’ve heard before. So, perhaps unexpectedly for some, it was one of the better demos of Atmos I’ve heard outside a theater.
Back seat (or, technically, middle row), listeners can have some control over what the pilot and co-pilot are listening to.
So is it worth it? I only had a brief demo, in a stationary car. I’m also too cheap, not to mention being a broke writer (buy my book!), to spend around $100K on a vehicle, but $2,500 for some great sounding audio, not to mention a glass roof I can’t imagine not having in a truck like this, seems like a reasonable add-on for ~2.5% of the total price. So, probably?
Will we see Atmos in lower-end vehicles? Perhaps. Car companies have been partnering with audio companies for a long time, and while these days it’s usually Bose or some flavor of Harman, automakers know there’s a profit opportunity in better sound. Will they pay for the extra engineering and tuning to get Atmos working correctly? Or even just working? The higher-end brands might, but it’s highly unlikely we’ll see an Atmos system with height speakers in something like a Nissan Versa.
Then again, if there’s a demand, who knows. I’m sure there’s some exec out there who loves Atmos and wants to put it in a more budget-friendly car. Sort of a modern Pontiac GTO — except instead of a huge V8, it has Catmos. [You’re fired. —Ty]
As well as covering audio and display tech, Geoff does photo tours of cool museums and locations around the world, including nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, medieval castles, epic 10,000-mile road trips and more.
Also, check out Budget Travel for Dummies, his travel book, and his bestselling sci-fi novel about city-size submarines. You can follow him on Instagram and YouTube.
