You’d be forgiven for thinking Dolby Atmos is the one and only audio format available for home theaters these days. It’s the only one that seems to get any marketing, even on devices that can only really process the format, not play it as intended. That $500 QLED you picked up at Costco isn’t going to project the sound of jet fighters overhead.
There are actually a variety of Dolby formats though, and that company has competition: DTS. If you want to branch out in what your home theater can handle, here’s what you need to know about the active DTS standards, and how you can make them work in your own setup.
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All the flavors of DTS you need to know
DTS Digital Surround
You might be wondering why I’m starting with surround sound, given that Dolby Stereo exists. The answer to that is twofold, the first half being that DTS was born in 1993, by which point Dolby’s surround-sound formats were already entrenched. Its creators had to hit the ground running — the oldest theatrical release with DTS audio is Jurassic Park. The other half is that despite the name, Digital Surround is simply optimized for 5.1-channel output. It can operate with fewer channels if it has to.
There’s not too much else to say about Digital Surround in a home theater context, except that it uses less compression than Dolby Digital. In fact, it can be presented in 20-bit quality, which is technically superior to the 16-bit fidelity of CDs. This was sometimes a detriment in the DVD era, so when discs did ship with DTS, they came with varying bitrates depending on how eager a company was to fit everything on the fewest discs possible. Typically, Digital Surround bitrates fall between 754kbps and 1.5Mbps, whereas comparable Dolby Digital is going to top out at 640kbps.
DTS-HD High Resolution and DTS-HD Master Audio
This is where things get a little more contemporary, not that you’ll be disappointed if a movie is in Digital Surround. DTS-HD High Resolution ups the channel limit to 7.1, and bitrates up to 6Mbps. It’s still compressed audio, but so clear that owners of high-end speakers are nitpicking if they complain.
For the people who insist on perfect fidelity, there’s Master Audio. Anything at that level is lossless, meaning there’s no difference in quality versus what a studio originally mastered a movie in, hence the name. You don’t need this. With Blu-ray offering ample storage to work with and Dolby posing a challenge with TrueHD, however, DTS is naturally going to go toe-to-toe.
It’s worth pointing out that both forms of DTS-HD are limited to Blu-ray, for all intents and purposes. They consume so much data (on top of 4K HDR) that they’re impractical to use on streaming services. Regardless, 754kbps is already twice as good as the high bitrate compression you’ll find on a music service like Spotify.
DTS:X
This is the most common format you’re going to see in marketing. It’s DTS’s challenge to Dolby Atmos, likewise serving up spatial audio. Spatial audio differs from older technologies in that it positions sound “objects” in 3D space, leading to a more accurate and immersive experience. Practically speaking, DTS:X supports more channels than you’ll ever need.
It’s important to note that like Atmos, DTS:X is served up in compressed form on streaming services. It’s only on Blu-ray that it’s going to be paired with DTS-HD, and whether you’ll get High Resolution or Master Audio will depend on how much disc space is available. If you want to experience both DTS:X and Master Audio at the same time, you’ll not only need a Blu-ray player, but an eARC-compatible speaker system. ARC just doesn’t have the bandwidth for lossless audio from any company.
What do you need to experience DTS in a home theater setup?
A set of limited options
You’ll need DTS-compatible speakers, and at least one device in your chain capable of decoding the format, whether it’s a soundbar, receiver, or TV. There’s a good chance you’ll have to rely on passthrough, which sends raw audio data to get around hardware limitations.
Why is that? Quite simply, DTS isn’t that well-supported. While companies like Sony, Hisense, and TCL offer compatible TVs, brands like LG and Samsung ignore it. The situation is better in the speaker world, but you’ll still need to doublecheck support. Dolby is so prevalent in the industry that companies are dropping DTS as an easy cost-cutting measure.
Studios and streaming services favor Dolby as well. There are so few services that offer up DTS:X, in fact, that the only reliable source for US viewers is Disney+, mostly through its IMAX Enhanced section. And while you can find DTS-ready Blu-rays and DVDs, it’s increasingly difficult (if not already impossible) to build a collection that doesn’t force you to use Atmos at some point. You shouldn’t expect to build a DTS-exclusive home theater in any respect.
