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Apple Music: How to Enable Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio
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Yes, not natively yet, but you can airplay it from your iphone, ipad, apple tv, etc.
I don’t really understand how they say made for Spatial Audio when the songs don’t really sound that much different. The only thing that has spatial audio so far that I’ve seen is the video tutorial you find on the Spatial Audio category.
I have 15k songs in my library. Not every album has the icon unless every song on the album has Atmos. I found that I have a Beatles album that partially is Atmos so no icon. I just can't go through 1700 albums/15k songs to find this info. Sigh.
I believe that is true, unfortunately. Perhaps Apple will address this metadata in the future.
I thought atmos and spatial audio (didn't even ubderstand if they are the same thing) was only available on specifically supported hardware; saw a great deal of discussing the matter between users on this forum.
That is not correct. Atmos encodes the spatial position of sound sources into the bitstream. During playback, software takes this encoded information and combines it with knowledge of the system's speakers (number and position) to generate waveforms for each speaker that results in the listener hearing the sounds in their encoded spatial position. Since we are talking about headphones, there are only two channels, so a waveform is created for each ear. The headphones play no part in the computation. All they do is convert the electric waveform to sound.
When you say hardware, the playback device (iPhone, iPad, Mac) has to have appropriate software to decode the Atmos file and generate the waveforms. But the headphones are just speakers and there is no Atmos hardware element to them.
Ok I'm testing atmos now and it seems to work.
Though, quality wise, it's a very mixed bag.
Some songs sound amazing (like Free Bird), some sound horrible (like what's my age again).
I'm shocked to see Pink Floyd doesn't support dolby atmos yet...
I want to listen to atom heart mother in spatial audio.
The last thing is that I don't understand why Apple Music on iOS is letting me select lossless quality when I have an AAC wireless headphone selected.
I thought it would limit me to 256kbps aac (which is listed as the first option inside the app).
On the macOS side of things this is understandable, as lots of people use dedicated wired hardware.
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I’ve really tried to like this feature. But it just sounds like the mid range and instruments of the music has been flattened and an enhancement of the vocals. Is this how the song has been mastered or is this something algorithmic. I just want to here the music in the way that it’s mastered. The only thing that sounded good was the Marvin gaye demo they did.
I’ve been trying this out on a bunch of songs tonight, and it really depends on the song and the mix. I’ve been playing songs on my AirPods Max in Atmos, and then turning Atmos off in the settings in the middle of the song to really hear the difference.
With some of the songs, the instruments become very distinct and separated. I listened to a few songs by The Weekend and I didn’t even realize all of the instruments that were in those songs before. I noticed that the songs sound louder when in stereo, with more base. But, that seems to be from everything being so distinct and separated in Atmos. When switching between Atmos and stereo, I had to turn the volume down a notch of two in stereo because I just found it too loud.
The Gambler by Kenny Rogers sounded surprisingly good in Atmos. In stereo, it just sounds like an old recording (which it is). In Atmos, it’s been mixed in a way that really separates the vocals and the instruments. It sounds like a new song to me.
Like a few other people have mentioned, Blink-182’s What’s My Age Again sounds bad in Atmos, like it’s a bad mix. Space Cowboy by Kacey Musgraves sounds really good. In the end, I’d say it really depends on the mix.
Oh, and when my wife tried it she said she couldn’t hear a difference between stereo and Atmos, so there’s that too.
With some of the songs, the instruments become very distinct and separated. I listened to a few songs by The Weekend and I didn’t even realize all of the instruments that were in those songs before. I noticed that the songs sound louder when in stereo, with more base. But, that seems to be from everything being so distinct and separated in Atmos. When switching between Atmos and stereo, I had to turn the volume down a notch of two in stereo because I just found it too loud.
The Gambler by Kenny Rogers sounded surprisingly good in Atmos. In stereo, it just sounds like an old recording (which it is). In Atmos, it’s been mixed in a way that really separates the vocals and the instruments. It sounds like a new song to me.
Like a few other people have mentioned, Blink-182’s What’s My Age Again sounds bad in Atmos, like it’s a bad mix. Space Cowboy by Kacey Musgraves sounds really good. In the end, I’d say it really depends on the mix.
Oh, and when my wife tried it she said she couldn’t hear a difference between stereo and Atmos, so there’s that too.
Very much a mixed (heh) bag indeed. On I'm Coming Out the vocals are almost drowning in the mix. For What's Going On and Here Comes the Sun we don't need a return to hard panned channels (i.e. I don't need to hear the bongos being played to the left of me)
ATMOS/surround/binaural panning works best for atmospheric sound. Solo vox/instruments and especially rhythm should be mixed as close to the center as possible. Reverb, swells, pads, choir/background vox, complementary horns can be panned out to the sides/up/down to create a 3D space around the main vocalist and band. And save dimensional panning for the occasional fill and FX.
ATMOS/surround/binaural panning works best for atmospheric sound. Solo vox/instruments and especially rhythm should be mixed as close to the center as possible. Reverb, swells, pads, choir/background vox, complementary horns can be panned out to the sides/up/down to create a 3D space around the main vocalist and band. And save dimensional panning for the occasional fill and FX.
Yea, I think grandes tracks may be the best out of the bunch I still think the vocals sound over processed and the percussion sounds flat. But they have definitely created space in the track and separated the different objects nicely
Same issue here. When I have my iPhone mini 12 set to "Automatic," it never results in Atmos tracks being played on my AirPods Max. I can only get Atmos tracks to play when I select the "Always On" option.
EDIT: I just tried "Automatic" with my AirPods Pro, and they DO detect Atmos tracks. So, is something wrong with my AirPods Max?
Modern music sounds best to me with these mixes, especially where they've created a tight, intimate center. Tracks like Heat Waves, YOUTH, Latch, and Up. That's not to say it's not all bad for older tracks either. Instant Karma! works particularly well with the expanded soundstage.
I do fear that with some of the older tracks, they've (rightly or wrongly) resisted to "fix" the mixes, so flaws like poorly mixed or miced drums become more obvious now that there's more space carved out for them
I do fear that with some of the older tracks, they've (rightly or wrongly) resisted to "fix" the mixes, so flaws like poorly mixed or miced drums become more obvious now that there's more space carved out for them
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Mine was doing this too. It might iron itself out over time, or be fixed in a future software update. In the meantime, I just set it to Always on.
I envy you Apple Music subs. I’m never going to rent my music. I have about 15K songs that I own, purchased. I would repurchase most of these if Apple had Atmos enabled versions For sale. I am so very picky about what I like musically, that listening to “song lists” made for me by anyone other than me is too irritating to deal with. Oh well, I have a few SACDs to enjoy.
Why not both? My local library is 91K+ and I still subscribe to Apple Music
There are some albums it sounds fantastic on, but I've noticed some songs where it sounds odd, like there are elements that are buried and/or missing. Take the song False God by Taylor Swift...normally, there's a little sax intro, but in Dolby Atmos, it's totally silent. There are a few other songs I've noticed that have elements that are totally silent now.
I'm listening on AirPod Pros, which are supposed to be compatible. Do we think this might just be a bug that they'll eventually fix? Or the mix/master isn't actually properly made for just two channels (we're only hearing 2 of what is programmed for 5 channels)?
And it's weird, because some albums sound absolutely fantastic on it. All the elements are there, just more spaced out and less compressed. It makes me think that some of these albums that were supposedly mastered for Dolby Atmos weren't done properl.
I'm listening on AirPod Pros, which are supposed to be compatible. Do we think this might just be a bug that they'll eventually fix? Or the mix/master isn't actually properly made for just two channels (we're only hearing 2 of what is programmed for 5 channels)?
And it's weird, because some albums sound absolutely fantastic on it. All the elements are there, just more spaced out and less compressed. It makes me think that some of these albums that were supposedly mastered for Dolby Atmos weren't done properl.
Are you on iOS 15? It seems a bit buggy from my perspective. When it works properly it sounds amazing. But sometimes it gets messed up and doesn’t play properly. Dolby atmos tracks sound turned down and awful when spatial audio isn’t active.
Okay, I’m starting to think this is a bug. Playing Dolby atmos songs (with Dolby atmos set to automatic) in my car stereo makes things disappear from tracks. But then on the AirPods Pro or max they sound perfectly fine and everything is there. When spatial audio is off however, they are missing things or tuned down. Definitely feeling some bugs are causing this.