Apple lossless official announcement

[kuka7]

^ Hmmmm.....was the level of volume at zero or just somewhere below, say 30%? I might have to try that myself too.

Trust me, give it a try. I was for sure at 50% volume or higher

 

[jhaider]

The Sgt Pepper Atmos mix is now on Apple Music!

 

[vhild§]

The Sgt Pepper Atmos mix is now on Apple Music!

Yes, but strangely the other albums are lossless "only". I remember they were hi-res on Qobuz?

 

[Tks]

Thanks for pointing this out but even thought I was able to make a difference convenience is the main goal.

Plus I'm pretty confident to say that proper Atmos mixing will be a big step foward in quality and entertainment way much more than HiRes. I'm very excited Apple is pushing it. Hope other streaming services will do the same.

It would be a big step, if it was taken serious, accessible, and affordable.

It's why I doubt you'll ever see an indy Atmos album for example. Unless Dolby wants to continue making a mockery of their standards (which to be fair, all standards bodies these days forgot what a "standard" even means, or simply loosens restrictions or certification requirements). They can go the route of MQA and simply put out some fallacious "auto encoder for smaller independents" and offer an algo driven Atoms mix by sending in your music to a Dolby facility (publisher/encoding facility or whatever) of some sort. But that would just be a disaster.

The problem with Atmos now, is they're trying to backport music that wasn't created with the software itself from inception of the music (starting in the recording studio). This is just a pure gamble and can never be reliably assumed to be better than an original mix.

They should try and salvage their image a bit and force labels and Apple to show if something was created with Atoms as the native mix of consideration. Their process is already shrouded in mystery enough of how it works. I haven't really seen any beyond the basic claims of virtualized channels in an emulated "box" of a room, which is somewhat silly really judging by the software graphical representation of what you're actually doing. Also, what mix am I getting, what mixes are available, how would a 7.1 (or higher) mix be represented with a binural fold-down considering each channel is customizable. You also have no idea (similar to MQA) what version of software they use, since there's no possible way all of what Atmos is currently from a software version perspective, will somehow remain also that way in the future.

I just have trouble understanding how they make claims that a single Atmos mix scales up to a movie theater's worth of speakers, all the way down to stereo listening devices.. And the fact that not all of the Apple Music Atmos music I've listened to sounds even remotely close to the basic original mix (let alone better), leaves me scratching my head just at what Dolby thinks they're offering here. Just seems like a modernized version of virtual surround, that would work great if you natively recorded for surround (lots of room mics and the whole jazz), but if you don't, then how could it possibly make sense.

Dolby pulled this nonsense with Dolby Vision. Allowing such certification on just awful displays nowhere near capable of displaying HDR in any appreciable sense of the word. I could go on with garbage moves like first saying dynamic metadata support needs to be hardware built, but then pulling back on the claim after a while and started offering a simple update that is now somehow capable of going from static to a dynamic metadata support. Just ridiculous.

 

[jhaider]

Yes, but strangely the other albums are lossless "only". I remember they were hi-res on Qobuz?

Let it Be [edit - actually Abbey Road] is also available in Atmos. That makes sense, as those are the only two Beatles Atmos remasters. Unfortunately the surround remaster of the White Album is not streaming anywhere.

“Hi-Res” is of zero interest to me generally, so no idea what’s offered where.

 

[vhild§]

I don´t have Let It Be in Atmos (why?) but Abbey Road is!

 

[jhaider]

You are correct - Abbey Road not Let It Be. Sorry.

 

[Foulchet]

Hello,

Sorry if it is a noob question but if I understand well you always need a camera kit adapter to connect the iPhone to an external DAC (?)
There are two models : the 35euros one (single USB out) and the 45 euros one (USB+lightning). If I have a powered DAC (with a real electrical plug, not a USB one), will either work with iphone ? Are there cases where these adapters do not work with a DAC ? (I will probably buy the 45euros one).

Then as an alternative solution I would like to buy a small Airplay 2 receiver and it seems like it does not really exist. I only saw the Belkin Soundform Connect (with an optical output) which is not available in Europe for now and even in US website I do not see it. Other products I saw seem to only support Airplay, are two expensive for what they do (Sonos Port...) to only stream Airplay or are way too large (like Denon, Marantz, Yamaha, ...).
It is weird that Apple does not offer a(n) (available) basic solution to achieve that...

Thanks

 

[vhild§]

Hello,

Sorry if it is a noob question but if I understand well you always need a camera kit adapter to connect the iPhone to an external DAC (?)
There are two models : the 35euros one (single USB out) and the 45 euros one (USB+lightning). If I have a powered DAC (with a real electrical plug, not a USB one), will either work with iphone ? Are there cases where these adapters do not work with a DAC ? (I will probably buy the 45euros one).

Then as an alternative solution I would like to buy a small Airplay 2 receiver and it seems like it does not really exist. I only saw the Belkin Soundform Connect (with an optical output) which is not available in Europe for now and even in US website I do not see it. Other products I saw seem to only support Airplay, are two expensive for what they do (Sonos Port...) to only stream Airplay or are way too large (like Denon, Marantz, Yamaha, ...).
It is weird that Apple does not offer a(n) (available) basic solution to achieve that...

Thanks

Yes, you need the camera adapter. I´d use the more expensive one as it´s recommended at least by Audioquest (they had some trouble with the older, single USB one) and it´s probably USB3.

Whether a certain dac will work with iOS devices is in my experience luck of the draw.

 

[Foulchet]

Thanks for the answer, I am a bit reluctant to buy this for such a far-fetched (somewhat silly) purpose (a direct 'official' solution would be better) so I will see if there are some Airplay alternatives (or even cheap Android alternatives since Apple Music is also an Android app), especially if it is a "luck of the draw.".

 

[vhild§]

Thanks for the answer, I am a bit reluctant to buy this for such a far-fetched (somewhat silly) purpose (a direct 'official' solution would be better) so I will see if there are some Airplay alternatives (or even cheap Android alternatives since Apple Music is also an Android app), especially if it is a "luck of the draw.".

Mind you, Android is not yet fully supported by Apple Music (no high-res or lossless) and Android anyway resamples everything to 48kHz.

Which dac do you have?

 

[Foulchet]

Ok so I skip the Android solution. I have this DAC : https://en.cayin.cn/products_info?itemid=121 (Cayin iDac-6 Mk2). I guess I'll buy the adapter and try. An Airplay 2 (or 3 ?) desktop DAP with a small size (like Yamaha WXAD-10 or WXC-50 but with 2021-features) would fill the bill but there are none as far as I know (at a decent price at least).

 

[Zensō]

It's why I doubt you'll ever see an indy Atmos album for example. Unless Dolby wants to continue making a mockery of their standards (which to be fair, all standards bodies these days forgot what a "standard" even means, or simply loosens restrictions or certification requirements). They can go the route of MQA and simply put out some fallacious "auto encoder for smaller independents" and offer an algo driven Atoms mix by sending in your music to a Dolby facility (publisher/encoding facility or whatever) of some sort. But that would just be a disaster.

We’ll have to wait to see what they’re actually offering, but Apple claims to be bringing “Spatial Audio” capabilities to Logic Pro later this year, which would make at least some form of the tech accessible to bedroom producers: https://www.musicradar.com/news/apple-spatial-audio-logic-pro

 

[vhild§]

Ok so I skip the Android solution. I have this DAC : https://en.cayin.cn/products_info?itemid=121 (Cayin iDac-6 Mk2). I guess I'll buy the adapter and try. An Airplay 2 (or 3 ?) desktop DAP with a small size (like Yamaha WXAD-10 or WXC-50 but with 2021-features) would fill the bill but there are none as far as I know (at a decent price at least).

Just buy the adapter and try. You might find it useful anyway. If you get a DAP, check that it´s Airplay 2-compatible. Some are only Airplay 1.

 

[vhild§]

Played Abbey Road yesterday, music stored on iPhone, Dolby Atmos version, 96/24.
Playback was not gapless. Should Apple Music be gapless?

 

[Zensō]

Played Abbey Road yesterday, music stored on iPhone, Dolby Atmos version, 96/24.
Playback was not gapless. Should Apple Music be gapless?

Both the Lossless and Atmos versions of Abbey Road are playing gapless for me on Apple Music IOS. This is streaming, not local files.

 

[vhild§]

Both the Lossless and Atmos versions of Abbey Road are playing gapless for me on Apple Music IOS. This is streaming, not local files.

I removed the downloads and streamed samples from the B-side. The gaps were gone. Weird.

 

[chelgrian]

It's why I doubt you'll ever see an indy Atmos album for example. Unless Dolby wants to continue making a mockery of their standards (which to be fair, all standards bodies these days forgot what a "standard" even means, or simply loosens restrictions or certification requirements).

Dolby have already scrapped the room certification requirements for home Atmos. All you need is something that can output a ADM file the cheapest currently being Davinci Resolve other alternatives being Nuendo or Pro Tools. Then upload using Avid Play.

Later this year on macOS Logic Pro will be the cheapest option.

Theatrical Atmos is an entirely different thing and still requires a certified room etc.

 

[Tks]

Dolby have already scrapped the room certification requirements for home Atmos. All you need is something that can output a ADM file the cheapest currently being Davinci Resolve other alternatives being Nuendo or Pro Tools. Then upload using Avid Play.

Later this year on macOS Logic Pro will be the cheapest option.

Theatrical Atmos is an entirely different thing and still requires a certified room etc.

See this is what I mean. Scrapping requirements. That's dumb. Don't call it Atmos then.

Also, Logic Pro is a decent way to start (you could already do this with their plug-in, but now it's coming with native support). To mix in Atmos though you're going to need a lot more things like a renderer (and obviously all the other things that come with proper Atmos mixing like a 7.1.4 setup which isn't going to be cheap if you're looking to do this using proper speakers).

A proper 7.1.4 setup doesn't strike me as something indies would have access to tbh.

 

[Blaspheme]

See this is what I mean. Scrapping requirements. That's dumb. Don't call it Atmos then.

Also, Logic Pro is a decent way to start (you could already do this with their plug-in, but now it's coming with native support). To mix in Atmos though you're going to need a lot more things like a renderer (and obviously all the other things that come with proper Atmos mixing like a 7.1.4 setup which isn't going to be cheap if you're looking to do this using proper speakers).

A proper 7.1.4 setup doesn't strike me as something indies would have access to tbh.

I have no experience with this, but have been curious given recent developments.

A bit of experimenting showed me limitations wrt Atmos over a multichannel DAC, so I went looking for an Atmos decoder that would work upstream (digital out). There was one discontinued Dolby item that output via AES that would presumably work with an Okto. But it's a software/licencing restriction, surely? Apple's TV app on macOS says it will output Atmos, but looks like it only works to a supported/licenced AV processor/receiver via HDMI. All of which doesn't tell me how monitoring will work using Logic Pro.

Anyway "renderer" might be the missing piece I was looking for. Is that a hardware or a software thing?

Edit: amazing what changing the search term from "decoder" to "renderer" will do ... I now have various manuals from Dolby, along with pearls like "Feel Every Dimension in Dolby Atmos™" as a trademark. So Apple with throw one of these into Logic? I wonder.