I guess this is a response to Amazon Music HD, and soon Spotify HiFi. I have been waiting for Spotify HiFi since the Feb announcement...
Any of these use FLAC? Or does everyone invent their own wheel?
Amazon uses FLAC.
Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
101–110 of 717 posts
Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#102This is included/no additional cost which is fantastic. I do wonder if in the longer term if Apple's Spatial Audio with "dynamic head tracking" isn't the next 3D TVs/3D Content i.e. a gimmick. Taking traditional multi-source audio (Dolby/Atmos/etc) and jamming it into stereo is old tech, it doesn't work particularly well but is cheap to make/consume, thus mostly harmless. The new Spatial Audio is using gyroscopes to…
> I do wonder … if Apple's Spatial Audio with "dynamic head tracking" isn't the next 3D TVs/3D Content…
But first, back in 1972, there was Quadrophonic. Twice as good as stereo!
Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 hur…
Why does any of this matter? The point of a blind ABX test (and the whole question) is to see whether you can tell the difference between two formats. If you can, you can. Personally, I stop being able to tell somewhere around 200 kbit MP3s (with cheap equipment), anything above that is wasted space.
You can run the tests as much as you want, if the hypothesis is that "people can't tell the difference between lossless and 320 kbit MP3", even one person demonstrating that they can, disproves the entire hypothesis.
Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sure other music services like Spotify will match Apple Music's lossless quality in order to keep competing for the audiophile market. Personally, lossless quality just sounds like a great way to blow through my data caps even faster. I'm sure some will love it, I question whether it's worth the extra bandwidth.
Spotify have it in the works, for release later this year. https://newsroom.spotify.com/2021-02-22/five-things-to-know-...
" Spotify HiFi will deliver music in CD-quality, lossless audio format to your device and Spotify Connect-enabled speakers".
So they will stream some DRM-ed wav files ?
Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#105I don't believe it. If I read that right they claim that they can deliver "spatial" audio via headphones using a multi-channel/object-based Dolby Atmos (as opposed to a binaural recording or something that else that is mixed for two channels ahead of time) For years there has been talk about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function and for years I have tried demos that are unimpressive, particular…
There's a questionable assumption in the HRTF article, namely that the transfer function is the same (or similar) for different people in different environments. I don't think the same HRTF would sound convincing indoors and outdoors, even. Let alone differences in ear shapes and sizes.
That assumption is baked into almost all the implementations, except for some which take measurements of your ears.
To be fair I haven't tried one of those systems, but few people ever have and few people ever will because:
1. It's a hassle to measure your ears
2. All the problems with distortion wrecking timbre will still be there.
Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sure other music services like Spotify will match Apple Music's lossless quality in order to keep competing for the audiophile market. Personally, lossless quality just sounds like a great way to blow through my data caps even faster. I'm sure some will love it, I question whether it's worth the extra bandwidth.
Spotify have it in the works, for release later this year. https://newsroom.spotify.com/2021-02-22/five-things-to-know-...
> Premium subscribers in select markets will be able to upgrade their sound quality to Spotify HiFi
This sounds like it'll be an additional cost (like it is with Tidal), as opposed to Apple Music. Also I really can't think of a reason why it'd be region-locked.
But anyways, been hoping for this for years and will definitely switch if I'm not geo-locked out of it. I've experimented a lot with FLAC and 320 kbps and I can clearly notice the difference in my mid 20s with a couple of hundred euros worth of audio setup.
Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
When you say "score well" on that test, what does that mean? From the marketing around lossless, they make it sound like most folks will get 6 out of 6. I've got good monitors and good hearing (in the audiology sense), and I can mostly rule out the 128kbps, but it's a tossup between 320 and lossless.
It really depends on the encoder and song; I think the vast majority of people would have a very hard time getting above-chance on an ABX test vs a properly encoded MP3 at 320kbps, but I would not discount specific instances where things fall over and it still introduces artifacts that you can learn to recognize. Lossy compression is, unfortunately, not predictable in this sense, so there are always corner cases (or even outright bugs in encoders).
Here's one result which lines up pretty much with what I'd expect - if you get lucky with very specific songs/styles, you can pick out a 320kbps mp3, just barely, with good playback hardware.
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/abx-test-of-320kbps-vs-flac-...
Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#108I don't believe it. If I read that right they claim that they can deliver "spatial" audio via headphones using a multi-channel/object-based Dolby Atmos (as opposed to a binaural recording or something that else that is mixed for two channels ahead of time) For years there has been talk about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function and for years I have tried demos that are unimpressive, particular…
Sure, but commercial spatial audio is in its infancy. We’re maybe in the 1920’s if you compare it to video. So as the techniques expands and people adjust and both sides gain experience we’ll be able to compensate for the perceived shortcomings by exaggerating effectively to make it seem better than our natural spacial hearing.
Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#109Apple, what I heard you say is that too few 512GB iPhones are selling.
Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#110Is there any open source spatial audio thing out there? Or is everything just some proprietary magic with a brand like Dolby?