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Apple lossless official announcement

voodooless

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Is that what "3D" is on some of the Amazon titles I am looking at?

No idea.. Amazon does not offer HD in my country. Meanwhile, Apple just offers the service (probably mostly) unrestricted worldwide. The others must be doing something really wrong.
 

jhaider

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Nope, as far as I know, it's Tidal, Amazon and Apple offering Atmos.

On the Dolby site on Amazon HD I already see various album titles that are not in Atmos in Apple Music.

I did not know that.

Can you confirm Amazon’s Atmos-encoded music is a real offering and not just some boom-box thing? Per Dolby it appears they’re using “Atmos” to describe effects processing on an Echo product.

https://www.dolby.com/experience/amazon-music-hd/amazon-music-hd-how-to/
 

voodooless

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Per Dolby it appears they’re using “Atmos” to describe effects processing on an Echo product.

https://www.dolby.com/experience/amazon-music-hd/amazon-music-hd-how-to/

To apply the effect, they first need the actual Atmos track, so I would assume that it's real Atmos. Apple does something similar with the Homepod. since it has multiple drivers to create an omni effect, it can also utilize this to steer audio in all directions. Now what I don't know if Amazon HD can actually play the files on something other than the Echo.
 

jhaider

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Now what I don't know if Amazon HD can actually play the files on something other than the Echo.

But that is the only thing that actually matters. If an “Atmos” track cannot be played back on an immersive home audio system as an immersive track, then it is something materially different and grossly inferior.

A sound effect on a wiretap is not the same thing at all.
 

voodooless

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But that is the only thing that actually matters. If an “Atmos” track cannot be played back on an immersive home audio system as an immersive track, then it is something materially different and grossly inferior.

Sure.. But I can't give you that information ;) From what is online available it indeed seems to only work on Echo Studio.

Still, it's interesting that Amazon seems to have a different selection.
 
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Jimbob54

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It would be ironic if the anti-MQA "lossless LPCM forever" crowd that has for five years fear-mongered against eminent MQA takeover, completely missed the actual takeover by a lossy and bad sounding (at least on stereo) multi-channel closed and proprietary Dolby format.

Please, don't.
 

AdamG

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This thread is about:
Apple lossless official announcement”

Let’s keep the conversation related to this. If you all start going down the MQA rabbit hole this thread will be closed. Warnings will be given to individuals who just can’t help themselves or want to restart the MQA war.
 

MNMLSM

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While I appreciate that music in top quality is offered to the mass of listeners in a form of subscription- and streaming model, users (like me) who like to manage their own library (with offline files) will probably die out.
My library, well sorted and managed by foobar, tagged with personal tags, is more than 10 years old. Majority of the files are in 44.1/16 FLAC and I still love it and couldn't imagine to change it, it's perfect, at least to me.
I'd like to see a subscription model which is more expensive than the "normal" one, but offers the streaming service + the possibility to download 5 albums (for example) in HQ a month (normal files which are not bounded to the streaming platform).
Yes, I can download an album on qobuz in HQ, but it's way too expensive.
 

jhaider

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Sure.. But I can't give you that information ;) From what is online available it [Amazon Music “Atmos”] indeed seems to only work on Echo Studio.

This confusion is IMO on Dolby. Applying the same trademark to effects processing exclusive to a boombox/wiretap contraption and to immersive mixes designed for playback on an audio system with bed.subs.heights is not helpful to any consumer.
 

Katji

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Sitting inside the orchestra would be very cool. Of course, with a lot of modern music, there was no orchestra. When it comes to electronic music, I’m all in for whatever effect makes the music sound more interesting and engaging (others will differ, of course). I was just listening to an old track by Boards of Canada on my 2-way desktop system, and somehow they mixed some of the voices in a way that made them sound like they were coming from far outside the stereo field. Very cool and not sure what they did.
[...]

Maybe some people will start using it in Techno, Drum&Bass, Dubstep. ...I mean this development brings Atmos more into the foreground, instead of just home theatre, movies.[/QUOTE]

Now that Apple adopted Dolby Atmos (when was the last time Apple adopted anything?) it will spread like wild fire.
 
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bluefuzz

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I can count on one hand the number of people I know who have surround systems in their homes.
I can't even count the number of people I know with surround systems on one finger. It's simply not a thing.

I have come across a couple of people who have implemented 'multiroom' sytems with a single (!) wall or ceiling mounted speaker in each room, but I have otherwise never met or even heard of anyone in my circle who has anything more advanced than a pair of small bookshelves and/or a soundbar for music/movie listening.

No doubt Atmos/3D/Spatial audio will gain a few devotees in the next couple of years and maybe sell some gear to the gullible, but once the novelty has worn off it will undoubtedly go the way of the dodo like all the other toytown 3D formats. Try buying a '3D' tv now. Three or four years ago there was nothing else.
 

DimitryZ

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I can't even count the number of people I know with surround systems on one finger. It's simply not a thing.

I have come across a couple of people who have implemented 'multiroom' sytems with a single (!) wall or ceiling mounted speaker in each room, but I have otherwise never met or even heard of anyone in my circle who has anything more advanced than a pair of small bookshelves and/or a soundbar for music/movie listening.

No doubt Atmos/3D/Spatial audio will gain a few devotees in the next couple of years and maybe sell some gear to the gullible, but once the novelty has worn off it will undoubtedly go the way of the dodo like all the other toytown 3D formats. Try buying a '3D' tv now. Three or four years ago there was nothing else.
I think it's pretty common to have separate systems for music and film.

My main system is in the living room and it's audiophile two channel.

My movie system is in the basement, where the screen is and it's a respectable 7.1 audio with a good Harmon Kardon AVR.

I don't see myself upgrading the latter to Atmos. Certainly the main system will stay the way it is.

I am concerned that all the major streaming services have begun to push 3D at the same time.

I agree that they have been at it for a very long time. My multiformat office system has 8-track (of course). That compact Wollensak model has a switch for playing back quadrophonic tapes!
 
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AdamG

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I can't even count the number of people I know with surround systems on one finger. It's simply not a thing.

I have come across a couple of people who have implemented 'multiroom' sytems with a single (!) wall or ceiling mounted speaker in each room, but I have otherwise never met or even heard of anyone in my circle who has anything more advanced than a pair of small bookshelves and/or a soundbar for music/movie listening.

No doubt Atmos/3D/Spatial audio will gain a few devotees in the next couple of years and maybe sell some gear to the gullible, but once the novelty has worn off it will undoubtedly go the way of the dodo like all the other toytown 3D formats. Try buying a '3D' tv now. Three or four years ago there was nothing else.

You can now count One “Gullible Devotee” you have heard of, that has a full Dolby ATMOS/3D/AURO Sound system. With 15 separate speakers and 2 Subs in a 9.2.6 arrangement. All the base layers are full towers. While I love just 2ch or 2.2 ch music. I also have about 2 dozen Atmos music discs and stream ATMOS music. IMHO multichannel music is incredible and far more engaging and enveloping than 2 channel music. Does that mean I don’t like 2 channel music anymore? Not one bit. I listen to whatever format suits my mood. I only wonder why all the hostility to new formats and methods of music delivery? I think it’s a wonderful thing and represents the expansion of appreciation of music consumption.

If some have never experienced a full Dolby ATMOS music audition, I highly recommend the experience. Seems pretty difficult to me to be able to make judgements about something that a person has never heard or experienced. :cool:
 

DimitryZ

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You can now count One “Gullible Devotee” you have heard of, that has a full Dolby ATMOS/3D/AURO Sound system. With 15 separate speakers and 2 Subs in a 9.2.6 arrangement. All the base layers are full towers. While I love just 2ch or 2.2 ch music. I also have about 2 dozen Atmos music discs and stream ATMOS music. IMHO multichannel music is incredible and far more engaging and enveloping than 2 channel music. Does that mean I don’t like 2 channel music anymore? Not one bit. I listen to whatever format suits my mood. I only wonder why all the hostility to new formats and methods of music delivery? I think it’s a wonderful thing and represents the expansion of appreciation of music consumption.

If some have never experienced a full Dolby ATMOS music audition, I highly recommend the experience. Seems pretty difficult to me to be able to make judgements about something that a person has never heard or experienced. :cool:
Adam, can you describe your setup? What does it take to have an Atmos compliant system?

Maybe I can start converting my home theater to Atmos after all...
 

AdamG

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Adam, can you describe your setup? What does it take to have an Atmos compliant system?

Maybe I can start converting my home theater to Atmos after all...
So not to pollute this thread I will send you a pm.
 

jhaider

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You can now count One “Gullible Devotee” you have heard of, that has a full Dolby ATMOS/3D/AURO Sound system.

One more. Ours is configured Auro-style (7.1.4 with 4 subs; wall mounted heights instead of ceiling speakers) both for convenience of installation (cross joists in ceiling) and because my priority is upmixing 2ch recordings.

(NB the answer to “how to convert to immersive” is “2-6 height or ceiling speakers, plus wiring, amplification, and processing.”)

All the base layers are full towers.

Thats one good way to do it. We went the opposite direction, aiming for minimal apparent system footprint. Sides and center are in-walls. Rears are in actual bookcases, with books around them. Subwoofers are custom designs, and three of the four present as cabinetry. See here for front pics:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ht-our-current-setups.564/page-29#post-739241

If some have never experienced a full Dolby ATMOS music audition, I highly recommend the experience. Seems pretty difficult to me to be able to make judgements about something that a person has never heard or experienced. :cool:

Not only for native content, but also upmixed content. All of my pure-enjoyment listening has been upmixed (first DPL2, now Auro3D) for over 15 years. No offense to anyone, and I understand the “as the artist intended” argument*, but I think of native 2-channel reproduced as such as more a background listening experience: headphones or nearfield desktop speakers playing while you’re working, ceiling speakers playing in the kitchen while you’re cooking, putting on records in the background when you have company, etc. Upmixed well a 2-channel recording becomes more of an experience. I’m trying to think of a track I prefer in basic 2-channel over upmixed using Auro, but none comes to me.

*though I also understand that argument is sometimes wrong. People forget that “stereo” was a 3-channel approach, only downmixed to 2ch because of the primitive music distribution tech of the age. Those great Reiner/CSO Mercury Living Presence recordings, for example, were actually downmixed to 2ch for distribution, until the mid-1990s I think when the 3.0ch SACDs came out. It’s astounding how much better they are in original format. Indeed, one gap in all the streaming services, Apple and Tidal included, is they’re missing pre-Atmos multichannel content. So no DSOTM in quad, no Wish You Were Here or White Album or Brothers in Arms or Sea Change in 5.1, and so on.
 
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DeLub

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Indeed, one gap in all the streaming services, Apple and Tidal included, is they’re missing pre-Atmos multichannel content. So no DSOTM in quad, no Wish You Were Here or White Album or Brothers in Arms or Sea Change in 5.1, and so on.
That’s exactly what I’m hoping for as well: that they will also start streaming all those SACD recordings.
 
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