AirPod Pro and Max will not support it. https://www.imore.com/airpods-max-dont-support-apple-musics-...
I can't believe it.
Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
481–490 of 717 posts
Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#482Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#483Earlier quoted context omitted.
They support Apple Lossless, .m4a/.alac same as the old iPods.
No one uses ALAC, the industry standard is FLAC and has been that way for years, it’s pure arrogance that they continue to refuse to support it.
Yes, that's it, FLAC.
I'm also shocked on the apple ecosystem how you load files onto an individual app in itunes/that folder in Finder for the iphone/ipad.
Well, I guess not really shocked, it is Apple.
Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#484Apple 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 "…
I've been thinking about switching away from Spotify specifically for this feature. Thank you for the warning.
Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#485Who knew I would be locked into Spotify not by the music quality, but by playlists, friends, apps using it, and their Discovery mechanisms. Apple and Tidal may have awesome quality, but apps like https://musicleague.app/ have gotten me through Lockdown, and it turns out that these value props are very strong. I always thought I would instantly switch to a service for its audio quality, but then again, I can also buy…
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 frequency becomes more important in the streaming system. You have to stay relevant by releasing new music so album's are fewer songs with less duration. Lower duration also increases revenue because we pay per stream not by mean time listened to artist. :/
Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#486Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Of course, it's not only the compression that's at stake-- it's also the mastering quality. HN threads on lossless music so often descend into "well, you couldn’t hear the difference". But historically a key reason for people to prefer e.g. SACD releases of recordings is not because one can hear the extra frequencies of this format, but because the SACD release – being targeted at people with a good stereo and sile…
For anyone bored and looking to explore: https://dr.loudness-war.info/
Note that all entries that have the format Vinyl on that site can be ignored, as the dynamic range calculations don't work well on audio recorded from vinyl records.
Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#487Earlier 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 really interesting! I did the test you linked, and for all but one I picked the lowest bitrate version. I'm using WH-1000XM3 headphones and am a lifelong musician with pretty mild tinnitus.
Similar thing happened to me. What sounded "best" is subjective and I really had no idea what to listen for.
Listened using Beyerdynamic Custom Studios with a cheap-ish DAC on a windows PC.
Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#488Who knew I would be locked into Spotify not by the music quality, but by playlists, friends, apps using it, and their Discovery mechanisms. Apple and Tidal may have awesome quality, but apps like https://musicleague.app/ have gotten me through Lockdown, and it turns out that these value props are very strong. I always thought I would instantly switch to a service for its audio quality, but then again, I can also buy…
Agreed - Spotify's UI is bad and getting worse, and its quality is meh, but its discovery features are top notch and it has the biggest catalog. I have audiophile equipment - $900 MSRP Hifiman headphones, discrete DAC and amp - and I tried Tidal to see if I could hear a difference. 99% of the time, I can't... and Tidal's MQA format is questionable anyway. (Not sure about Apple's "ALAC" either.) I used a playlist impo…
I'm a big fan of Qobuz. It has human curated playlists and features, which is really nice. It's also truly lossless unlike MQA.
I'll agree with you that 90% of the time, I can't tell the difference. But for my most loved albums, I still prefer listening to lossless on my hifi system.
Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#489Earlier quoted context omitted.
Problem is, sometimes when you learn how to spot a deficiency, you can't unlearn it and stop spotting it. It's like with kerning[0] or image compression artifacts. Everyone has a different level, and I haven't measured mine, but even when casually listening to music - including music from bad speakers in a waiting room somewhere - I can identify too badly compressed music and get immediately annoyed by it. -- [0] - h…
It's like with kerning Kerning is a great comparison, I think. Studies have shown that well-compressed lossy audio is nearly indistinguishable from the originals. This is certainly true for me. I can sometimes pick out the compressed version if I know the track well and can look for specific details, but generally I'm absolutely not consciously aware of any compression artifacts. Similarly, I doubt most people could…
> Similarly, I doubt most people could pick out small problems with kerning and other typographic issues.
The XKCD comic I linked makes an important point though: someone else pointing out the issues to you can make all the difference. At least with my experience, it literally took that comic for my brain to suddenly start recognizing kerning as a concept, and subsequently see issues with it everywhere.
> I strongly suspect folks would enjoy a book with excellent typography more than they would have if it had slightly less-good typography, despite not being consciously and acutely aware of the differences.
That I agree with, and I think in those cases, giving someone even the most basic framework to understand what is "good" and what is "bad" is enough to make them much more aware of the issues in the works they're enjoying.
Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's like with kerning Kerning is a great comparison, I think. Studies have shown that well-compressed lossy audio is nearly indistinguishable from the originals. This is certainly true for me. I can sometimes pick out the compressed version if I know the track well and can look for specific details, but generally I'm absolutely not consciously aware of any compression artifacts. Similarly, I doubt most people could…
But the question is do they enjoy the book with excellent typography because they're told it's excellent or can they perceive the higher excellence and derive enjoyment thereof.
I'd say: before being aware of how typography should look, the main difference is that reading a badly-set book will feel tiring for some reason that's hard to pin, but it's definitely not content. After being made aware, it's just annoying - if you can name the thing that's wrong, you recognize it's wrong.