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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

#651

Post by simondotau »

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.

Wow, 26Khz at 110 dBSPL? That's just stupid. You might as well argue that incidental exposure to wifi is certainly fatal because you wouldn't survive being cooked inside a microwave.

110 dBSPL represents thousands of times more energy (in watts) than you could plausibly expect in any musically derived ultrasonic content played at a volume level which doesn't pose a significant risk of permanent hearing loss. At such insane power levels, obviously nobody will be hearing the actual frequency but rather sub-harmonics and/or other physical sensations derived from that moronic level of sound pressure.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#652

Post by simondotau »

threeseed wrote: post #620
marcan_42 wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> from all accounts

From all accounts? Don't you mean from one account?

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#653

Post by simondotau »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #632
threeseed wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By all means provide an alternate study that shows 20Khz is the limit for human hearing. Because from all accounts it is a myth.

If they can only hear it way above the threshold of physical damage, that's a good anecdote but it's definitely not relevant to music playback. Sensitivity to audio falls off a cliff as you approach 20KHz.

And that assumes you have young ears. If you're older, chances are it's nowhere near 20kHz.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#654

Post by Gaelan »

thetinguy wrote: post #354
Gaelan wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, and this the article does not mention, is not what Apple Music wants you to do. The formats will be proprietary with DRM. For what it’s worth, music actually purchased on iTunes (not an Apple Music subscription) has been DRM-free for years. If this means iTunes-purchased songs are lossless now, that might be useful.

Apple Music files have DRM but iTunes purchases do not.

That's what I said.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#655

Post by marcan_42 »

simondotau wrote: post #653
Dylan16807 wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they can only hear it way above the threshold of physical damage, that's a good anecdote but it's definitely not relevant to music playback. Sensitivity to audio falls off a cliff as you approach 20KHz.

And that assumes you have young ears. If you're older, chances are it's nowhere near 20kHz.

At normal listening levels, yup. I'm 30 and I can certainly hear the hideous 19 kHz anti-rat blasters they have all over shops in Tokyo (and I think they almost certainly cause ear damage and should be illegal - IIRC they are marketed as putting out 138dB SPL!) but I am rather unlikely to hear the difference between music low-passed at 19kHz and 20kHz.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#656

Post by simondotau »

marcan_42 wrote: post #655
simondotau wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that assumes you have young ears. If you're older, chances are it's nowhere near 20kHz.

At normal listening levels, yup. I'm 30 and I can certainly hear the hideous 19 kHz anti-rat blasters they have all over shops in Tokyo (and I think they almost certainly cause ear damage and should be illegal - IIRC they are marketed as putting out 138dB SPL!) but I am rather unlikely to hear the difference between music low-passed at 19kHz and 20kHz.

> I am rather unlikely to hear the difference

Especially if your hearing has been damaged by repeat exposure to 19 kHz at 138dB SPL.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#658

Post by alanbernstein »

gomox wrote: post #505
alanbernstein wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if you only want to replicate the sound of an orchestra as heard by an observer at a specified point ? Why wouldn't two microphones be sufficient? That's how it's perceived, after all.

Your ears are highly directional devices and an orchestra in a concert hall creates a highly complex soundscape that is impossible to replicate with 2 channels. Location awareness (i.e. 2 mics where your ears are) is just a small part of the problem.

So it sounds like the experience can be fully captured with two microphones mounted in the ears of an acoustic dummy head, as long as you're willing to accept a single position and orientation for the observer. Personally, that would be more than good enough fidelity.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#659

Post by spideymans »

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...

This is incredible. It sounds like it's playing in a 3D space. I really didn't expect the difference to be noticeable to my non-audiophile ears. This is going to be a must-have feature for a lot of streaming music users.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#660

Post by gnicholas »

nwsm wrote: post #471

AirPod Pro and Max will not support it. https://www.imore.com/airpods-max-dont-support-apple-musics-...

Considering how much AirPods Max cost, I would be pretty upset if I’d shelled out all that cash and then saw this announcement.
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