Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

Post by lozf » Mon, May 17, 2021, 8:06 PM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #256

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.

Post by blackearl » Mon, May 17, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

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 "…

Post by tshaddox » Mon, May 17, 2021, 8:10 PM UTC

notyourwork wrote: post #485

tshaddox wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched from Apple Music to Spotify for around 12 months, starting before but mostly overlapping with the pandemic lockdowns. I found their playlists, auto-play features, and discovery better than Apple Music's. Spotify links are ubiquitous on social media and elsewhere, which is nice (although Apple isn't far off either). And their Spotify Connect ecosystem is pretty nice: I loved how I could click the speaker bu…

You can still do this today though its a bit indirect. > Your Library --> Artists --> Click artist --> Liked Songs. The changes to library these services have made for simplification in my opinion are the wrong direction. I want more controls on how to filter/sift through my library, NOT less. Edit: Also, we're slowly diluting the definition of album. The industry is going away from it because artist release frequenc…

Post by sdenton4 » Mon, May 17, 2021, 8:12 PM UTC

Grustaf wrote: post #498

simias wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not, what you need is model the way your ear handles sound coming from various locations then model this and reproduce it. It's like VR, but for your ears. That's how ASMR effectively works. If you want full immersion you can add head tracking so that the sound "rotates" around you when you move your head. I know that Apple offers that with their latest headphones. Admittedly in order to do this you need to…

> Of course not [you just need individual head related transfer functions for everyone and a fast DSP] I agree that it is probably possible in theory, but aren't we talking about actual equipment and recordings that people can buy?

Post by whyoh » Mon, May 17, 2021, 8:17 PM UTC

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.