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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

#331

Post by taylodl »

StrictDabbler wrote: post #136
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Absolutely agreed. People spend so much time arguing about whether we're "past the limits of human perception" on sound or video. They want to quote Nyquist and check frequencies. Spend a million dollars on audio equipment. Turn on your speakers, play some chamber music in insane multi-channel high-res audio, and invite a friend over. Your friend does not think you hired a string quartet. Your friend thinks you have…

Meanwhile I'm listening the output of an amplifier playing a distorted guitar. I might listen to an acoustic guitar, and there might be a small horn section. Of course there's going to be drums. So it's super-simple to tell if it's live or a recording - the volume levels are going to be insanely different!

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#332

Post by Hippocrates »

Reading the comments on this (on macrumors and Reddit as well) has been funny. Some people seem thrilled with the quality options. Others point out that the difference is indiscernible without xyz equipment. Anywho, this seems objectively better than what spotify and tidal are offering, and is free. I’m happy with that. Very excited for the spatial audio in music. The way it works in video is mind blowing.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#333

Post by numpad0 »

objclxt wrote: post #96
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!

> They’re actually pretty great, lossless CDs aren't lossless unless the material was recorded at or below 16 bit/44.1kHz. You can argue whether the difference is perceptible - some blind studies suggest not - but this fact is what led to a variety of semi-obscure audiophile disc formats that offered higher sampling rates ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Audio_CD ).

OT but since there are tons of professionals and audiophiles here - do anyone notice what can only be called CD artifact? There seems to be something "wrong" with CD that no other formats has, digital or analog.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#334

Post by PaulHoule »

Loughla wrote: post #195
CannisterFlux wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fa…

Dull tools and people who don't care.

"Good enough" can be the enemy of "correct".

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#335

Post by [deleted] »

mistersys wrote: post #328

It's weird, the only reason I can't use Apple Music is because it doesn't sync between devices. Apple being the company it is, it's just crazy to me that I can't pickup listening where I left off on my phone once I open my laptop. Aside: Also there's a ton of bugs, very poor job on the QA side of Apple Music Spotify has designed this feature amazingly. Sometimes, I wonder why companies don't steal good ideas from eac…

[deleted]

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#336

Post by infensus »

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…

Though I generally agree, one ridiculous thing Spotify does is suggesting new releases by just matching the artist's name to your history. Not rarely I get some new releases from a completely different artist just because they have the same name

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#337

Post by fullstop »

reaperducer wrote: post #312
fullstop wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you have to have a place to keep thousands of CDs. Personally, I find that my time is worth $10/month to not do that.

Until your streaming service gets sold, goes out of business, "pivots," decides you or your worldviews aren't trendy, thinks you're a hacker, screws up your billing, drops support for your device, or any of the hundreds of other reasons the music suddenly stops.

Sorry, I am just not that paranoid. I had cassettes until the late 90s, CDs until the mid-2000s, and Spotify since then.

Spotify isn't going anywhere.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#338

Post by inapis »

unfamiliar wrote: post #268
sbaildon wrote: post #249

Apple can add feature after feature, but if Music continues to split albums without warning, it's close to useless. I can't curate a music library when I can't rely on my music not being jumbled around. Dropping music for licensing issues is one thing, but messing with metadata is beyond frustrating. For arbitrary reasons, Apple Music will: remove songs from albums and re-add them to your library as the "single" or "…

> Apple can add feature after feature, but if Music continues to [random issue most people have never encountered], it's close to useless. I've started to feel like "Apple Music as a music library" was really only intended as a bridge for people like you and me that were reluctant to abandon their obsessively curated their music library for the brave new world of streaming music. After a few years of it my listening…

I abandoned my music library after I went to Apple Music. But 5 years later I'm going back. The licensing issues and split albums OP mentioned have basically annoyed the hell out of me. Quite a lot of old music from my childhood is basically gone for good from Apple Music/Spotify. I have a smart playlist which basically lists all tracks which are no longer available on Apple Music and it has a 7 day playtime. Quite a good chunk of my library is basically greyed out and when these albums return they are basically messed up, if not outright replaced with other versions.

The reliability and simplicity of my own music library can't come back soon enough. I'll still keep AM and Spotify for discovering new music though.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#339

Post by Forbo »

yingbo wrote: post #290
moogly wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

As mentioned above, ALAC is an open source format, which has all benefits as other open source format e.g. FLAC.

> all benefits as other open source format e.g. FLAC.

Except adoption. FLAC is much more widely supported, so why opt for ALAC?

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#340

Post by bjornlouser »

davidwparker wrote: post #192
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!

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.

News to me, thanks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...

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