More than a year ago, article titled “Blu-ray “pure” audio: a format for the future?” raised the inquiry regarding whether Blu-ray represents the future format for audio..
When is it today?
For a start, announcements of forthcoming releases are on the increase, with flagship albums such as :
Dire Straits – Brothers in Arms
Elton John and Brandi Carlile – Who Believes In Angels
Roxy Music / Avalon
Prince and the Revolution – Purple Rain
In just over a year, more and more albums have been released in Blu-ray format, featuring the Dolby Atmos track in Lossless Dolby Digital TrueHD format.
But also, by offering a stereo track without dynamic compression, as with Tears For Fears’ “Songs for a Nervous Planet” or Ultravox’s “Lament”, thus proposing an audiophile approach to this medium.
Also worthy of note is the superb Steven Wilson – The overview, a reference in terms of Dolby Atmos mixing.
Often in special, limited editions from SDE, or more and more widely distributed editions (Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stone…).
Just take a look at some of the titles released since June 2023 to see the diversity and the presence of some very well-known singers and bands:
- Pet Shop Boys “Nonetheless”
- With The Pineapple Thief “It Leads To This”, we realized that bluray was the most audiophile medium, offering the best audio quality.
- Pink Floyd “Animals”
- Paul Young “No Parlez”
- Mark Knopfler “One Deep River”
- John Williams “John Williams in Tokyo”
- Alphaville’s “Forever Young”
- David Gilmour “Luck and Strange”
- Steven Wilson “The Harmony Codex”
- Pink Floyd “The Dark Side Of The Moon”
- The Rolling Stones “Hackney Diamonds”
- Peter Gabriel “i/o”
- Mike Oldfield “Tubular Bells”
- Serge Gainsbourg “L’homme à tête de chou”
- The Alan Parsons Project “Pyramid”
- Ultravox “Lament “
- The Cure “Songs of A Lost World”
- Simple Minds “New Gold Dream (81–82–83–84)”
- …
This is not the case for all albums, but the trend continues.
In parallel, there is also an alternative distribution of the Dolby Atmos track in the Lossless Dolby Digital TrueHD format, with dematerialized music sales sites such as:
https://shop.2l.no, https://immersiveaudioalbum.com, https://www.nativedsd.com
For example
The Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio is back with a new album, “A Shade Of Blue”.
Madeleine Peyroux – Let’s Walk
The big winner is the Dolby Digital TrueHD Atmos format, and some editions also feature an uncompressed dynamic stereo track, providing the audiophile quality required for stereo and Atmos music reproduction.
We’re still a long way from widespread distribution, but we can only hope that the spread of Dolby Atmos in Lossless and stereo without loudness war continues to develop, whether in physical Blu-ray or dematerialized formats.
And who knows, maybe one day a streaming service will be available with the Dolby Atmos TrueHD format. And for stereo with or without loudness war!
The industry have had no choice but to adopt this.
Technology is allowing fans to demix and make DIY surround mixes –
Im hoping Blu ray audio discs and Blu ray players become the norm.
Great website by the way