Stereophile's Jim Austin Says Streaming Atmos Sucks

[chelgrian]

It doesn't matter if Apple is the market leader or not in streaming (at this moment), for them it's enough that a large portion of their loyal user group is using their streaming service and buying their hardware for it to succeed. The proof of that is that they don't seem to be highly interested in providing their service outside their own platforms. As long as their users like what they hear in "Apple's" spatial audio, the format will likely succeed.

Except I'm completely in the Apple ecosystem but I use Spotify rather than Apple Music because there is no equivalent of Spotify connect in the Apple system. If Apple did have an equivalent then I'd have Atmos turned off as it's actively worse than lossless stereo for the kind of thing I listen to.

 

[Sal1950]

If Apple did have an equivalent then I'd have Atmos turned off as it's actively worse than lossless stereo for the kind of thing I listen to.

How did you determine that since you've had neither lossless nor a full Atmos system to listen to?

 

[goat76]

Except I'm completely in the Apple ecosystem but I use Spotify rather than Apple Music because there is no equivalent of Spotify connect in the Apple system. If Apple did have an equivalent then I'd have Atmos turned off as it's actively worse than lossless stereo for the kind of thing I listen to.

Apple Music doesn't work for me either, I need a streaming service that is supported by my streamer which is an important part of my main 2-channel rig, so the choices for me are Qobuz, Tidal, Deezer, or Spotify. Last week I realized that the Tidal app on my TV does support Atmos playback so I changed back to Tidal from Qobuz (which I have used for the last two years) just to be able to play music in Atmos as well. Music in Atmos will just be a side thing for me, most of my listening will still be 2-channel audio as the type of music I mostly listen to will likely never come out in Atmos.

I just have a 5.2 surround system so I can't fully judge how good or bad the Atmos mixes truly are. While some of the mixes sound great in my system and take the music to a whole another level, others sound strangely mixed as if some of the studios had a completely different level match between the channels than I have in my system, which in some cases puts way to much of the mix in the surround channels. But again, the reason for that could simply be the fact that my system is just a 5.2 system and not a full Atmos system, so the sometimes strange balance can maybe be the lack of side channels in my system. I don't know.



What type of music do you listen to that you don't think would work well for Atmos?

In my book, every type of genre should work with Atmos, it just depends on how "tasteful" the mix is done to best suit the type of music at hand. Some types of recordings will work with a more "creative" type of mixing with sound objects panned all around the listener, while others will work better if the surrounding speakers just help to create more spaciousness, room sound, and atmosphere around the listener.
What type of music wouldn't benefit from a tastefully done Atmos mix?

 

[Brian Hall]

After years of promises they still don't have a lossless stream either.
Is anybody really serious about audio still using Spotify?

Raising my hand.

 

[chelgrian]

How did you determine that since you've had neither lossless nor a full Atmos system to listen to?

I do have lossless as I also have the majority of the music I listen to as HiRes FLAC downloads, the Spotify subscription is for things that don't warrant being bought as a download and for deciding if a performance is good enough to warrant buying as a lossless download. The 320kbs stream from Spotify is sufficient unless you run in to problem samples of which there are some for all lossy compression mechanisms.

I do have access to a full Atmos monitoring system but in a studio with creation tools plus some horrible hacks to be able to run QA on the lossy encoded versions. Dolby really do not make this easy.

 

[Sal1950]

I do have lossless as I also have the majority of the music I listen to as HiRes FLAC downloads, the Spotify subscription is for things that don't warrant being bought as a download and for deciding if a performance is good enough to warrant buying as a lossless download. The 320kbs stream from Spotify is sufficient unless you run in to problem samples of which there are some for all lossy compression mechanisms.

That's not the way you made it sound, be straight with your posting ?
Spotify is about the only streamer left that isn't doing lossless and offers you less for your money that any
of the current majors. They've lied to the user base for years now, I listened to the BS for a long time but the minute
Apple came along with lossless plus HiRez plus multich for less money, I didn't have to think about a switch twice.

If Apple did have an equivalent then I'd have Atmos turned off as it's actively worse than lossless stereo for the kind of thing I listen to.

So if you do have a Atmos system at hand, you still didn't answer our original question, what kind of music do you listen to that you can't find anything available that you would go so far as to turn it off? AFAIK all genres are pretty much covered.
Sounds more like you just want to throw eggs for some personal reason.

 

[chelgrian]

That's not the way you made it sound, be straight with your posting ?
Spotify is about the only streamer left that isn't doing lossless and offers you less for your money that any
of the current majors. They've lied to the user base for years now, I listened to the BS for a long time but the minute
Apple came along with lossless plus HiRez plus multich for less money, I didn't have to think about a switch twice.

So if you do have a Atmos system at hand, you still didn't answer our original question, what kind of music do you listen to that you can't find anything available that you would go so far as to turn it off? AFAIK all genres are pretty much covered.
Sounds more like you just want to throw eggs for some personal reason.

Firstly you are making entirely unwarranted assumptions. It is entirely reasonable assume that someone posting on ASR does not *only* have streaming as a source of music rather than making the opposite assumption has you have done.

Secondly as a system which delivers a proprietary, lossy compressed sound field Atmos must justify why it should be used rather than the status quo rather than why it should not be used.

I am entirely willing to discuss the technical merits of the internal workings of immersive audio however I am not going to discuss my exact musical tastes.