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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

#431

Post by babypuncher »

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…

I buy FLAC so that I can easily convert my music to other formats without making 2nd generation lossy copies. Being able to convert my entire library to AAC, pre-apply my ReplayGain data, and shove it on to my iPhone is real handy.

This just seems like a waste of bandwidth for streaming though.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#433

Post by eecc »

simias wrote: post #374
coliveira wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be true about popular music, because this is how we came to know this style of music - live performances (without proper sound engineering) sound worse. It is completely the opposite for classical music. There's still no way to replicate the sound quality of being close to an orchestra.

>There's still no way to replicate the sound quality of being close to an orchestra. That's why I always tend to bail out of audiophile discussion but I'll bite: why? What's so special about the soundwaves going into your ears when you sit close to an orchestra that couldn't be reproduced with good audio equipment? If you're talking about the experience itself of siting next to performers then I wholeheartedly agree,…

I also thought the same, then I went to listen some orchestral performance at the Rome Auditorium.

During an interval I was sitting in a shitty corner up on some balcony, pretty far; but I could hear the voice and discern the words of a girl chatting down in the platea next to an entrance.

A single mouth, chatting, among hundreds other voices.

During the concert you could hear the individual performers’ instruments, the strings rubbing, the valves clicking. I was blown away

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#434

Post by alchemism »

simias wrote: post #374
coliveira wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be true about popular music, because this is how we came to know this style of music - live performances (without proper sound engineering) sound worse. It is completely the opposite for classical music. There's still no way to replicate the sound quality of being close to an orchestra.

>There's still no way to replicate the sound quality of being close to an orchestra. That's why I always tend to bail out of audiophile discussion but I'll bite: why? What's so special about the soundwaves going into your ears when you sit close to an orchestra that couldn't be reproduced with good audio equipment? If you're talking about the experience itself of siting next to performers then I wholeheartedly agree,…

There is a scientific reason reggae dub shows feature massive woofer stacks built out of specific types of wood…

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#435

Post by dannyw »

_djo_ wrote: post #428
StartupTree wrote: post #424

Lossless is MEANINGLESS because Bluetooth audio itself is a lossy compressed stream. How are Apple going to market lossless streaming to Airpods, when such a thing is technically impossible?

High-res lossless audio requires a USB DAC and isn't compatible with any BT headphones according to Apple.

The target audience for high-res loseless audio won't be playing from Bluetooth anyway, so that's not really surprising (or a loss).

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#436

Post by mixmastamyk »

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.

Modern software makes that rootkit seem almost pedestrian by comparison.

Also, I believe you had to install junk software from the CD to a Windows or Mac Computer, before those OSs were hardened somewhat. Avoiding all things Sony seems a better strategy than otherwise benign CDs.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#437

Post by tshaddox »

Forbo wrote: post #339
yingbo wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That seems to imply that there should only ever be one format for any particular application.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#438

Post by hbosch »

StartupTree wrote: post #424

Lossless is MEANINGLESS because Bluetooth audio itself is a lossy compressed stream. How are Apple going to market lossless streaming to Airpods, when such a thing is technically impossible?

Apple aren't marketing lossless streaming to AirPods.

There are lots of hardwired devices ready to playback in hi-res via phone or Mac, surely. And AirPods Max support spatial audio already and are apparently good quality.

I would expect the future of the H1 chip's audio streaming quality to soon be much better than Bluetooth.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#439

Post by Jcowell »

ihuman wrote: post #270
kjakm wrote: post #124

If you're interested in what this might sound like (spatial audio) the announcement video uses it. To watch it you need to be using your iOS device + AirPods: https://music.apple.com/gb/music-movie/spatial-audio-on-appl...

Does that only have spatial audio on iOS 14.6? I'm on 14.5.1, and I just hear regular stereo, even though spatial audio works for me in the TV app.

Not in beta, or works for me.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#440

Post by IshKebab »

StartupTree wrote: post #424

Lossless is MEANINGLESS because Bluetooth audio itself is a lossy compressed stream. How are Apple going to market lossless streaming to Airpods, when such a thing is technically impossible?

It's also meaningless because modern codecs are completely transparent at quite low bitrates. Lossless is only important for archival purposes.
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