Eddy Cue Says Spatial Audio on Apple Music is Equivalent to Watching HD Television for First Time

[neuropsychguy]

Ok well, you can if you're someone with a lot of audio experience and not just a casual listener.

Define a lot of audio experience. I’ve been listening to hours of music daily for decades and am a musician (not professional but have been performing for more than 30 years). I prefer the spatial sound for most songs I’ve tried so far (side-by-side comparisons).

If others don’t like it, they can turn it off. Simple solution. I like it so I’ll keep it on. This has nothing to do with whether or not people are “real” audio enthusiasts or professionals.

Some people like watching movies on their TV speakers or a sound bar or stereo speakers. I like having a surround sound system because I like the immersion.

 

[organisum]

delete

 

[mattopotamus]

Stereo is so much better. Spatial audio is great for phone calls, facetime and maybe some very niche one way communication (podcasts, ted talks, etc) It practice it was subpar for movies, television and music.

I cannot comment on the music aspect, but Dolby ATMOS in film is vastly superior.

 

[brandon8419]

Quick question … Apple says you have to delete the song and re-download it for it to work .. can you just “remove download” and re-download it? Or do you have to completely delete the entire song from your library and re-add it?

If it’s the latter that’s annoying as I like to track my most played artists, songs etc and having to entirely remove the file removes all that data

 

[steevn]

Hard disagree. You can tell almost instantly if something sounds better or worse to you. You can adapt to worse sounding things and get used to their quirks over time, and, eventually, bad sounding things will sound less bad to you, but if you switch to something better you will again notice straight away that "wow, this doesn't sound like garbage".

Note: this is an observation on sound quality in general, not on any specific devices or sound output. I haven't tried spatial audio, but I have tried other "3D" audio options and been almost universally disappointed except in the case of actual multi-speaker surround sound.

You can hear and adjust to better sounding speakers too, I can almost guarantee it’s happened to you but you’ve never realized it before.

You’re missing my entire point, it’s not based on better or worse, people are basing a sound they aren’t used to and practically haven’t ever heard in music and saying it’s bad almost immediately. Listen to it for a few days or a week or more and you will understand there is a difference and changes occur.

 

[jazz1]

I'm skeptical of Atmos. Spent about an hour last night switching back and forth between 2 devices (one that was seeing the new features in Music and another that hadn't been "upgraded" yet) with AirPods Pro and while the "spacial" part of the music was better, it sounded flatter and... just not as good? Bass and drums were just so much more precise and clean in the original stereo. In the several songs I listened to, ALL had a fairly steep decrease in low end with the Dolby mix. So yeah, I dunno yet. I like the 3dness, but I think if you remove that, it actually sounds worse than the original stereo mix.

I’m doing the same. Do I need headphones that specifically support this “improvement”?

 

[Absolute Trainwreck]

Meh, it’s just basic audio FX with automated direction based on head orientation and such. It’ll wow some folks but it’s really nothing groundbreaking and ultimately distorts the original intended production of the track.

not to say I’m unhappy to listen to any of my productions with this feature… it’s cool and all but it’s certainly not what I’d want everyone’s first listen of it to be like.

 

[SpringKid]

You’re missing my entire point, it’s not based on better or worse, people are basing a sound they aren’t used to and practically haven’t ever heard in music and saying it’s bad almost immediately. Listen to it for a few days or a week or more and you will understand there is a difference and changes occur.

I'm sure people had the same experience when stereo was introduced and everyone was used to mono. "Different sounds coming from two speakers?! No thanks, I'm sticking with my single mono speaker." 👴🏻

 

[spencecb]

I cannot comment on the music aspect, but Dolby ATMOS in film is vastly superior.

I agree 100% on this. Our receiver and system is Dolby Atmos compatible, and the movies that have Atmos support sound vastly superior. But this is also because it is a 7.1 system, so you are literally surrounded by speakers. The AirPods Max do a fine job of mimicking that experience, too. I don't hear it in the music, though. Maybe I just haven't listened to the right songs yet.

 

[SpringKid]

Meh, it’s just basic audio FX with automated direction based on head orientation and such. It’ll wow some folks but it’s really nothing groundbreaking and ultimately distorts the original intended production of the track.

But it's not. There's not even any head tracking involved here.

 

[brandon8419]

I'm skeptical of Atmos. Spent about an hour last night switching back and forth between 2 devices (one that was seeing the new features in Music and another that hadn't been "upgraded" yet) with AirPods Pro and while the "spacial" part of the music was better, it sounded flatter and... just not as good? Bass and drums were just so much more precise and clean in the original stereo. In the several songs I listened to, ALL had a fairly steep decrease in low end with the Dolby mix. So yeah, I dunno yet. I like the 3dness, but I think if you remove that, it actually sounds worse than the original stereo mix.

Agreed. A lot of the songs I tried (albeit more poppy stuff like Ariana Grande) sounded more muted with Atmos on

 

[zoomp]

Head tracking is not available yet for the music app… not sure why… but i read they will be adding it latter in the year.

 

[Lemon Olive]

You can hear and adjust to better sounding speakers too, I can almost guarantee it’s happened to you but you’ve never realized it before.

You’re missing my entire point, it’s not based on better or worse, people are basing a sound they aren’t used to and practically haven’t ever heard in music and saying it’s bad almost immediately. Listen to it for a few days or a week or more and you will understand there is a difference and changes occur.

Yes it is. It is not just different. It is bad different.

 

[tuman]

Vocals for some reason feel super muddy and sometimes too reverbed. I thought that was a bad mixing but because I hear it on every Dolby atmos track - looks that it’s on purpose and I don’t really enjoy that

 

[Lemon Olive]

Agreed. A lot of the songs I tried (albeit more poppy stuff like Ariana Grande) sounded more muted with Atmos on

"muted" is not the right term, the volume level will be different because stereo mixes have a serious loudness problem. When you switch to spatial audio, turn the volume up a little. Reducing loudness and improving dynamic range has this effect.

 

[QFace]

I'm skeptical of Atmos. Spent about an hour last night switching back and forth between 2 devices (one that was seeing the new features in Music and another that hadn't been "upgraded" yet) with AirPods Pro and while the "spacial" part of the music was better, it sounded flatter and... just not as good? Bass and drums were just so much more precise and clean in the original stereo. In the several songs I listened to, ALL had a fairly steep decrease in low end with the Dolby mix. So yeah, I dunno yet. I like the 3dness, but I think if you remove that, it actually sounds worse than the original stereo mix.

I'm with you right now. I agree that for most songs, Atmos sounded flatter and less full to me. I find that it seems to isolate certain instruments. For Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On", I do notice some elements like the hand drum snapping more, but at the expense of a lot of the other detail in the song. It doesn't seem properly balanced to me, and when I turn off Atmos, the music opens up for me. I imagine for certain songs, the Atmos will be well mastered and could be a step up, but for most music I've listend to so far, I prefer the stereo version.

 

[Lemon Olive]

Vocals for some reason feel super muddy and sometimes too reverbed. I thought that was a bad mixing but because I hear it on every Dolby atmos track - looks that it’s on purpose and I don’t really enjoy that

It's just poorly done. Very poorly done.

 

[Octavius8]

How can I try it if I don't have apple music?. I mean, I even uninstalled the app because it started playing automatically the same song over Bluetooth evertime I turned on my car. Also my trial was used several years ago.

 

[Calle68]

I did not notice any substantial difference with my Air Pods pro.

 

[boss.king]

I'm sure people had the same experience when stereo was introduced and everyone was used to mono. "Different sounds coming from two speakers?! No thanks, I'm sticking with my single mono speaker." 👴🏻

There are still many cases where mono is the better option (e.g.: podcasts). Just because something's new doesn't mean it's automatically better. People also said 3D TVs were the future and look how long those lasted.

 

[ewrapple]

Most of the stuff I have heard sounds worse but Abbey Road sounds amazing.

 

[Joeybagodonut5]

Ok well, you can if you're someone with a lot of audio experience and not just a casual listener.

Your positivity in this thread is busting at the seams. I think you’ve made your point in 4-5 different posts. You don’t like it. MOST people are not audiophiles and will enjoy this feature for what it is. Might be time to move along to a new thread. You’re not going to change peoples mind and the only people that will agree with you are those who already share the same opinion. So you’re wasting time.

 

[paulovsouza]

I really don’t know why I don’t hear a difference. Either I have bad ear, or to me it sounds the same. I feel like Tidal gives better quality, and even higher volume.

 

[SpringKid]

There are still many cases where mono is the better option (e.g.: podcasts). Just because something's new doesn't mean it's automatically better. People also said 3D TVs were the future and look how long those lasted.

We're not discussing podcasts here, though, but music.

And I wouldn't agree that podcasts should be in mono, either...

 

[SpringKid]

I’m not an audiophile or expert on any of this. Your snarky replies all over this thread are sad and petulant. A simple yes or no would have sufficed.

Just remove the downloaded file and redownload it.