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Apple lossless official announcement

Tim Link

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Interesting news for me since AppleTV is my main playback device these days. Using headphones, I haven't been able to detect a meaningful difference between 256 AAC and lossless, so I've written it off as completely unimportant to me.

As I started reading this thread I was listening to Ports of Call, with Paul Paray conducting the Detroit Symphony:

https://www.discogs.com/Ravel-Ibert...vane-Pour-Une-Infante-Défunte/release/7465939

I've had this CD since my tender youth and have enjoyed it many times. Listening to the 256AAC being streamed to the Apple TV, coming through the HDMI output, which goes into the TV, which then sends the signal by optical to the digital crossover, I thought it sounded pretty nice through my big horn speakers, but not as wonderful as I recall from my golden past. So as an experiment I dug out the dusty CD and loaded it in the blue-ray player and listened through its coaxial digital output, bypassing the TV.

Hmm... I could swear it sounds very noticeably more lovely. Big complex crescendos don't get weird sounding in a way that makes me want to turn it down. They remain bright and airy and spacious. So it makes me wonder, does it really have anything to do with 256 AAC compression or is it some problem with the signal chain going through the cheap-ass TV? Is it possible I can detect things through the big speakers that are harder to hear on the headphones? Spacial effects maybe? Maybe there's something spacial about uncompressed music?
 

Beershaun

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Is there a way to actually play an apple music file above 16/44 besides a Mac? As far as I can tell apple doesn't have anything in their ecosystem that outputs sound at more than 16/44.
 

Newman

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Is there a way to actually play an apple music file above 16/44 besides a Mac? As far as I can tell apple doesn't have anything in their ecosystem that outputs sound at more than 16/44.
I doubt that. Just put on an external dac.
 

Beershaun

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I doubt that. Just put on an external dac.
My complaint with all of these announcements. Amazon, Apple, nobody's devices actually have a way to get the audio out of them in the promised form to a hifi audio system unadulterated without extra shenanigans and bolting extra stuff onto them. :(

I thought about switching to Amazon but...no way to directly send the stream to my AVR via a UPNP app like Bubbleupnp. The signal coming out of my FireTV via HDMI is neutered so much my subwoofer doesn't even auto turn on sometimes because the signal is so low. Amazon can only use chromecast from my phone and my AVR is too old to support Amazon directly. My echo devices are too limited to plug one of them into my stereo.
 
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JoachimStrobel

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Most people simply don't understand what atmos is doing underneath or misunderstand the marketing or even Dolby's own documents. Based on what we know so far on what is in shipped hardware and tea leaf reading from the press releases we can make some educated guesses.

The default distribution format for Atmos is Dolby Digital Plus at up to 6144 Kbps lossy encoding up to 15.1 channels plus metadata. However for headphones there would be no point in sending this amount of data if you are immediately going to render it in to binaural for headphones. An obvious optimisation would be to stream a pre done binaural render.

They could pull a similar trick with their own devices internal speakers. Note there is nothing in the press release about Atmos out of an HDMI port on a Mac or AppleTV only headphones and device internal speakers. We know that current macs with the newest USB-C to HDMI dongle are physically capable of outputing a Dolby Digital Plus stream as it's used for things like Netflix. However there is nothing in the press release saying that outputing the raw DD+ stream out of Apple Music for external decoding is a supported thing.

The structure of an original Atmos mix is that it has up to 128 audio channels allocated between zero or more beds of up to 9.1 and the balance allocated to objects. In music beds are recommended against and the idea seems to be to use all object mixes.

Obviously you can't deliver 128 channels in to 15 channels so the encoder for 'home' Atmos groups the original channels depending on where the object is panned then assigns encoded channels and metadata based on that. The renderer then produces the correct signals for each speaker based on this.

However it's not that simple as Atmos is backwards compatible to non Atmos Dolby Digital Plus decoders and even Dolby Digital by the Plus decoder re-encoding to Dolby Digital. To achieve this the Atmos rendering cannot be fully dynamic there must be a prerendered 5.1 legacy stream within the Dolby Digital Plus stream which can be used by legacy decoders which simply ignore the Atmos data. Thus only the remaining 10 channels can be being rendered to arbitrary speakers locations locally.

For classical recordings though you'd ignore all Dolby's advice record in 2nd order ambisonic format then render into a 7.1.2 bed and totally ignore the object system.

Thanks for that, very informative. I tried Tidal for a while because of their Atmos offering. I hoped, that there would be a Mch base that I could simply play by feeding the PC’s HDMI output into my Oppo103. That did work. Either because there was no Mch base nowhere in those Atmos files or because one can not access them without an Atmos decoder, which I guess was the main reason.
So, sure, with an Atmos decoder, I could get a 5.1 stream if my AVR would be set up that way. But I do not want an AVR. I am not aware of an AVR that decoded Atmos into 5.1 PCM that is then send out via HDMI. And for sure there is no smart little Atmos HDMI to HDMI decoder box that would do that nor any software.
So, back to my question: Is there a way that the AppleMusic ecosystem would do all that? Extract or convert Atmos to a 5.1 stream for me to pick up?
(I do have a audio Blu-ray with an Atmos stream. If I select that, I here a Mch 7.1 stream. I guess my Oppo either plays the Mch base then or the Blu-ray decoder somehow selects another sub-stream. But that does not work with a Tidal Atmos stream and I am afraid will not work with AppleMusic too)
 
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DavidMcRoy

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A newbie question from me. How does one get Apple Music atmos from a Mac to a multichannel Hifi?

Via USB to AVR?

Via HDMI to AVR?

Does it have to be an atmos-capable AVR?

Any way that doesn’t involve an AVR?

cheers
Probably via Ethernet connection to the AVR or the same way I can listen to Dolby Atmos from TIDAL on my iPad or iPhone on my Dolby Atmos AVR: over WiFi.
 

pierre

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And nobody is complaining that Atmos is a proprietary format. It means that small bands will have expenses to generate an atmos track (plugins are around 1k$ plus a daw like Protools ultimate, Apple logic doesn’t support more than 7.1)

For music it would be better to have a simple flac with all channels unencoded. With atmos you will need a hardware decoder plus a room correction software. You will be locked into AVR … it will be interesting to see if Apple will also upgrade GarageBand and Logic to support Atmos.
 
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sweetchaos

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Saw this on Reddit…:p
1621320961375.png


Original version:
1621321105533.jpeg
 

Saidera

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So it is 24/48 PCM on apple devices but for 24/192 you need to get a usb dac. It is finally stated in clear words. They do not intend to put higher format capable dacs into apple devices themselves.
 

Red@

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So it is 24/48 PCM on apple devices but for 24/192 you need to get a usb dac. It is finally stated in clear words. They do not intend to put higher format capable dacs into apple devices themselves.
To me, that means they don't have high performing dacs at the moment.
Don't be surprise if tomorrow, their new iphoned/ipads etc have better dacs and amps. and they will argue you need one because of that.
 

PyramidElectric

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I bet the Apple hardware teams are furious about this move tbh, they're basically being forced down a road of hi-res everything (Surely they'll have to move away from the bottleneck of Bluetooth and have 'Airplay 3' headphones etc) when in reality 44.1khz/48khz AAC files over Bluetooth-AAC are more than good enough for almost anyone, with obvious benefits re storage, battery life etc.
 

abdo123

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Most people simply don't understand what atmos is doing underneath or misunderstand the marketing or even Dolby's own documents. Based on what we know so far on what is in shipped hardware and tea leaf reading from the press releases we can make some educated guesses.

The default distribution format for Atmos is Dolby Digital Plus at up to 6144 Kbps lossy encoding up to 15.1 channels plus metadata. However for headphones there would be no point in sending this amount of data if you are immediately going to render it in to binaural for headphones. An obvious optimisation would be to stream a pre done binaural render.

They could pull a similar trick with their own devices internal speakers. Note there is nothing in the press release about Atmos out of an HDMI port on a Mac or AppleTV only headphones and device internal speakers. We know that current macs with the newest USB-C to HDMI dongle are physically capable of outputing a Dolby Digital Plus stream as it's used for things like Netflix. However there is nothing in the press release saying that outputing the raw DD+ stream out of Apple Music for external decoding is a supported thing.

The structure of an original Atmos mix is that it has up to 128 audio channels allocated between zero or more beds of up to 9.1 and the balance allocated to objects. In music beds are recommended against and the idea seems to be to use all object mixes.

Obviously you can't deliver 128 channels in to 15 channels so the encoder for 'home' Atmos groups the original channels depending on where the object is panned then assigns encoded channels and metadata based on that. The renderer then produces the correct signals for each speaker based on this.

However it's not that simple as Atmos is backwards compatible to non Atmos Dolby Digital Plus decoders and even Dolby Digital by the Plus decoder re-encoding to Dolby Digital. To achieve this the Atmos rendering cannot be fully dynamic there must be a prerendered 5.1 legacy stream within the Dolby Digital Plus stream which can be used by legacy decoders which simply ignore the Atmos data. Thus only the remaining 10 channels can be being rendered to arbitrary speakers locations locally.

For classical recordings though you'd ignore all Dolby's advice record in 2nd order ambisonic format then render into a 7.1.2 bed and totally ignore the object system.

I really had the impression that they're trying to push their top-up box the Apple TV. As a result, I'm also under the impression that Atmos can be passed down to an AVR through HDMI in this setup.
 

abdo123

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Thanks for that, very informative. I tried Tidal for a while because of their Atmos offering. I hoped, that there would be a Mch base that I could simply play by feeding the PC’s HDMI output into my Oppo103. That did work. Either because there was no Mch base nowhere in those Atmos files or because one can not access them without an Atmos decoder, which I guess was the main reason.
So, sure, with an Atmos decoder, I could get a 5.1 stream if my AVR would be set up that way. But I do not want an AVR. I am not aware of an AVR that decoded Atmos into 5.1 PCM that is then send out via HDMI. And for sure there is no smart little Atmos HDMI to HDMI decoder box that would do that nor any software.
So, back to my question: Is there a way that the AppleMusic ecosystem would do all that? Extract or convert Atmos to a 5.1 stream for me to pick up?
(I do have a audio Blu-ray with an Atmos stream. If I select that, I here a Mch 7.1 stream. I guess my Oppo either plays the Mch base then or the Blu-ray decoder somehow selects another sub-stream. But that does not work with a Tidal Atmos stream and I am afraid will not work with AppleMusic too)

we can't tell till it's released whether you can just plug-in a multichannel DAC to a macbook and call it a day for Atmos.
 

Jimbob54

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we can't tell till it's released whether you can just plug-in a multichannel DAC to a macbook and call it a day for Atmos.

Some caveats in the footnotes here https://www.apple.com/apple-music/ (note 2)

Not all content is available in Dolby Atmos. Accessing Dolby Atmos features requires Dolby Atmos–capable devices. Playback quality will depend on hardware, audio accessories, and internet connection.

If i was anyone interested in either Atmos, or indeed stereo content above 24/28 I certainly wouldnt be subscribing to Apple before doing a free trial once Atmos/ Lossless is live in June, nor would I be buying any hardware I thought might be able to use it until then Too many unknowns
 

chelgrian

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I really had the impression that they're trying to push their top-up box the Apple TV. As a result, I'm also under the impression that Atmos can be passed down to an AVR through HDMI in this setup.

It is technially possible be but it has downsides as I said upthread specifically that due to HDCP requirements turning your TV on while listening to music would result in an interuption to the music while the HDCP renegotiated. Apple do not mention playing Atmos/DD+ out of Apple TV or macs in their press release. I think this omission is probably deliberate since they explicitly mention mac internal speakers.

Atmos/DD+ can't be transported over Airplay 2 which is limited to 24bit 44.1KHz stereo.

Apple have no equivalent of Spotify connect or Tidal connect where the app on the phone is only controlling what is being played and the audio stream is going directly to the AVR.
 

abdo123

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Andysu

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I can live with that
I myself. I just now, hardly don't buy garbage trash 4k disc formats hardly anymore as it is just waste of money on scam. I rather buy Laserdiscs
 

simbloke

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I really don't see why people are so happy about this. If eventually it means the end of Qobuz, Tidal and Spotify it also means the end of streaming to platforms that are not from the big manufacturers. I don't think Apple are going to care about those who want to stream to Linux and Pi based players. Amazon and Google already don't care.

Once the small players are gone you'll be forced to buy Apple hardware and subscription prices will go back up.
 

MayaTlab

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To me, that means they don't have high performing dacs at the moment.
Don't be surprise if tomorrow, their new iphoned/ipads etc have better dacs and amps. and they will argue you need one because of that.

Hem... https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...pple-vs-google-usb-c-headphone-adapters.5541/
The capacity of a DAC to be compatible with high res files doesn't make it "better".
It's probably rather that Apple's engineers rightfully don't really see the point of bothering.
 

abdo123

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I really don't see why people are so happy about this.

So basically you're telling me that i should be 'unhappy' about the fact that a service that is very well integrated into my phone and laptop is getting improved free of charge?

Why should I care about the benefit of a company like Spotify or Tidal but not my own benefit and convenience?

As for the claim that a monopoly will form, how? Amazon literally lowered their prices in response. it's a win win situation for all consumers.
 
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