Spatial Audio Enhanced 3D Lossless Whatevah

[Wes]

Tsunami Warning! Get ready for a Tidal wave of BS... or maybe even better quality streaming

The Big Snapple is geared up and ready to go

https://9to5mac.com/2021/05/16/appl...ement-as-3d-lossless-audio-streaming-rumored/

 

[Vini darko]

"Music is about to change forever" suuure it is

 

[Tks]

Just bring back the iPod or decouple iDevices from having to interface through iTunes, that'll be enough of a change justify the pretentiousness levels being exuded atm.

 

[Helicopter]

If Apple does anything new or special, I will be surprised. They are good at recognizing a tidal wave trend and differentiating themselves before it hits land. I can't think of a single importantant innovation where Apple deserves credit.

 

[Sancus]

Apple spatial audio is pretty good from what I've heard. It can be used with actual surround sources and has real head tracking via gyroscope and accelerometer in the headphones, unlike most other solutions. So in theory it could get as good as the Smyth realiser or BACCH systems. I'm sure it's not there, but I wouldn't call it BS quite yet.

 

[Helicopter]

Apple spatial audio is pretty good from what I've heard. It can be used with actual surround sources and has real head tracking via gyroscope and accelerometer in the headphones, unlike most other solutions. So in theory it could get as good as the Smyth realiser or BACCH systems. I'm sure it's not there, but I wouldn't call it BS quite yet.

To be clear, I am calling nothing new or original, i.e., copycat; not BS. Nothing BS about many things championed by Apple such as mp3 players, or even smartphones. They just didn't actually come up with anything they launched to mainstream.

 

[mkawa]

i don't understand. dolby DTS is a form of spatial audio and we don't make fun of that, so why make fun of this? also, with everyone talking about duplicating the live music experience, well, hate to break it to you, but one major reason that live music sounds so much different from reproduction is the lack of spatial cues.


oh wait, is this just about apple marketing? sorry to intrude then!

 

[Sancus]

To be clear, I am calling nothing new or original, i.e., copycat; not BS. Nothing BS about many things championed by Apple such as mp3 players, or even smartphones. They just didn't actually come up with anything they launched to mainstream.

Oh I absolutely agree with you, Apple doesn't invent anything really. However if this solution is a copycat even 80% as good as the above mentioned ones, it will be good for surround listeners. If you can get a decent surround experience with $550 Airpods Max, that means demand for surround content goes up which directly benefits people like me with real Atmos systems!

 

[Helicopter]

⁷

i don't understand. dolby DTS is a form of spatial audio and we don't make fun of that, so why make fun of this? also, with everyone talking about duplicating the live music experience, well, hate to break it to you, but one major reason that live music sounds so much different from reproduction is the lack of spatial cues.


oh wait, is this just about apple marketing? sorry to intrude then!

I am mostly cynical because of how Amazon botched Atmos, with proprietary crappy speakers, and I expect even less from Ap0le, with their history of isolation and propiety

 

[Tks]

Apple spatial audio is pretty good from what I've heard. It can be used with actual surround sources and has real head tracking via gyroscope and accelerometer in the headphones, unlike most other solutions. So in theory it could get as good as the Smyth realiser or BACCH systems. I'm sure it's not there, but I wouldn't call it BS quite yet.

The tech itself isn't BS, it works fine from a head tracking perspective. The problem is, I don't see the actual point. All it sounds like is it's doing slightly more than channel panning (and a bit of crossfeed like processing).

Why this would "change audio" is beyond me. I don't want to have to be staring straight at my phone to get a feel from what direction the music is coming from. I think everyone making the claim this announcement has anything to do with spatial audio as the primary unveiling is not thinking straight.

EDIT: Unless of course the announcement is, engineers are going to be bound by some new standard of spatial audio-only releases for the Apple Music catalogue or something.

 

[Sancus]

The tech itself isn't BS, it works fine from a head tracking perspective. The problem is, I don't see the actual point. All it sounds like is it's doing slightly more than channel panning (and a bit of crossfeed like processing).

From what I understand, you can listen to 5.1 or Atmos sound sources via spatial audio and it will get the non-frontal sources to sound roughly correct as if they are coming from the right directions. So for example you could watch Atmos shows on Netflix this way. I personally haven't used it as I don't own any Apple stuff right now, but I've had friends use it and say it's definitely better than a stereo experience for this.

YMMV but there is a very clear and powerful use case to get surround audio right in headphones. It would produce a huge explosion in demand for multi-channel content and in a perfect world could even end stereo as the default music format.

And based on people's experiences with the Smyth realiser, it's definitely POSSIBLE to get it right.

 

[Tks]

From what I understand, you can listen to 5.1 or Atmos sound sources via spatial audio and it will get the non-frontal sources to sound roughly correct as if they are coming from the right directions. So for example you could watch Atmos shows on Netflix this way. I personally haven't used it as I don't own any Apple stuff right now, but I've had friends use it and say it's definitely better than a stereo experience for this.

YMMV but there is a very clear and powerful use case to get surround audio right in headphones. It would produce a huge explosion in demand and in a perfect world could even end stereo as the default music format.

And based on people's experiences with the Smyth realiser, it's definitely POSSIBLE to get it right.

Sure, but since Apple is talking about an Apple Music announcement, I'm simply not aware what the relevance would be?

 

[Sancus]

Sure, but since Apple is talking about an Apple Music announcement, I'm simply not aware what the relevance would be?

The article states they may be announcing 3D lossless music of some kind. TIDAL has been producing Atmos music, so it is possible Apple is following suit. In either case, if correct, it would mean another major streaming service starting to produce surround music that can actually be listened to as surround music(unlike the shit Amazon implementation).

 

[mkawa]

it could be lossless and 3d, separately. it will also be a new revision of the airpods; analysts have been predicting that announcement for a month or so. so, new airpods have spatial sound. apple music now provides ALACs on some percentage of their catalog. apple music has a gold rope for popular, heavily played music in spatial sound format starting *today

i think this will be the play. lossless heads off spotify's lossless tier before they get up and running. airpods supporting spatial sound means that apple music will have an "extensive" surround catalog with a way for everyone to experience it before tidal gets atmos up and running.

*well, not technically today, as in now

 

[andymok]

Public focuses on Dolby Atmos so much, that they miss the big picture of MPEG-H, which Apple has since realising the format bit by bit through H.265 and HEIF over the years. Now it finally comes to the audio part. By adopting spatial audio, contents rendered in real-time, we get more consistent workflow and results. Backend can be streamlined, faster delivery at lower cost as there is no need to transcode between formats anymore. Customers get to choose whatever format they want.

 

[Tks]

The article states they may be announcing 3D lossless music of some kind. TIDAL has been producing Atmos music, so it is possible Apple is following suit. In either case, if correct, it would mean another major streaming service starting to produce surround music that can actually be listened to as surround music(unlike the shit Amazon implementation).

That's what's going to change music? Surround recordings of music? Also Tidal produces music? Or did you mean they're hosting "Atmos music" (sorry I've never heard of Atmos music itself specifically, I know multi channel though).

 

[DavidMcRoy]

We’re a pretty “Apple centric” household. (When I retired from TV broadcasting, I wanted to retire from having to deal with Microsoft bullshit every day, too.) I recently test-drove Qobuz and TIDAL to decide which to choose as a lossless FLAC /Hi-Res streaming service. As a sort of “‘control,” I picked up Apple Music with its lossy AAC compression format for a free 3 month trial, as well. It was the MQA equipment requirement hassles that led me to drop TIDAL and keep Qobuz. I’m glad to be in a position to evaluate whatever it is that Apple Music has up its sleeve. I’m also into Dolby Atmos immersive audio in a big way, so the “3D” audio tease is enticing. I’m guessing they’ll emphasize immersive audio for headphone/earbud listening (like the Sony 360 system, maybe?) as the big push, but I’m hoping for something for immersive speaker system application, too for my Dolby Atmos-compatible 7.1.4 system.

FWIW, mastering for immersive audio needn’t be a big, costly endeavor, at least for loudspeaker playback. From personal experience, the Dolby Audio Surround upmix suite does a fantastic job on the fly, even for deriving height channels, way better than I would have expected. I have no experience with any headphone application for immersive audio.

 

[Sancus]

That's what's going to change music? Surround recordings of music? Also Tidal produces music? Or did you mean they're hosting "Atmos music" (sorry I've never heard of Atmos music itself specifically, I know multi channel though).

I mean if you're happy with stereo that's fine. I think it's poor compared to almost all the surround recordings I've heard. It's very rare I even want to bother listening to a stereo recording ever again once I've heard a surround version. So yeah, I would like to have access to it on the go, and I would like there to be more content recorded/mixed that way, as right now there's only a really large library of surround classical, other genres don't have that much. I also think it's a way easier thing to sell to the mainstream if you can get it right on headphones, as the differences are immediately obvious and audible, unlike hi-res audio which is completely pointless.

Tidal has a partnership with Dolby Labs to mix and host Atmos music, yes. I think TIDAL's handling(most of?) the mixing and mastering of these albums, but Dolby might be paying for it, it's not completely clear. Not that important though. They also have released some older mixes done by other studios, like 2L. You can play Tidal Atmos tracks on any music system that will handle the playback, so AVRs etc. There isn't that much yet but they're consistently releasing a few albums every month.

Here's a playlist of things I've liked the most, for anyone that's interested.

 

[Tks]

I mean if you're happy with stereo that's fine. I think it's poor compared to almost all the surround recordings I've heard. It's very rare I even want to bother listening to a stereo recording ever again once I've heard a surround version. So yeah, I would like to have access to it on the go, and I would like there to be more content recorded/mixed that way, as right now there's only a really large library of surround classical, other genres don't have that much. I also think it's a way easier thing to sell to the mainstream if you can get it right on headphones, as the differences are immediately obvious and audible, unlike hi-res audio which is completely pointless.

Tidal has a partnership with Dolby Labs to mix and host Atmos music, yes. I think TIDAL's handling(most of?) the mixing and mastering of these albums, but Dolby might be paying for it, it's not completely clear. Not that important though. They also have released some older mixes done by other studios, like 2L. You can play Tidal Atmos tracks on any music system that will handle the playback, so AVRs etc. There isn't that much yet but they're consistently releasing a few albums every month.

Here's a playlist of things I've liked the most, for anyone that's interested.

I guess if offering Atmos is their thing that's going to change music forever, there's nothing really all that compelling unless recording studios want to start doing multi channel stuff (since the main form of consumption would be happening by headphone/IEM users on the Apple ecosystem, that would also require special attention toward a binural-targetted mix of sorts).

Guess we'll see in a day or two. I'll try it out and report back if anything comes to iPhone or Airpods Pro's.

 

[Sancus]

I guess if offering Atmos is their thing that's going to change music forever, there's nothing really all that compelling unless recording studios want to start doing multi channel stuff (since the main form of consumption would be happening by headphone/IEM users on the Apple ecosystem, that would also require special attention toward a binural-targetted mix of sorts).

Guess we'll see in a day or two. I'll try it out and report back if anything comes to iPhone or Airpods Pro's.

Airpods Pro do the head tracking spatial audio as well, I believe. So I doubt they would bother with special binaural tracks, there's no need and I can guarantee Apple does not care about people unless they're buying their most premium, newest products

But honestly, no clue. Saying "will change x forever" is what Apple says about everything they do. They could change the color of the iPad and they'd say it was revolutionary. It could easily just be another stupid hi-res lossless format.