Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos

[SteveMc]

Story here

Quote:

"CUPERTINO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apple® today announced Apple Music® is bringing industry-leading sound quality to subscribers with the addition of Spatial Audio with support for Dolby Atmos. Spatial Audio gives artists the opportunity to create immersive audio experiences for their fans with true multidimensional sound and clarity. Apple Music subscribers will also be able to listen to more than 75 million songs in Lossless Audio — the way the artists created them in the studio. These new features will be available for Apple Music subscribers starting next month at no additional cost."

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[epirali]

I think its funny when we get excited in this day and age to "get" what we had back in the mid 1980s, lossless high quality full bit rate audio, with CDs....

Sigh...

 

[D_Frost]

I think this change may bring up the reconsideration of speccing the Burmester vs Bose for some people:

Would lossless music be significantly better on the Burmester or is Bose good enough to resolve the additional detail?​

 

[Pozuelo]

The question is when and if the Taycan will be able to take advantage of the lossless files. For the record, I do have Burmester and wish it is soon !

 

[Oink]

Dolby Atmos for music? What? Don't tell me I am the only one confused here.

 

[epirali]

I think this change may bring up the reconsideration of speccing the Burmester vs Bose for some people:

Would lossless music be significantly better on the Burmester or is Bose good enough to resolve the additional detail?​

I am an audio professional by career. This question does not have a simple answer. Cars are a non ideal listening environment at the best of times. And one that is constantly changing, by humidity, road noise, time of year etc. So this idea of “fine detail” in a car, where the shape is wrong, speaker placement is never ideal (by nature of the space), the fact that you may have an empty car or a full car, etc etc, is a bit misplaced.

Sure, if I park my Taycan in the conditioned garage, put on music, and listen I WILL hear the differences. But then again I am trained to create the original. Will most people? Even assuming “perfect” hearing (how many hours do you have in a convertible with no ear protection in your life?) I am relatively sure most people would not. I also have access to studio reference monitor systems.

And this is assuming you start with material that was properly produced.

My rule of thumb for audio and cars: avoid Bose when you can (won’t start a war here), or if you can’t turn off all DSP they use (if you can). Then use settings that give you the most fun while you are driving and listening to music. If you want fidelity park your car, create a good listening room with good (not perfect) speakers and enjoy!

 

[tigerbalm]

It will be interesting to see if the inbuilt Apple Music player - which I use a lot when it works – will support this.

It might make the case for using Apple Music via carplay in the meantime.

This has long been rumoured and I (kinda) justified the Burmeister in my spec in anticipation of this.

 

[tigerbalm]

It might make the case for using Apple Music via carplay in the meantime.

Answering my own comment/question. I don't think CarPlay will support these higher codec's from looking at Apple's WWDC presentation on the topic from 2016.

https://devstreaming-cdn.apple.com/...22_developing_carplay_systems_part_1.pdf?dl=1

 

[MissionC]

I think its funny when we get excited in this day and age to "get" what we had back in the mid 1980s, lossless high quality full bit rate audio, with CDs....

Sigh...

The Apple Lossless, and other ”lossless” formats are definitely better than CD quality. CDs were not the pinnace of audio quality and introduced their own compromises. The standard CD audio format that’s been around since the early ‘80s is 16-bit at 44.1 kHz. What Apple just released is 24-bit at 48 kHz, much closer to what modern music is actually mixed and mastered at. Since around 2000, digitally recorded music was generally captured at 24-bit resolution and then “dithered” down to 16-bit for the CD process. In theory, with the right equipment you’ll hear a difference. In recording studios, with nice reference monitors (e.g.: kickass speakers), and mixing boards that are fully digital, you can definitely hear the difference. It used to pain me to go out into the parking lot and hear mixes on car audio systems, but that’s what we had to mix to back in the day.

 

[Mike in CA]

I am an audio professional by career. This question does not have a simple answer. Cars are a non ideal listening environment at the best of times. And one that is constantly changing, by humidity, road noise, time of year etc. So this idea of “fine detail” in a car, where the shape is wrong, speaker placement is never ideal (by nature of the space), the fact that you may have an empty car or a full car, etc etc, is a bit misplaced.

Sure, if I park my Taycan in the conditioned garage, put on music, and listen I WILL hear the differences. But then again I am trained to create the original. Will most people? Even assuming “perfect” hearing (how many hours do you have in a convertible with no ear protection in your life?) I am relatively sure most people would not. I also have access to studio reference monitor systems.

And this is assuming you start with material that was properly produced.

My rule of thumb for audio and cars: avoid Bose when you can (won’t start a war here), or if you can’t turn off all DSP they use (if you can). Then use settings that give you the most fun while you are driving and listening to music. If you want fidelity park your car, create a good listening room with good (not perfect) speakers and enjoy!

Great post. The points you raise are things I've often thought about. Even in a vehicle as quiet as the Taycan the noise floor is at a level that would be intolerable in any good listening room. Add the fact that I've spent way to much time in my early days with unprotected hearing at auto races, rock concerts and the like and the nuance offered by a higher end audio system like the Burmeister in a moving vehicle would be mostly lost on me.

I have very good quality equipment at home because I've always been into audio and am stubborn enough to think (probably erroneously) that I can still get something out of spending the extra money. But for the road, I've surrendered to the fact that I should allocate my discretionary option money to something other than pricey sound equipment.

 

[epirali]

The Apple Lossless, and other ”lossless” formats are definitely better than CD quality. CDs were not the pinnace of audio quality and introduced their own compromises. The standard CD audio format that’s been around since the early ‘80s is 16-bit at 44.1 kHz. What Apple just released is 24-bit at 48 kHz, much closer to what modern music is actually mixed and mastered at. Since around 2000, digitally recorded music was generally captured at 24-bit resolution and then “dithered” down to 16-bit for the CD process. In theory, with the right equipment you’ll hear a difference. In recording studios, with nice reference monitors (e.g.: kickass speakers), and mixing boards that are fully digital, you can definitely hear the difference. It used to pain me to go out into the parking lot and hear mixes on car audio systems, but that’s what we had to mix to back in the day.

You are absolutely correct, i was more commenting on compression vs lossless. 24 bit is nice, it gives higher dynamic range ASSUMING the source material was recorded in high enough quality, mixed well, and then NOT mastered with a lot of compression. This is getting into the weeds, but in search for loudness and “punch” a lot of material is compressed and processed where the 24 bit detail is lost. But yes, with the right recording 24 bit in the right quiet environment provides more dynamic range, but more importantly more “space” and room. 24 bit is more critical for raw mixes with headroom and pre-mastering.

But I have to say a properly master CD at 44.1/16 bit is pretty darn close. The 48k was only used more in order to sync better with more varied video formats rather than for audio quality.

 

[Random]

Dolby Atmos for music? What? Don't tell me I am the only one confused here.

I was confused too since my understanding was that atmos was created for home cinema, then I tried a sample track with my iPhone + AirPods Pro with an with out atmos and the difference is huge. There is a playlist (created for spacial audio) where you can find an audio explanation of the system and some sample tracks.
It would be nice to have it in the Taycan. Not so sure about lossless since, as posted before, subtle details are hard to find in a driving car. Also would be bothersome to deal with +50MB files while they are not previously downloaded.

 

[porsche_coyote]

I was confused too since my understanding was that atmos was created for home cinema, then I tried a sample track with my iPhone + AirPods Pro with an with out atmos and the difference is huge. There is a playlist (created for spacial audio) where you can find an audio explanation of the system and some sample tracks.
It would be nice to have it in the Taycan. Not so sure about lossless since, as posted before, subtle details are hard to find in a driving car. Also would be bothersome to deal with +50MB files while they are not previously downloaded.

At least for me (running iOS 15 beta, Taycan has Bose) this works. You need to make sure that you have 'Surround' checked in the Bose settings, and that you're using CarPlay to play a track that is mastered with spatial audio.

 

[Random]

At least for me (running iOS 15 beta, Taycan has Bose) this works. You need to make sure that you have 'Surround' checked in the Bose settings, and that you're using CarPlay to play a track that is mastered with spatial audio.

Thanks for the info! Those last days I’ve been using built in Apple Music. Sounds great. I’d say than even better than CarPlay.

 

[Charlie]

At least for me (running iOS 15 beta, Taycan has Bose) this works. You need to make sure that you have 'Surround' checked in the Bose settings, and that you're using CarPlay to play a track that is mastered with spatial audio.

On Apples site, it look like the phone needs to be connected with the USB cable for CarPlay to use the new files.

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