Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

I think the key thing has been enough processing for dynamic/real time spatial audio via HRTF. Despite being “just” audio, applying a HRTF can be pretty processing intensive, especially for a mobile device. Those binaural audio experiences were all pre-computed.

I have a pretty fancy stereo system that I bought when I really didn't have enough money to afford such things, and I do like it, but I feel like any quality difference that I hear when I'm playing lossless audio is largely psychosomatic. An mp3 or AAC with a high bit rate sounds pretty damn good, so it's fine for nearly anything.

All that being said, I still use FLAC for nearly everything for two reasons: 1) Since it's lossless, it makes a good "transit medium"; I can have some assurances that it's not going to degrade in quality with subsequent renders if I import the audio into a video editor and export it to 24 Bit FLAC.

2) Hard drive space is pretty cheap nowadays. I have a home streaming server that I set up to stream to my stereo (doesn't do any additional compression from the input source), and even if it is psychosomatic, I do like knowing that I have the highest quality possible. I'll admit it's silly, but the music sounds better psychologically because I know it's lossless, even if I realistically cannot tell a difference in a blind test.

> There have been tests showing we cannot hear the difference between minimally lossy audio (e.g. mp3 320kbps) and lossless.

Two things... CD quality (16 bit / 44.1 kHz stereo) was "big" in the eighties but it now makes for really tiny files. 1 TB harddisk and much more are common for consumers. Why are we still even arguing about 320 kbps mp3 when we can have provably bitperfect rips of our CDs, which can serve both as archive and for listening?

The second thing: from the other side of a big room I cannot tell the difference between a 100 dpi color printing of a painting and a 1200 dpi color printing of that same painting. Well... Even if I cannot tell the difference I do prefer to know I have the 1200 dpi print and not the 100 dpi one.

Why would I even take the risk, even I cannot consciously tell the difference, to have something of lesser quality?

mp3 was lots of fun in the Napster days when we were running 28.8 k baud modems and had 3.2 GB HDD. But nowadays I've got 1 TB HDDs... To me the mp3 ship has sailed and won't be missed. It's FLAC and only FLAC. CD quality everywhere. I don't own SACD (maybe I should) but got a lot of CDs. And FLACs are my CD in digital version. mp3s simply aren't.

And that's in 2021. I cannot imagine, say, in 2026. This "mp3 vs flac" argument is never ever going to go back in favor of mp3: as time passes the room it takes to store your music collection as FLAC keeps getting proportionally tinier and tinier.

I am not sure whether it has been improved, but back when the Ibiquity HD was being deployed, the codec actually synthesized sound above something like 5 to 8Khz at the receiver, all depending on the bitrate choices and band, AM having a lower overall available bitrate to work with.

Someone noted a song by the Bangles, which featured a little finger cymbal. (Two discs worn on a finger and thumb)

That sound was missing and or rendered poorly. Turns out it offers very little sound under 5Khz. The codec parameters were increased to address those few cases, but are still below 10Khz, I believe.

The other discussion was quality over choice. Fact is a full FM bitstream performed great. More than good enough to really enjoy in a car. Most people would trade the losses for lack of fuzz and noise present on analog RF.

"CD Quality" was, and today is not accurate at all in the technical sense, but the overall feel is more like a CD than it is analog media, so... that is what they went with.

However, being able to offer several streams meant multiple branding, commercial free streams to promote digital radio, and, and, and.

Mostly, that discussion resolved to choice being king over quality. Improving quality at the expense of choice = wasted bits. That is by far the dominant view in broadcast.

A little thought experiment explains why:

Say you have a radio, and you get two stations. One offers compelling content, but the quality is low. The other is amazing good quality, but is just not compelling.

Which do you listen to?

Given others find the same material compelling that you do, which do you believe they will listen to?

And that is why peak quality on broadcast is no longer a thing.

Streaming services can offer compelling and quality choices to a higher degree than broadcast can, which means generally higher quality, even when available bitrates are, or could be. comparable. But, if they are ever pinned, they will favor choice over quality in a pinch, because compelling content wins over quality nearly all the time.

I pretty much gave up on radio around this time too. Being able to carry a good music library around meant just using a car system as an output device.

For a time, I did enjoy live or daily broadcasts, talk, news, sports. But, those carry such a high commercial load, and when phones and data plans began to favor streaming, I switched completely.

...all of which is why I am not too current on how HD Radio performs today. Next time I rent a car, I will have to scan the dial to see what, if anything, has changed.

Theoretica Applied Physics and BACCH Labs audition this exact demo -- A/B test by actually hiring a quartet and alternating the musicians playing with the speakers silent and the musicians silently air-playing and with the speakers playing. With a perfect image you literally cannot hear the difference.

https://www.theoretica.us/ https://bacch.com/