They have volume controls in mastering suites, they are not producing these crushed CD mixes at max volume.If they mixed it as loud digitally as they would stereo we're talking about instant complete hearing loss, +150 dBSPL.
They have volume controls in mastering suites, they are not producing these crushed CD mixes at max volume.If they mixed it as loud digitally as they would stereo we're talking about instant complete hearing loss, +150 dBSPL.
I can’t see how they will get around the loudness limit of -18 LUFS set for Dolby Atmos. They can of course limit the music as much as they want, but never get around the LUFS normalization level that is based on average volume. At least they will get more headroom for sure.I wouldn't celebrate just yet. For most mastering engineers Atmos is still a relatively new delivery format which means they end up sticking to the guidelines. But as your numbers for the Weeknd release show, Dave Kutch is already working on breaking the equal loudness rules. All the Weeknd tracks have the same LUFSi, and so will pass a simple loudness scan, but he's working on compensating for this by changing the way he limits the audio. This is most obvious for Sacrifice, which has a true peak down at -8dB (!) leading to a miserable crest factor. We'd need to actually look at the audio waveforms to work out precisely how he's mangling the audio for the other two though.
iTunes tried to discourage hard-limiting by refusing to certify audio that clipped at 0dB. Mastering engineers just evaded that by limiting at -0.3dB instead, leading to the same crappy flat-topped clipping distortion, only at a very slightly lower level. I have no doubt that if Atmos becomes a reasonably popular delivery format then engineers will work on ways to break its rules in the same manner.
You would be surprised.They have volume controls in mastering suites, they are not producing these crushed CD mixes at max volume.
The ‘Atmos’ you get via a USB DAC on Apple music is nothing but a binaural downmix of the whole thing which sounds really bad on stereo speakers.
I don’t personally find the binaural downmixes bad when you listen to them on headphones.Looking a bit more into it.
Apple's Atmos is crapper than Amazon's and Tidal's.
I just measured Apple vs Amazon - same high DR but Amazon sounds like stereo version but with much higher DR.
Apple's does sound really bad as you said. The explanation is given here below.
Dua Lipa's Levetatin (which I measured in OP) is a great example of how crap it sounds on Apple Music with USB DAC.
But then Amazon Music app resamples everything to PCM192kHz in 'Exclusive Mode' lol
I'm using headphones by the way - I haven't listened on stereo speakers.
Why Your Atmos Mix Will Sound Different On Apple Music | Production Expert
In this article Edgar Rothermich gives a detailed explanation of the differences between Dolby Atmos and Apple’s Spatial Audio and all the steps you have to take to audition a Spatial Audio rendering of your Atmos mix!www.pro-tools-expert.com
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I wouldn't celebrate just yet. For most mastering engineers Atmos is still a relatively new delivery format which means they end up sticking to the guidelines. But as your numbers for the Weeknd release show, Dave Kutch is already working on breaking the equal loudness rules. All the Weeknd tracks have the same LUFSi, and so will pass a simple loudness scan, but he's working on compensating for this by changing the way he limits the audio. This is most obvious for Sacrifice, which has a true peak down at -8dB (!) leading to a miserable crest factor. We'd need to actually look at the audio waveforms to work out precisely how he's mangling the audio for the other two though.
iTunes tried to discourage hard-limiting by refusing to certify audio that clipped at 0dB. Mastering engineers just evaded that by limiting at -0.3dB instead, leading to the same crappy flat-topped clipping distortion, only at a very slightly lower level. I have no doubt that if Atmos becomes a reasonably popular delivery format then engineers will work on ways to break its rules in the same manner.
This is with Apple Music's SoundCheck enabledUnfortunately the clipping markers obscure the waveform (turn off View->Show Clipping). It would be helpful to see what the Lossless file looks like with loudness norm turned on to match the output from Atmos. I suspect he might be using a leaky compressor that crushes most of the peaks but lets a few stray ones through.
Unfortunately the clipping markers obscure the waveform (turn off View->Show Clipping). It would be helpful to see what the Lossless file looks like with loudness norm turned on to match the output from Atmos. I suspect he might be using a leaky compressor that crushes most of the peaks but lets a few stray ones through.
I just want to point out that this is apparently not the case if you have a multi-channel USB DAC. If you have that, MacOS will actually output Atmos to your multiple speakers, without the use of an external hardware decoder like an AVR.The ‘Atmos’ you get via a USB DAC on Apple music is nothing but a binaural downmix of the whole thing which sounds really bad on stereo speakers.
I just want to point out that this is apparently not the case if you have a multi-channel USB DAC. If you have that, MacOS will actually output Atmos to your multiple speakers, without the use of an external hardware decoder like an AVR.
This, to my knowledge, is unique, though if the other information in this thread is correct it's probably using Apple's Spatial Audio Renderer and not the Dolby one, which would explain how they can do this because normally Dolby says 'hell no' to providing a software renderer. It would be interesting to compare the results in this case to the real Atmos Renderer.
AppleTV will bitstream Atmos to a hardware renderer like an AVR so it would be possible to A/B test. Rather a pain to set up since you'd also need a Mac, a multi-channel DAC, and some way to switch all channels between an AVR and DAC.
Just one more. Another mainstream release.Yeah, Kutch is just shaving off all the peaks. The TPL numbers you got before are probably just a result of the program trying to interpolate the insane clipping, but it doesn’t look like he’s doing anything sophisticated.
Yeah, they sound ok to me also.I don’t personally find the binaural downmixes bad when you listen to them on headphones.
Because of LUSF, DR isn't that important for streaming for pure loudness than enjoyment.