Apple Lossless and Spatial Audio (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

I am experiencing Apple’s Dolby Atmos music for the first time tonight on my AirPods Pro. I am very ambivalent. It’s novel. It’s interesting. It’s fun. It can also fuck up good rock, robbing it of intensity and power and dynamics.

I’m trying out music I know. The quiet parts are improved by the openness of the spatial. But at the 0:30, the song breaks loud in the chorus. In stereo it hits. In spatial, it’s anemic and bereft off its power.

What did they do to Blink 182? Not good. ( The Verge reported this one as egregious so I had to try it)

just a few songs I know so far. Have to try some more. I may have to get a 4K AppleTV soon to try it out in the theater.

 

[TonyD]

I just got a new iPhone so I’m back into Music for another 6 months.

Still finding too many songs that sound like different songs then they were before.

Blondie: Call Me.
Sounds wrong.

A Jackson 5 song sounds wrong.

I’ll Be Around - Spinners. Wrong

skynyrd - Simple Man

Alone - Heart

What’s Up? Four Non Blondes is brutal.

 

[DaveF]

I’ll give Rebel Yell a pass. It gains and loses. So it’s fine. An equally listenable alt take, but not indisputably better.

 

[TonyD]

This sounds like a demo.

 

[DaveF]

I think this might be near unequivocal success. It feels like how I always felt it sounded, wide, embracing, encompassing the life of a teenager.

 

[DaveF]

This sounds like a demo.

Sounds like it got smeared with reverb and some bass boost. Not terrible, but takes away the immediacy and cleanness of the original stereo.

 

[TonyD]

This is what many of these Classic Rock Apple Atmos songs sound like to me.

Pumped up reverb and too much bass.

 

[DaveF]

Best soundstage I have heard is Rush’s Tom Sawyer. About 2:30 in Neal Peart’s drums circle your brain.

Too much reverb smeared onto the vocals. Sounds like Geddy Lee is singing in the shower.

it’s not all bad. I enjoy a lot of its spatiality. But it’s gimmicky. Spatial audio giveth and spatial audio taketh away.

 

[DaveF]

She’s not my style but I love this song in Atmos:

This is easy for me to like. I really like this song, but hardly know it. Unlike Rush, I don’t have 30 years emotional experience tied to Billie Eilish. So I can take this SA production as how it’s supposed to sound and enjoy it thoroughly.

 

[Sam Posten]

Good stuff I hadn't heard mostly.

 

[Sam Posten]

Lovely!

 

[Sam Posten]

Paywalled.

Why Apple, Amazon and Spotify Are Embracing Hi-Def Music: A Guide to ‘Lossless’ Streaming

Answers to 10 burning questions on hi-def streaming—from how it’s vastly improving sound quality to how to access it. Plus: The best gear to take advantage of the revolution both at home and on the go.

www.wsj.com

 

[Sam Posten]

Get Started With Making Music in Dolby Atmos - Dolby Professional - Dolby Professional

Learn how to mix and create music in Dolby Atmos that delivers immersive sound experiences, unparalleled clarity, and high fidelity with our 101 tutorials.

professional.dolby.com

Dolby Atmos Music Creation 101

Explore Dolby Atmos music creation with this series of short tutorial videos. Our Dolby team shares tips for getting started, best practices for configuring your studio, and production workflow techniques that will preserve your creative intent and deliver your ideas with more clarity, space...

professional.dolby.com

 

[Ted Todorov]

Paywalled.

Why Apple, Amazon and Spotify Are Embracing Hi-Def Music: A Guide to ‘Lossless’ Streaming

Answers to 10 burning questions on hi-def streaming—from how it’s vastly improving sound quality to how to access it. Plus: The best gear to take advantage of the revolution both at home and on the go.

www.wsj.com

Overall a decent summary, but bad MP3s from “back in the day” are not a fair comparison to lossless. A far fairer comparison would be the 256 MBPs AAC Apple used for streaming or iTunes sales before the recent move to lossless.

And lossless is, by definition, at least as good as CDs. Yes, *which mix; which transfer from an original analog recording is being used; how much compression* are all more important factors. Clearly there are many classic albums with with multiple CD versions. The bit rate is alway identical, but the CDs are radically different in quality because of how the analogue to digital transfer was done

 

[Sam Posten]

 

[TonyD]

Do we have a lot of people here that subscribe to the Wall Street journal?

 

[Sam Posten]

I’m not going to get into another argument with you Tony because you don’t like my links. Once again feel free to put me on ignore rather than finding something else to complain about.

 

[TonyD]

I don’t have a problem with that link, I’d love to read the article.

 

[DaveF]

WSJ unfortunately is the worst because they have *no* free reads. Gotta be a subscriber for any link, IME.

 

[TonyD]

Are we allowed to copy an article and post it here with full credit to the wsj?