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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

#251

Post by crazygringo »

ihuman wrote: post #232
crazygringo wrote: post #223

Does anyone have any idea how spatial audio will work orientation-wise with music? Existing spatial audio on iOS+AirPods puts the center channel (dialog) coming from your device, which makes sense since you're actively looking at it. But I listen to music while walking around the house. I'm constantly changing orientation. Does this mean the center channel will always be directly in front of me and therefore the "ban…

> Existing spatial audio on iOS+AirPods puts the center channel (dialog) coming from your device, which makes sense since you're actively looking at it It doesn't do this directly. It resets the center when you keep your head still. Your head stays still when you're watching a video on your phone, so it sets the center to where your phone is. Try looking away from your phone after it centers the audio on your phone.…

Yes, that's true, thanks -- I was just simplifying. (In fact, it's why spatial audio works when I watch content from my iPad on my projector.)

So let me rephrase: I'm often listening to music while constantly turning, like prepping in the kitchen, vacuuming the house, etc.

Movies can rely on you looking at the screen and figuring out your orientation. If you're actively moving about, what will the music's orientation be?

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#252

Post by hundchenkatze »

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?

I meant to say that if you device supports Dolby Atmos then it should work. This spatial audio from Apple is just Dolby Atmos, not some special apple thing (besides being streamed via the Apple Music service).

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#253

Post by squarefoot »

StavrosK wrote: post #240
squarefoot wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lossless, and possibly upsampling before editing, but high end gear probably does that by default. As for bitrate compression, although I have a good musical ear, I can't find any appreciable difference from a high bitrate (320) mp3 and the corresponding lossless track, so no problems using mp3s to listen to music. I also managed to resample my entire portable playlist (yeah, making mp3s out of mp3s, I know in some c…

As far as I know, mp3 frames have a "volume" field, which is what mp3gain changes to losslessly change the volume of the entire track. Could you not take advantage of that too?

The problem is the huge difference in dynamics between "old" and "new" recordings (that is, not just their maximum level) which makes really hard if not impossible to have more tracks sounding near the same level.

This Wikipedia article about loudness wars explains the problem in details. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#254

Post by thrdbndndn »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #88
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…

> Of course, it's not only the compression that's at stake-- it's also the mastering quality. HN threads on lossless music so often descend into "well, you couldn’t hear the difference". But historically a key reason for people to prefer e.g. SACD releases of recordings is not because one can hear the extra frequencies of this format, but because the SACD release – being targeted at people with a good stereo and sile…

What you said is totally true but it's not relevant here.

Apple already have all the lossless files on their server. Just that before they converted them to lossy format before sending to the user, and now they serve the original.

There is no new master / new re-release involved in all these.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#255

Post by floatingatoll »

moogly wrote: post #175
yehaaa wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The format is ALAC, it’s not proprietary but an open spec True. No one else bothers with it though, because why should they when FLAC exists? That makes ALAC, in practice, largely an Apple-only format.

I've been storing my FLAC files as ALAC for iTunes compatibility for the past decade. Max.app on macOS, while old and creaky looking, does a fine job of transcoding them and maintaining tags.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#256

Post by layer8 »

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.

Indeed, here is such a test: https://gxip23wuyntw2qbzp2f7yfke6y-ac5fdsxevxq4s5y-www-heise...

Even trained listeners using high-end equipment weren’t able to distinguish between CD and 256 kbps MP3 in double-blind tests.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#257

Post by gonehome »

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…

Main thing I miss from Spotify is the discover weekly playlist.

I started using Apple Music because Spotify’s attempts to ruin podcasts by making them exclusive to their platform irritated me.

Discover weekly is a really great thing though and Apple Music’s stuff isn’t as good.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#258

Post by eh9 »

andybak wrote: post #137
marcan_42 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is largely because MP3 is a crappy, old format. Try high-bitrate Opus on most samples and you're a lot less likely to get above-chance results on an ABX test, pretty much ever, at high bitrates. Ultimately though, lossy compression is always program-dependent ("program" here means the song, not the app). The encoders use psychoacoustic algorithms, and there is no way to prove they will perform well on all sample…

MP3 with a good compressor and reasonable bitrate has repeatedly shown to be indistinguishable from uncompressed. The reason to avoid mp3 is to be able to squeeze the bitrate and save on storage bandwidth - but that has mattered less year on year. I'm personally baffled and irritated by this move from Apple. They'll be selling healing crystals next.

While I can understand the frustration, it’s worth noting that they’re not increasing the price of subscription and giving people additional options. To me, it’s more like trying to tell people with 4K screens to watch 8K content, but what do I know.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#259

Post by dagmx »

Someone1234 wrote: post #188
dagmx wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure agreeing with my point backs up what you're saying. I'm saying we turn our heads regularly, so the Spatial audio works well most of the time.

I am agreeing that you cannot keep your head completely still, and then pointing out that that fact means Spatial Audio is constantly causing audio adjustments with seemingly no basis which degrades the listening experience. The argument that Spatial Audio makes more tiny adjustments is an argument against Spatial Audio, not an argument for it.

Why do you think it degrades the listening experience?

The mixes are already made for surround sound. It's not arbitrary, so not "no basis" like you say. It's taking a surround mix and anchoring the audio sources.

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