Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#61

Post by formerly_proven » Mon, May 17, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

ivraatiems wrote: post #35

vr46 wrote: post #12

Who knew I would be locked into Spotify not by the music quality, but by playlists, friends, apps using it, and their Discovery mechanisms. Apple and Tidal may have awesome quality, but apps like https://musicleague.app/ have gotten me through Lockdown, and it turns out that these value props are very strong. I always thought I would instantly switch to a service for its audio quality, but then again, I can also buy…

Agreed - Spotify's UI is bad and getting worse, and its quality is meh, but its discovery features are top notch and it has the biggest catalog. I have audiophile equipment - $900 MSRP Hifiman headphones, discrete DAC and amp - and I tried Tidal to see if I could hear a difference. 99% of the time, I can't... and Tidal's MQA format is questionable anyway. (Not sure about Apple's "ALAC" either.) I used a playlist impo…

ALAC and FLAC are technically very similar formats [1]. Both are bit-perfect. Compare with MQA which is utter garbage and has absolutely zero to do with losless. MQA is actually, objectively worse than 16 bit audio CDs. An abject failure backed by an aggressively anti-science company backed up by a bunch of lawyers.

[1] Both encode a PCM stream using linear prediction while storing the difference between the predictor's output and the actual samples. This allows recreating the samples with zero error when decompressing. It's functionally equivalent to .wav.gz.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#62

Post by yehaaa » Mon, May 17, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

cies wrote: post #23

From the article: > J Balvin said: [...] With Lossless, everything in the music is going to sound bigger and stronger but more importantly, it will be better quality. [...] There have been tests showing we cannot hear the difference between minimally lossy audio (e.g. mp3 320kbps) and lossless. But Balvin can. And it sounds "bigger and stronger". The extra quality of lossless is nice when mixing/remixing the sound, a…

The format is ALAC, it’s not proprietary but an open spec. Secondly Apple has been using AAC since forever which is a successor to mp3 and an MPEG standard.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#63

Post by mikestew » Mon, May 17, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

josteink wrote: post #18

> By default, Apple Music will automatically play Dolby Atmos tracks on all AirPods and Beats headphones with an H1 or W1 chip, as well as the built-in speakers in the latest versions of iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Apple TV seems oddly missing in that list. Edit: If anything is to be expected to be connected to a surround Atmos setup, it would be a TV-room audio-setup. Edit 2: Confirmed supported.

The fine print seems to have a slightly different story by my reading:

“How can I listen to Dolby Atmos music?

All Apple Music subscribers using the latest version of Apple Music on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV can listen to thousands of Dolby Atmos music tracks using any headphones (emphasis mine). When you listen with compatible Apple or Beats headphones, Dolby Atmos music plays back automatically when available for a song. For other headphones, go to Settings > Music > Audio and set Dolby Atmos to Always On. You can also hear Dolby Atmos music using the built‑in speakers on a compatible iPhone, iPad, MacBook Pro, or HomePod, or by connecting your Apple TV 4K to a compatible TV or audiovisual receiver.”

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#64

Post by aask_ » Mon, May 17, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #44

cies wrote: post #23

From the article: > J Balvin said: [...] With Lossless, everything in the music is going to sound bigger and stronger but more importantly, it will be better quality. [...] There have been tests showing we cannot hear the difference between minimally lossy audio (e.g. mp3 320kbps) and lossless. But Balvin can. And it sounds "bigger and stronger". The extra quality of lossless is nice when mixing/remixing the sound, a…

I have plastic shiny disks that are DRM free. They’re actually pretty great, lossless, and no monthly fees. They are called _Compact Discs_ and you can get them pretty cheap these days!

Well, there is that. But there's also the music produced by independent artists who release on YT. So much music isn't ever mastered to or printed on the cheap plastic magic mirrors.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#65

Post by bidirectional » Mon, May 17, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

capableweb wrote: post #2

Maybe I was reading it all too quickly but they never seem to outline the format they'll actually use for the lossless songs. Anyone happen to know? Edit: Seems they are using their own format ALAC, sad but not surprising

Why is it sad? It's a streaming service, I'm not sure why format would matter.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#66

Post by fullstop » Mon, May 17, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #44

cies wrote: post #23

From the article: > J Balvin said: [...] With Lossless, everything in the music is going to sound bigger and stronger but more importantly, it will be better quality. [...] There have been tests showing we cannot hear the difference between minimally lossy audio (e.g. mp3 320kbps) and lossless. But Balvin can. And it sounds "bigger and stronger". The extra quality of lossless is nice when mixing/remixing the sound, a…

I have plastic shiny disks that are DRM free. They’re actually pretty great, lossless, and no monthly fees. They are called _Compact Discs_ and you can get them pretty cheap these days!

I can't carry a few thousand of those with me at all times, though.

I hear what you're saying, but the convenience of a vast and portable library is compelling.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#67

Post by Glide » Mon, May 17, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #36

hundchenkatze wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's Dolby Atmos for Mobile Devices[0]. It does require extra processing, so maybe extra hardware, but it's not unique to Apple. [0] https://professional.dolby.com/tv/dolby-atmos-for-mobile-dev...

I’m not sure if this is answering any of my questions. Am I missing something?

You’re not...

I would think Apple TV + hdmi should do the trick. There doesn’t seem to be a technical reason this can’t be done seeing as atmos does work on Apple TV, but.... I would rather have my TV off when just having music on.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#68

Post by varispeed » Mon, May 17, 2021, 1:58 PM UTC

cies wrote: post #23

From the article: > J Balvin said: [...] With Lossless, everything in the music is going to sound bigger and stronger but more importantly, it will be better quality. [...] There have been tests showing we cannot hear the difference between minimally lossy audio (e.g. mp3 320kbps) and lossless. But Balvin can. And it sounds "bigger and stronger". The extra quality of lossless is nice when mixing/remixing the sound, a…

People don't know what to listen for. The compression artefacts may seem like artistic choice to people rather than a loss of quality. Once you know what to listen for, you can almost always tell the difference, even on lower quality listening devices.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#69

Post by Someone1234 » Mon, May 17, 2021, 1:58 PM UTC

alfalfasprout wrote: post #38

cies wrote: post #23

From the article: > J Balvin said: [...] With Lossless, everything in the music is going to sound bigger and stronger but more importantly, it will be better quality. [...] There have been tests showing we cannot hear the difference between minimally lossy audio (e.g. mp3 320kbps) and lossless. But Balvin can. And it sounds "bigger and stronger". The extra quality of lossless is nice when mixing/remixing the sound, a…

> There have been tests showing we cannot hear the difference between minimally lossy audio (e.g. mp3 320kbps) and lossless. But Balvin can. And it sounds "bigger and stronger". On the contrary, you can actually do these tests yourself ( https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/... ). I and many others running good high end gear can repeatedly score well on these tests. Of course, it's not only the…

> I and many others running good high end gear can repeatedly score well on these tests.

I, too, run high-end gear and cannot.

The problem scope isn't simply reproduction accuracy, it is also one of taste: Different compression can elevate/alter parts of the sound, and your opinion may not lean to the highest bit rate but rather some other coloring of the music.

The fact you've run this test "repeatedly" actually hurts your argument, since you may just be learning what to expect in your environment. The crux of the article/discussion is that people cannot blindly pick the highest quality, which they cannot (since the different colorings of the music are subjective anyway).

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#70

Post by dagmx » Mon, May 17, 2021, 1:58 PM UTC

crazypython wrote: post #55

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have plastic shiny disks that are DRM free. They’re actually pretty great, lossless, and no monthly fees. They are called _Compact Discs_ and you can get them pretty cheap these days!

Where can I buy CDs of popular music?

CDs of popular music are actually the easiest to find. (Target, Walmart or any big local equivalent will have the top charting artists stocked as CDs)

It's the more esoteric artists that have become increasingly difficult to get CDs for. Streaming is really a boon for anything outside the mainstream.