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Apple Music Now Rolling Out Support for Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio
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I am using a Bose QC-35 and it was disappointing to say the least. Not able to notice much difference between stereo and spatial audio (other than changes in volume). How about you?
When playing back Hi-Res lossless without an external converter, will you still essentially get lossless audio, or will playback default to 256kbps?
Are Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio the same? In IOS15 it works a little strange, at first the main music scene comes from the center infront of you, if you turn your head to the left, the scene slowly follows your head movement until it stands in front of you again, if you turn your head to the right, then vice versa ... a little annoying 
So if I have to download the new versions, maybe its a good moment to clean up my library
That's what I did, zapped everything - music and playlists were getting stale anyway. 👍
If I play from my iPhone music app cd lossless quality to my home pods...is it playing from the HomePod at CD quality..or is it down converted to a lower quality?
Have tried Atmos on Apple Music on my new ATV and this works beautifully on the native ATV app. Though when I select a song on Apple Music on my iPhone and select the ATV as output, it won’t do Atmos… I can subsequently go into the app on the ATV and see the song playing, though not in Atmos. It says Atmos on the screen but not Atmos output. Only stopping the music and restarting the song natively on the ATV will enable Atmos.
Very very anoying.
Very very anoying.
Don't hold your breath for bit-perfect output from Apple Music on Mac. I don't believe they've ever offered it in iTunes even though that has supported hi-res for quite a while. Changing your Midi settings does not accomplish bit perfect as it is combining the audio streams from all parts of the system and all apps. It is not a exclusive bit perfect stream of the original source. That is why some apps implement 'Exclusive Mode'. Your best bet, if you must listen on your Mac is to set to 24/48 and adjust Apple Music to play Lossless (not high res). Sure you'll miss the occasional 24/96, but they are currently rare and software upsampling is bad, if you have a DAC worth a damn (if you don't why do you care about this at all?). Most modern dacs oversample already and they apply a well-designed filter in hardware. Midi-setting-upsampling robs your dac of that opportunity and throws a good % of what you paid for out the window.
HOWEVER! We do have full bit-perfect on iOS and that is a huge deal. iOS devices are going to be much better anyway as they run off of batteries and have minimal RF. For best effect, download Lossless/Hi Res and listen in airplane mode. Fingers crossed for 3rd party streamer support or an apple streamer????!!?
HOWEVER! We do have full bit-perfect on iOS and that is a huge deal. iOS devices are going to be much better anyway as they run off of batteries and have minimal RF. For best effect, download Lossless/Hi Res and listen in airplane mode. Fingers crossed for 3rd party streamer support or an apple streamer????!!?
Tidal is 100% lossless, while Apple Music is about 50-50 for me (I listen to classical only). I'm as excited about Apple Music going lossless as anyone else, but let's keep it sane.
Wow. The experience is amazing in surround speakers. I sat down with my lazy-person’s surround speakers JBL Bar 5.1 and it’s just incredible with Dolby Atmos. The speakers don’t support Atmos but the incredible surround mix is still there. Try REM’s “Drive”. It’s like you’re sitting in the middle of a room where they’re playing around you. Acoustic guitar to the left in space, lead vocals to the front, the electric guitars and keyboards fill the space behind you. Just amazing. It feels “off balance” at first but later in the song you hear the right fill in with those keyboard and electric guitars and a shaker. All of the instruments are so clear. Again, amazing. SOLD.
Playing Lossless from my Apple TV through my Sonos setup is amazing. It's a big difference and I prefer it over spatial audio. But I must say that this rollout is super confusing. When nerds like us who post on this forum cannot figure out what the best settings are, then the mainstream public will have no idea what this even means.
For example, I read here that for Dolby Atmos to be working via Airplay, you have to change the setting from automatic to always on. Is that correct? If yes, that's what I am talking about...
For example, I read here that for Dolby Atmos to be working via Airplay, you have to change the setting from automatic to always on. Is that correct? If yes, that's what I am talking about...
I would presume that the iPhone DAC is for the iPhone internal speakers only. The original question was about using lightning-wired headphones. Lightning port's output is digital, and the DAC would be built in the lightning cable of the headphones (or the lightning to 3.5mm adapter). Apple's lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter maxes out at 24 bit at 48kHz (according to the information I've seen online). This is higher than CD quality (although not but much).
But to answer the original question, if your headphones are wired through Apple's lightning to 3.5mm adapter or similar, you can definitely play lossless, but you are not going to benefit from hi-res.
Spatial on/off on supported iOS devices is on the audio control in the control panel (pull down from upper left on iPod)...
If your device doesn't support spatial audio, it won't be there.
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Why you need manually fix the Khz?
I use dac from some years (My first was the topping 50 and now I use Smsl ) and I never see the Mac change automatically the khz (I used Tidal and Amazon HD hifi)
I've not seen the animation on any music tracks. I am using AirPods Max with an iPhone XR, iPad mini Gen 5, and a MacMini M1.
I'm stumped - listening on my laptop (with AirPod Pro and also hi-end headphones) - I toggle atmos on/off in preferences and hear no difference. Then I choose a couple songs (Norah Jones - Don't Know Why; Musgraves - Space Cowboy) from Apple's made for spatial playlist and compare side-by-side with the audio from the years old youtube upload of the respective videos. I really want to love this feature but...
Yeah it’s all set up correctly, just not on “always on” but on automatic. Because it should recognise I am listening on AirPods Pro.
if I go in the control center and disable and re enable spatial audio I don’t hear any difference at all.
Am I missing something, still not in the settings for me. Ive restated the phone multiple times.
You definitely need a high quality stereo or headphones to enjoy lossless. I highly doubt you'll hear any difference with a $500 receiver and budget speakers from BestBuy. Same goes for beats, Skullcandies, and etc.
With Sennheiser's HD800 headphones and iFi micro iDSD Black Label DAC+Amp (a $2,700 headphone setup), the difference between AAC and lossless is subtle at first but becomes apparent and clear with longer listening sessions. It's as if some transparent but slightly muddy layer has been lifted. This makes longer listening sessions, when you are actually paying attention to the music, much more enjoyable. If lossless is 100%, then I would say that AAC is about 95%-97%. But for audiophiles it's always about small percentage improvements.
Some people I interacted with, who have a $30K+ setup around B&W 800-series speakers, claim that on their system the difference is huge and immediately apparent, but I have not had a chance to test it myself.
Tidal is not actually lossless at any level when it comes to Master files. I think their Hifi-only files are lossless.
EDIT: reference:
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