-
WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
Apple lossless official announcement
- Thread starter SKBubba
- Start date
- Joined
- Oct 25, 2019
- Messages
- 11,111
- Likes
- 14,774
Im laughing at "To automatically get the full Spatial Audio effect, you’ll need to be on iOS 14.6 or later and listening on specific devices:.(in the list) The built-in speakers on an iPhone XR or later "
So forget your carefully constructed 37 speaker room Adam and just dig the crazy effects coming from your iphone on the coffee table.
Funny, but I assume Spatial Audio will decode properly on a Dolby Atmos system?
I am considering upgrading my 7.1 home theater system to Atmos and Adam has been very helpful.
It seems that out of all the 3-D audio formats, Atmos is the most rational and well developed one.
There is also DTS-X as number 2 in Movies format.
Yeah think of it? I can downscale all my big speakers for 15 or 16 phones properly arranged in the room!
AudioExplorer
Member
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2020
- Messages
- 33
- Likes
- 13
Zensō
Major Contributor
I would so love to see someone do this.And a couple of Homepods as your subs.
I thought it just
Functionality, that's what it does.
But it adds speaker mapping flexibility that I do appreciate - resources provided by @AdamG247 were helpful.
I am not changing my music system - but my home theater system has music sources.
So we shall see. Any personal experience?
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2016
- Messages
- 2,874
- Likes
- 4,674
Distant number 2. I can only think of one movie offhand in this format (Whiskey Tango Foxtrot). There is no major streaming service that supports DTS:X so it’s only for the cinephiles who still buy disks.
Auro has value even if there’s scant content because their upmixer is IMO the best sounding. Perhaps because it is also the simplest. It does less “steering” than Dolby Surround or DTS whatever. So if 2 channel recordings are a focus, IMO heights are the way to go.
If you really understood what it functionally does, you’d know it’s much more than adding height channels.
Good! Nobody asked you to change it
, nor to like the Atmos mix. I think it's just important to understand the tech.I had an Atmos capable AV receiver, but never had any room to add the height dimension. I only have room for one system, and stereo is my priority. So now the AV is in storage now. However, I'm rebuilding my room, adding some new cabling so I can actually add some more speakers in the future if I want and bring back the AV. However one of the front amps is broken and it's not worth repairing IMHO (they failed once, so I don't trust the Marantz repair guys anyway anymore), so I'll hack a digital out to it for front L+R so I can use my existing stereo system for the fronts, and bypass the AV if I want. The tricky thing here is to still be able to use the volume control of the AV. But I think I know how I can fix that with a bit of lazy hacking
.Anyway, back to Apple Music. One of the reasons the Atmos version does not sound right on a stereo setup might be because you don't have an AV do the rendering. It might be that Apple Music assumes you'll be using headphones. Would be interesting if somebody could compare a stereo render of an Apple Music Atmos track through the AV receiver renderer vs the Apple Music rendered version.
DavidMcRoy
Addicted to Fun and Learning
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2018
- Messages
- 576
- Likes
- 997
If you really understood what it functionally does, you’d know it’s much more than adding height channels.
Good! Nobody asked you to change it
I had an Atmos capable AV receiver, but never had any room to add the height dimension. I only have room for one system, and stereo is my priority. So now the AV is in storage now. However, I'm rebuilding my room, adding some new cabling so I can actually add some more speakers in the future if I want and bring back the AV. However one of the front amps is broken and it's not worth repairing IMHO (they failed once, so I don't trust the Marantz repair guys anyway anymore), so I'll hack a digital out to it for front L+R so I can use my existing stereo system for the fronts, and bypass the AV if I want. The tricky thing here is to still be able to use the volume control of the AV. But I think I know how I can fix that with a bit of lazy hacking
Anyway, back to Apple Music. One of the reasons the Atmos version does not sound right on a stereo setup might be because you don't have an AV do the rendering. It might be that Apple Music assumes you'll be using headphones. Would be interesting if somebody could compare a stereo render of an Apple Music Atmos track through the AV receiver renderer vs the Apple Music rendered version.
Apple says you need an Apple TV4K running the latest tvOS feeding your Dolby Atmos AVR via HDMI to do that.
Yes, you do. So with any luck, somebody could compare the track played from the AppleTV vs one airplayed via an iPhone or iPad. Did not check however if it lets you airplay the Atmos version though.
1) 1kHz, 96kHz/24 bit test file played from iPad to external DAC:
2) 1kHz, 96kHz/24 bit test file played from iPad to Airplay Apple TV 3 and then through optic cable to DAC:
3) 1kHz, 96kHz/24 bit test file played from iPad headphone jack
4) white noise 96kHz/24bit from iPad to external DAC:
5) white noise 96kHz/24bit from iPad to Airplay Apple TV3 and optic to DAC
6) white noise 96kHz/24bit from iPad jack
As one can see, in my test the only way how to get true 96/24 was to use external DAC connected trough Lightning connector.
Second best was to use iPad output jack, which preserved 24bit resolution but resampled to 48kHz.
The worst option was Airplay + Apple TV3, which resampled to 48/16, both sampling rate and bit depth were reduced. Even worse were no-dither artifacts.
--------
P.S.: Grateful Dead, American Beauty 96/24 hires download from HDtracks, iPad to external DAC via Lightning connector
The spectrum goes to 48kHz and is not cut above 24kHz, this is the proper hires playback.
Last edited:
While I applaud the effort, this is not exactly what we're talking about. The results are quite expected actually: default iOS output is resampled to 48 kHz, ATV3 does not support Airplay 2, so also the 16-bit output is expected and we know iOS does automatic switching on an external DAC.
But we were actually talking about the Atmos rendering, so the way the Atmos positional audio track is converted to a stereo system. That is a totally different animal.
there is a member one page before this one saying that they got multichannel output by plugging a multichannel DAC to their Mac via USB.
Actually it’s more than most think. Even I did not know there were this many. But you are absolutely correct about DTS-X running a distant second place to Atmos in the Movie world.
DTS-X Movie list
Here is a good reference table for Dolby Atmos list of devices and capabilities.
Dolby Device support
Dolby Device support
Similar threads
