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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

#611

Post by joshspankit »

movedx wrote: post #578
sbaildon wrote: post #249

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 "…

How do you deal with the cost of building a library of legal music? I pay $18/month for Apple Music (Family) and I can listen to thousands of tracks in a single day if I wanted to. That same experience would cost me thousands of dollars up front to kick start it. This also isn't to mention the fact that not all music is available to buy legally online. Dimmu Borgir, for example, use Nuclear Blast and I struggle to fi…

Buying direct from the artist can be as low as $1 per album. Buying CDs and records used, then posting (edit: photos/hype about) them on social media is a form of social currency that supports the artist (as well, in some countries there are viable legal arguments for downloading pre-ripped files as a form of media shifting when you own the original, which means minimal hassle for turning a CD in to a FLAC)

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#613

Post by dmamills »

movedx wrote: post #577
inapis wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I abandoned my music library after I went to Apple Music. But 5 years later I'm going back. The licensing issues and split albums OP mentioned have basically annoyed the hell out of me. Quite a lot of old music from my childhood is basically gone for good from Apple Music/Spotify. I have a smart playlist which basically lists all tracks which are no longer available on Apple Music and it has a 7 day playtime. Quite a…

> I abandoned my music library after I went to Apple Music. But 5 years later I'm going back. How do you deal with the cost? I pay $18/month for Apple Music (Family) and I can listen to thousands of tracks in a single day if I wanted to. That same experience would cost me thousands of dollars up front to kick start it. This also isn't to mention the fact that not all music is available to buy legally online. Dimmu Bo…

You consume in a slower manner.

You use an example of your ability to stream a thousand tracks in a single day if you wanted to, I don't have the same aspirations, so I'd also not pay thousands of dollars up from to kick start it.

To answer your question of how do I curate a library, legally, is just over time. I have a lot of musicians I like, and when I find them, I purchase their music, and I listen to it.

I do it less than a thousand times a day however. But I've been at it for thousands of days.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#614

Post by marcan_42 »

threeseed wrote: post #589
nitrogen wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the original has a SNR less than 96dB (120dB effectively with shaped dithering), and no frequencies above 20kHz, then CD is lossless.

30% of people tested could hear 26Khz. 10% could hear 28Khz. https://asa.scitation.org/doi/10.1121/1.2761883

A pure tone. At 110 dB SPL. On one study.

Yes, if you blast humans with enough energy in any form they will eventually notice. This is not a relevant result for music.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#615

Post by marcan_42 »

numpad0 wrote: post #333
objclxt wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’re actually pretty great, lossless CDs aren't lossless unless the material was recorded at or below 16 bit/44.1kHz. You can argue whether the difference is perceptible - some blind studies suggest not - but this fact is what led to a variety of semi-obscure audiophile disc formats that offered higher sampling rates ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Audio_CD ).

OT but since there are tons of professionals and audiophiles here - do anyone notice what can only be called CD artifact? There seems to be something "wrong" with CD that no other formats has, digital or analog.

There is no such thing as a CD artifact for a CD in good condition. You can burn a 44.1/16 WAV to CD, rip it, and get the same exact file out. I do, all the time (I burn indie CDs and this is how I verify them).

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#616

Post by bichiliad »

The one thing that bothers me about this is that it's still really hard to get high-quality audio to a high-quality speaker. Apple doesn't currently offer a first-party way to stream to a third-party speaker; you have to buy a homepod, find a used Apple AirPort Express Audio, or rely on a third-party airplay streaming device. I'm sure there are a bunch of high-quality third-party airplay devices, but the lack of a device from Apple directly makes me worried about relying on AirPlay Audio being a thing in the future.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#617

Post by movedx »

joshspankit wrote: post #611
movedx wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you deal with the cost of building a library of legal music? I pay $18/month for Apple Music (Family) and I can listen to thousands of tracks in a single day if I wanted to. That same experience would cost me thousands of dollars up front to kick start it. This also isn't to mention the fact that not all music is available to buy legally online. Dimmu Borgir, for example, use Nuclear Blast and I struggle to fi…

Buying direct from the artist can be as low as $1 per album. Buying CDs and records used, then posting (edit: photos / hype about) them on social media is a form of social currency that supports the artist (as well, in some countries there are viable legal arguments for downloading pre-ripped files as a form of media shifting when you own the original, which means minimal hassle for turning a CD in to a FLAC)

> Buying direct from the artist can be as low as $1 per album

Not the artists I listen to. They're all signed with big labels, thus you can only buy from that label.

> Buying CDs and records used, then posting them on social media is a form of social currency

And criminal currency known as Copyright Infringement. I'll pass.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#618

Post by simondotau »

StrictDabbler wrote: post #136
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #88

Earlier 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…

Absolutely agreed. People spend so much time arguing about whether we're "past the limits of human perception" on sound or video. They want to quote Nyquist and check frequencies. Spend a million dollars on audio equipment. Turn on your speakers, play some chamber music in insane multi-channel high-res audio, and invite a friend over. Your friend does not think you hired a string quartet. Your friend thinks you have…

> Your friend does not think you hired a string quartet.

To be fair to the audio system, a significant reason why they'd sound different is because of room acoustics—and we rarely listen to string quartets playing in residential living rooms.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#619

Post by noveltyaccount »

OJFord wrote: post #605

As I understand it, the dream of Dolby Atmos is that the track is encoded in such a way that it perfectly describes the 'surround sound', it's [infinity].[infinity] , in some loose sense; and then receivers down-mix it to whatever flavour of x.y the user happens to have, as in one 5.1 != Another, since layout and distances differ. Is that right? And/but is it anything like that in practice? Or are studios still mixin…

I think that's right, audio sources are encoded as points in 3D space and the receiver downmixes to your speaker setup.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#620

Post by threeseed »

marcan_42 wrote: post #614
threeseed wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% of people tested could hear 26Khz. 10% could hear 28Khz. https://asa.scitation.org/doi/10.1121/1.2761883

A pure tone. At 110 dB SPL. On one study. Yes, if you blast humans with enough energy in any form they will eventually notice. This is not a relevant result for music.

By all means provide an alternate study that shows 20Khz is the limit for human hearing.

Because from all accounts it is a myth.

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