Spatial Audio
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Spatial Audio
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Re: Spatial Audio
#2I listened to the tracks. I like the spatial versions better. What are you going to do?
Re: Spatial Audio
#3I listened to the tracks. I like the spatial versions better. What are you going to do?
Lots of people like gimmicky things better, just like lots of people like to turn up the bass and treble all the way. But lots of us (and I'm a musician and audio engineer) appreciate high quality balanced distortion free audio, and want to hear the music the way the original artist intended. Just because you can make sounds bounce around in space doesn't make the music better, especially if the original recording wasn't conceived that way in the first place. I would always prefer listening to the original intent of the artist.
Re: Spatial Audio
#4I listened to the tracks. I like the spatial versions better. What are you going to do?
Lots of people like gimmicky things better, just like lots of people like to turn up the bass and treble all the way. But lots of us (and I'm a musician and audio engineer) appreciate high quality balanced distortion free audio, and want to hear the music the way the original artist intended. Just because you can make sounds bounce around in space doesn't make the music better, especially if the original recording wa…
> I would always prefer listening to the original intent of the artist.
I always prefer listening to the thing that sounds better to me. I don't care about what the artist wants.
Re: Spatial Audio
#5I listened to the tracks. I like the spatial versions better. What are you going to do?
What speakers did you listen back on?
I don't know anybody with a setup to play these back and I know some crazy audiophiles.
Re: Spatial Audio
#6For a more balanced perspective, read the Verge's review. [1] My experience so far matches theirs: the impact varies by album/track, and in some cases, the lossless version remains better.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/9/22525028/apple-music-spati...
Re: Spatial Audio
#7Spatial audio per se is not a scam, but its effective simulation is actually potentially rather complicated and I too worry about its successful implementation by Apple… Funnily enough, I had plans for a system to implement spatial audio using smartphones/headphones originally back in 2006 and more recently wrote an app for iOS trying to implement it (…prototype/demo. that I made worked pretty well - used what I learnt working on games/interactive audio design…) I had toyed with starting a business myself over the years but life got in the way sort of… Before all this was announced I even (naively) wrote to Apple sort of roundabout-ly trying for a job in order to improve their spatial audio offering, believe it or not, but only got a polite sort of: ‘don’t call us we’ll call you’ kind of reply, which was understandable… (…don’t be thinking differently! :) Some students I taught/supervised/wrote a brief for a project of’s up at the university here subsequently started a company making a 3D binaural audio plugin thing - the business was bought by Facebook, whete they were afterwards employed implementing spatial audio into some of their offerings also… Anyhow, don’t want to bore anyone, but happy to answer any questions about it (do actually know what I’m talking about more or less in this area, as opposed to most stuff I read on HN.! :) P.S. Jens Blauert wrote (what used to be, at least) the standard reference on this:
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/spatial-hearing-revised-editi...
Re: Spatial Audio
#8I listened to the tracks. I like the spatial versions better. What are you going to do?
What speakers did you listen back on? I don't know anybody with a setup to play these back and I know some crazy audiophiles.
From footnote 8 on https://www.apple.com/apple-music/
> Works with AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, BeatsX, Beats Solo3 Wireless, Beats Studio3, Powerbeats3 Wireless, Beats Flex, Powerbeats Pro, and Beats Solo Pro.
Am I missing something?
Re: Spatial Audio
#9I listened to the tracks. I like the spatial versions better. What are you going to do?
Lots of people like gimmicky things better, just like lots of people like to turn up the bass and treble all the way. But lots of us (and I'm a musician and audio engineer) appreciate high quality balanced distortion free audio, and want to hear the music the way the original artist intended. Just because you can make sounds bounce around in space doesn't make the music better, especially if the original recording wa…
Speaking as a musician, I agree that there is a level of respect required for the original mix. Though, in the case of Spacial Audio, this isn't a matter of "gimmicky" sound, this is headphones reproducing the effect that loudspeakers already have. This isn't new and has been in audio engineering circles for a long while (https://goodhertz.co/canopener-studio/) but Apple has added 6dof head tracking which makes the effect truly awe-inspiring.
Re: Spatial Audio
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of people like gimmicky things better, just like lots of people like to turn up the bass and treble all the way. But lots of us (and I'm a musician and audio engineer) appreciate high quality balanced distortion free audio, and want to hear the music the way the original artist intended. Just because you can make sounds bounce around in space doesn't make the music better, especially if the original recording wa…
Speaking as a musician, I agree that there is a level of respect required for the original mix. Though, in the case of Spacial Audio, this isn't a matter of "gimmicky" sound, this is headphones reproducing the effect that loudspeakers already have. This isn't new and has been in audio engineering circles for a long while ( https://goodhertz.co/canopener-studio/ ) but Apple has added 6dof head tracking which makes the…
I just noticed that the author wasn't using the AirPods Pro / Max which Spacial Audio was designed in tandem with. No wonder they didn't find it impressive and are calling it a scam.
TBH, I'm sad I wasted my time reading such an uninformed opinion piece.