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Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

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Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#191

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

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've done blind tests and I can tell if I try really hard but I wouldn't even say that the mp3 sounds worse, just different. I focus on hi hats.

I do collect lossless audio for archival reasons and the ability to convert from a non lossy source.

I believe that high bitrate audio is entirely bullshit though- as Chris Montgomery has shown:

https://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#192

Post by davidwparker »

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!

Anecdotally, I haven't bought a single CD since the Sony rootkit fiasco. I had bought one, got rootkit'd at the time, and vowed not to buy another. I don't regret not buying any more.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#193

Post by Someone1234 »

solarmist wrote: post #131
Someone1234 wrote: post #46

This 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…

The cart before the horse doesn’t sound very Apple like. They’re the kind to keep it private and mess with it until they find a use for it and get it working very well. Instead they’d just find a way to make the battery bigger because they know people care a ton about that. Also, everyone keeps talking about consciously moving your head around. Record yourself doing something on your computer for 5 minutes and watch…

> The cart before the horse doesn’t sound very Apple like. They’re the kind to keep it private and mess with it until they find a use for it and get it working very well.

Force Touch.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#194

Post by clydethefrog »

schmorptron wrote: post #152

Wow, I've been using Apple Music on trial to see how it's different from spotify and with this news + Spotify now selling pseudo-ads in the forms of playlist and recommendation algorithm placements for less artist royalties I'll stay with Apple for sure. One thing that really differentiates it is that the curated playlists seem a lot more cared for than with Spotify. I've found so many of the pre-made playlists that…

This has been my reason to switch to. Apple Music feels more "orderly". They often have detailed essays from album releases and I love that you can filter by label - something that is pretty handy if you like electronic underground music.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#195

Post by Loughla »

CannisterFlux wrote: post #121
PaulHoule wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Converting files to Ogg Vorbis a long time ago was something I regret. There is nothing special about the compression/quality as compared to a quality MP3 encoder or Apple's AAC encoder (maybe the only quality AAC encoder) but you are guaranteed to have to re-encode if you want to play on your sports watch, in your car, play on your smart speakers, etc.)

Even on bog-standard Android, Ogg files tend not to be as well supported by random music programs compared to MP3. I re-ripped a few CDs in MP3 that I'd also foolishly done to ogg just have them play gapless in VLC I think it was (might have been some other app, I forget now), otherwise there was an annoying pause between tracks that had seemless blending between them. And another app I use to slow down or pitch shif…

>otherwise there was an annoying pause between tracks that had seemless blending between them.

Oh christ, this is my least favorite thing about newer audio formats. Some of the old albums were meant to be heard in one stretch; there are no gaps between tracks, because you're hearing a story. Then comes mp3 and digital audio, with a second pause between them. It just kills me.

I get accused of being a hipster by my family. I just want to hear the story!

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#196

Post by diimdeep »

mlacks wrote: post #164
jayd16 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sony is working on a version that uses an image of your ear to find a better match. They talked about it in a few PS5 talks.

Its out. WMX-100M4s and a tidal/ deezer/ nugs subscription are all you need. https://electronics.sony.com/360-reality-audio

I bet that personalized HRTF is locally encrypted and can't be reused outside these services. is anyone know for sure?

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#197

Post by marcan_42 »

andybak wrote: post #180
marcan_42 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> MP3 with a good compressor and reasonable bitrate has repeatedly shown to be indistinguishable from uncompressed. With most samples, yes. The issue, as I said, is that psychoacoustic codecs are basically heuristic by definition, and so you can pretty much always find counterexamples. It's possible to say 320kbps MP3 is indistinguishable from uncompressed for most samples; it is not possible to say it is indistingui…

> it is not possible to say it is indistinguishable for all samples, present and future. Are there likely to be real-world cases where this happens - and the effect is detrimental enough to actually matter to anyone? Surely we're debating "when is it good enough for anyone sane and reasonable?" not "when could a hypothetical oracle be fooled 100%"?

It is useful to make the distinction, because some people do want to have the highest available quality (and this is not, inherently, a bad thing) - having a hard line that separates out the minor, but nonzero effects, from the pure snake oil, is useful.

And as I said, really, the main reason to avoid lossy compression at this point is due to generational loss and post processing. Lossy compression should be considered a final processing step - what you do to store music that is then going to be delivered directly to a listener, unaltered. If you're going to do anything else, you'd do much better with a lossless version.

That is not to say, of course, that if all you have is a lossy version, it is a major problem :-)

For the record, my lossy format of choice for e.g. putting stuff on my phone is 96kbps Opus. Even that much is excellent for casual listening. But I much prefer to keep lossless FLACs as my primary archival storage - not just because that way I can take advantage of better compression formats as they come (e.g. how I moved from ~130k Vorbis to ~96k Opus), but also because compression makes a massive difference with certain kinds of processing and editing which I sometimes enjoy doing. All the psychoacoustics go out the window if you start doing things like subtracting instrumental mixes from full mixes to get vocal tracks out.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#198

Post by ivraatiems »

nceqs3 wrote: post #190
ivraatiems wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

@Spotify. Why is there no 2FA yet? Why can't I customize my homepage? Why can't I have unlimited artists on my recent searches?

They're busy redesigning the UI so desktop is more like mobile, but only in ways that make it slightly worse.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#199

Post by capableweb »

websites420 wrote: post #187
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

It’s sad that Apple is using an open source codec for their streaming service? Why?

No, it's not sad that Apple is using an open source codec, it's sad that Apple specifically created ALAC instead of just using FLAC that already exists. Instead of building hardware that can efficiently play FLAC, they created their own format in order to promote harder lock in to their walled garden. Fine, probably makes business-sense, but as someone who was brought up with the mindset of an open internet and web, it's sad to see Apple continue to fight against open standards.

Friendly reminder of the site guidelines:

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

Specifically, I never said I'm sad that Apple is using an open source codec. I specifically said I'm sad that they are using ALAC instead of the already existing open standards.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#200

Post by ksec »

Someone1234 wrote: post #69
alfalfasprout wrote: post #38

Earlier 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…

I think the Key point would be, could you hear any difference in those test?

If you could, then yes there is a quality differential, rather you got it right or wrong may be subject to taste. But at least we established there are differences.

But when we say 128Kbps are sort of CD Quality or CD being no-difference to 320Kbps mp3, they generally refers to vast majority of consumers, not audio experts. I think most consumers could tell the difference between 256kbps AAC and 128Kbps MP3. But beyond that it sort of goes into consumer dont give a damn territory. Although most Pros would want the highest quality possible and there are no reason why we cant deliver lossless with today's infrastructure.

I am wondering if there is a market for an even cheaper Music Streaming Services that target lower quality, 128Kbps music.

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