Does Dolby Really Sound All Around?

Why Dolby Atmos will always be best in the cinemas.

- Marcus Wong

You’ve probably experienced Dolby Atmos sound by now. It’s the revolutionary new audio format from Dolby that maps audio into a sphere of sound, so audio is no longer projected at you from individual directions (e.g. channels), but rather mapped to an area that corresponds to where the sound is coming from, even overhead.

That last point in particular has spawned a whole new product category, upfiring speakers, as manufacturers race to catch the trend and complete the sphere of ‘amazing sound,’ from setups as minimal as a single soundbar. But how do these soundbars fare?