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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

#241

Post by KozmoNau7 »

marcan_42 wrote: post #89
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…

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…

> "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."

I'll add to this that "high bitrate" for Opus can reasonably be considered as 128kbps or above, generally 160 or 192kbps are comfortably beyond what is needed to achieve audible transparency.

For anyone who's used to MP3 and just doing everything at -V0 or 320kbps, it's extremely impressive to hear how good Opus is, and how low bit rates you can get away with. Even at 24kbps it's serviceable for music, it sounds no worse than a slightly worn cassette tape.

It's a seriously impressive codec, both for speech and musical content.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#242

Post by SSLy »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #29
darksaints wrote: post #7

Unfortunately, you can't buy it. Only rent.

(I originally posted a reply that remarked that we can buy Apple Lossless music from iTMS - however I did a quick check and to my surprise Apple still doesn't offer DRM-free lossless content on iTMS: you can only get Apple Lossless by ripping your own CDs. The "Apple Digital Masters" products are not actually "masters": they're still compressed with lossy encoding: https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/7/20758633/apple-dig…

It's not like Tidal is good either: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRjsu9-Vznc

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#243

Post by crazygringo »

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…

> Either you keep your head stationary and get the non-Spatial Audio sound (i.e. what they optimized for 90%+ of their audience)

I literally have no idea what you're talking about.

Using Spatial Audio on my AirPods Pro is insanely better, and still very much spatial, even without actively moving my head.

First, the sound appears to be coming from outside of my head, rather than between my ears -- no "headphone fatigue". It's vastly more comfortable and realistic.

Second, while dialog comes from straight ahead, sound effects like doors opening, cars honking etc. clearly come from angles, and things like wind come from all around, like an actual surround sound experience.

Third, because the dialog tracks are separated from other sounds spatially, the dialog is easier to understand as well. I used to sometimes put on subtitles for certain material to understand fully in normal stereo -- I never have to anymore with spatial audio.

> Taking traditional multi-source audio (Dolby/Atmos/etc) and jamming it into stereo is old tech

I've used all that old tech too, and for whatever reason Apple's spatial audio is leagues better. I'm not sure if it's something about being optimized for known headphone characteristics, or the head tracking, or something clever with the inward-facing microphones, or all of the above, but it's nothing like that old tech.

> now want to work backwards into what it may be useful for.

It's useful for listening, end of story. I'm honestly mystified why you think it's a gimmick. I can't even imagine going back to listening to movies and TV without it. (I project from my iPad onto a screen, connect my AirPods Pro, and it's basically like being in an actual cinema, but without waking anyone else up at night from booming surround sound.)

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#244

Post by 72deluxe »

PaulHoule wrote: post #173
solarmist wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but commercial spatial audio is in its infancy. We’re maybe in the 1920’s if you compare it to video. So as the techniques expands and people adjust and both sides gain experience we’ll be able to compensate for the perceived shortcomings by exaggerating effectively to make it seem better than our natural spacial hearing.

To get there people have to have a clear perception of what "the gap" is between what is and what's possible -- like the error signal in a negative feedback loop. In reality people will think a service sounds better if Dr. Dre, Jay-Z or Neil Young is behind it. If people watch a bad orchestra playing in good clothes or they watch a good orchestra play in bad clothes they'll likely think the well dressed orchestra sou…

Spot on about the orchestra. A chap used to know used to work for Midas and said that visuals affect perception of quality significantly. They had a problem with a digital desk where the UI was running at very slow framerates and the customer complained that it sounded terrible. If they turned around and listened without looking at the screen they thought it sounded absolutely fine - merely seeing the flickery slow framerates made them believe it SOUNDED terrible.

And you're right about the inability to improve. Try reading up above where people are arguing that they can't hear the difference between a WAV and a 128 kbps MP3....!! Either their hearing is absolutely shot or they are listening to silence.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#245

Post by jorvi »

unfamiliar wrote: post #209
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. Every time this comes up someone says this. I've never seen anyone actually doing it. e.g. a video of setting up a double blind test of this and someone actually passing consistently. When I've challenged people IRL who claim the same thing the response is always "Well, obviously I can't do it with any of the audio gear that eith…

Not only that, biology is also against them. Somewhere between 25-30 years of age, your hearing already dips 17KHz.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#246

Post by thrdbndndn »

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…

Can people who claimed that they can distinguish 320Kbps MP3 and lossless start posting their ABX log already?

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#247

Post by marcan_42 »

spawnthink wrote: post #183
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…

Not sure how reflective that test is, since my perception is already primed by noticing the loading time per sample

If they are delivering a compressed file and an uncompressed file, that already disqualifies the test. The only way to do ABX comparisons is to round-trip one version through the encoder and back to the original format. Anything else introduces uncontrolled dependencies (e.g. on a particular device's decoder implementation) and side channels that unblind the experiment (like loading time).

This is a common mistake people make, e.g. comparing 48k vs 96k files. What you need to do is take a 96k original, downsample it to 48k, upsample it again to 96k (both using very high quality algorithms), then compare it to the original 96k file again. Otherwise you're relying on your playback software or hardware's resampling algorithm, and I guarantee that's a compromise between quality and performance, and not valid for a scientific test.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#248

Post by yehaaa »

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.

To increase interoperability with existing libraries for example. The user group that has some kind of Apple device, and thus potentialy ALAC encoded audio is quite large.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#249

Post by sbaildon »

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 "deluxe" versions; split albums and intersperse tracks between both; and duplicate songs in albums.

The albums usually still exist in Apple Music—I just have to go out of my way to remove the mangled music and re-add the album. Problem is, there is no warning or notification it happened.

Examples:

[1] https://pasteboard.co/K2kdUN3.png This album is totally messed up. Multiple track 3 with different titles, one unavailable, missing tracks that were re-added to my library as singles.

[2] https://pasteboard.co/K2keFBV.png One song pulled out into a greatest hits compilation and duplicated

[3] https://pasteboard.co/K2kfc0b.png All tracks, except 1, removed. The album still exists in Apple Music.

[4] https://pasteboard.co/K2kfBTR.png Originally added the original version of Camp by Childish Gambino to my library—here it's split between deluxe and basic, with tracks arbitrarily mixed between both.

[...and many more]

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#250

Post by kwanbix »

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…

There are a very small % of people that can. You can check HydrogenAudio's double blind test for explanation on how to do a proper test.

https://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Blind_test

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