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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

#91

Post by dahfizz »

clydethefrog wrote: post #59
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!

Can I listen to this tracks on the go without carrying them with them and a special device to play them?

Once upon a time, iTunes would automatically rip a CD for you. It would even name the tracks, artist, and get the album art for you and integrate it all into your regular itunes library. I don't know if they still do (or if apple even makes cd drives anymore).

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#93

Post by Someone1234 »

dagmx wrote: post #79
Someone1234 wrote: post #46

This is included/no additional cost which is fantastic. I do wonder if in the longer term if Apple's Spatial Audio with "dynamic head tracking" isn't the next 3D TVs/3D Content i.e. a gimmick. Taking traditional multi-source audio (Dolby/Atmos/etc) and jamming it into stereo is old tech, it doesn't work particularly well but is cheap to make/consume, thus mostly harmless. The new Spatial Audio is using gyroscopes to…

It's really difficult (almost impossible) to keep your head perfectly still.

Indeed, so you're getting degradation/distortion of the audio source most of the time. That's why most people try it a couple of times then turn it off.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#94

Post by toxik »

PaulHoule wrote: post #74

I don't believe it. If I read that right they claim that they can deliver "spatial" audio via headphones using a multi-channel/object-based Dolby Atmos (as opposed to a binaural recording or something that else that is mixed for two channels ahead of time) For years there has been talk about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function and for years I have tried demos that are unimpressive, particular…

There's a questionable assumption in the HRTF article, namely that the transfer function is the same (or similar) for different people in different environments. I don't think the same HRTF would sound convincing indoors and outdoors, even. Let alone differences in ear shapes and sizes.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#95

Post by pwagland »

Someone1234 wrote: post #69
alfalfasprout wrote: post #38

Earlier 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…

> I and many others running good high end gear can repeatedly score well on these tests. I, too, run high-end gear and cannot. The problem scope isn't simply reproduction accuracy, it is also one of taste: Different compression can elevate/alter parts of the sound, and your opinion may not lean to the highest bit rate but rather some other coloring of the music. The fact you've run this test "repeatedly" actually hur…

This is crux to the argument. If you know what to listen for, you can pick out the "bad bits", since you know that is where the issue lies. Once you know how to identify bad bits, then you'll be able to "hear" compression artefacts because you'll be primed for them.

In A/B tests this is true, I _can_ reliably (not 100%, but way better than random) tell you which of A/B is compressed, and I can normally do this on somewhat crappy headphones, since I _know_ where to listen to pick out the compression. And this despite being partly deaf.

However, if I am just listening to music I never notice these artefacts, since when listening to music, I'm not trying to determine which A/B stream is wrong. Most of the time, the music is just playing in the background anyway.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#96

Post by objclxt »

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #44
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 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!

> 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).

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#97

Post by nvrspyx »

treesknees wrote: post #40
vr46 wrote: post #12

Who 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'm sure other music services like Spotify will match Apple Music's lossless quality in order to keep competing for the audiophile market. Personally, lossless quality just sounds like a great way to blow through my data caps even faster. I'm sure some will love it, I question whether it's worth the extra bandwidth.

I'm sure there'll be an option to stream at a different quality and an option to download the lossless versions, which you could do over wifi.

For both Spotify and Apple Music, I stream at "normal" quality, but download at "high" quality. I'm sure those options will extend to lossless.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#98

Post by simias »

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…

It doesn't matter, it's good marketing. It's not rational, but it lets Apple posture as being "high end". The utter majority of people won't be able to tell the difference but then again the utter majority of people won't even try to test it. I know that I personally can't even tell the difference between Spotify's "mid" and "high" quality settings the vast majority of the time even in perfect listening conditions with good earphones and focusing hard on the small details.

I've given up on arguing with audiophiles about this. In the end if they enjoy their overpriced setups to listen to 196kHz 32bits-per-sample uncompressed tracks who am I to tell them otherwise? It won't keep me from listening to compressed audio on my cheapo USB DAC with my mid-range earphones and enjoying it just as much.

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#99

Post by JadeNB »

To be clear, despite the headline, the existence of Lossless Audio (which I know under the FLAC codec, but Apple uses ALAC—I don't know how they're related) isn't new; it's just that Apple is now serving everything in its catalogue encoded that way. The actual title is:

> Apple Music announces Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos; will bring Lossless Audio to entire catalog

Re: Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio

#100

Post by dagmx »

Someone1234 wrote: post #93
dagmx wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really difficult (almost impossible) to keep your head perfectly still.

Indeed, so you're getting degradation/distortion of the audio source most of the time . That's why most people try it a couple of times then turn it off.

I'm not sure agreeing with my point backs up what you're saying.

I'm saying we turn our heads regularly, so the Spatial audio works well most of the time.

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