Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Eddy Cue Says Spatial Audio on Apple Music is Equivalent to Watching HD Television for First Time
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I don't really understand the folks commenting on Spatial Audio with songs that don't support it. If the song doesn't have a Dolby Atmos logo, then it shouldn't sound any different at all.
It sure does. Maybe the Sony XM4s need to be updated or something. I'm not impressed with it wirelessly on forced Dolby Atmos (it doesn't automatically switch).... sooooo.
I wish there was some way to opt in and automatically download a downloaded album with spatial audio to replace the old version. It’s been a long time since I’ve actually used Apple Music, but I have a lot of downloads on my iPad and iPhone.
I think there is a way to delete an downloaded album without losing it on the playlist.
Just gave spatial playback a listen on my AirPods, HomePod, and mini. Honestly, this makes the HomePods sound more like I thought they would. It lets them fill the room a little more from that singular fixed position (there's just one in each room). And I like it. On AirPods it just sounds like the gimmicky thing I assumed it would be. Hearing Zane Lowe describe all the amazing details I should be noticing is just hype IMO. It sounds different but not insanely detailed and enveloping. So my hot take on this: makes HomePods sound better but probably not worth bothering when listening through stereo speakers.
Edit: listened in my car and the spatial effect sounded even worse. Just garbage. That makes me think I want to turn this on/off by playback device rather than have it globally enabled.
Edit: listened in my car and the spatial effect sounded even worse. Just garbage. That makes me think I want to turn this on/off by playback device rather than have it globally enabled.
Last edited:
It's a weird effect because for decades we've been trained to hear music horizontally. L/R. A good mix might have been able to capture some level of soundstage/spaciousness in the music, with distance and distribution, but it was always contained to the horizontal dimension. Dolby Atmos adds the vertical dimension along with more precision/intentionality for distance and distribution. When they get head tracking worked out, it will add a reference point to really nail the in-room effect. Right now without the reference point, it's just the added dimensionality you're hearing. Some songs really benefit from it, others are a wash or even suffer a bit if you're listening to specific instruments.
You just have to remove the download. The easiest way is to go to iPhone storage is settings and remove all music downloads at once. You can then set your desired download quality settings one redownload.
It's not. Then it would be done on the fly with all music.
Ok I take back my last comment. It does show up as actual atmos file in my receiver. This song summer of 69. You can hear the different guitar/bass players and in the back there is the drummer. The singer is kind of floating in the middle. Most other atmos encoded songs I’ve been playing with sound really good too. Pretty surprised. Lossless is clearly a big improvement over my Home system too. Haven’t tried my main room receiver and appletv. I have full atmos systems in both rooms.
Attachments
Exactly how I feel. Lossless is way clearer and seems like most my stuff I have is already lossless. I’m impressed with atmos music over my system.
Yeah, music mixed in Atmos really shines on a system with discreet surround speakers. I usually tend to use the "multichannel stereo" setting when listening, just to get sound from all speakers, but this is waaay better when position is actually in the mix.
I've tried it on my receiver which didn't seem to be showing Dolby Atmos on it so not sure it was actually working through air play and then on my beats studio again not sure it works on those and I feel I mostly just noticed more pronounced bass. Didn't really feel a spatial effect per say.
For folks on HomePod and Mac - how can you tell if it's actually playing in Spatial Audio? It seems hit or miss - there's a whole playlist for Spatial Audio / Atmos yet the songs don't. I've managed to find individual albums/songs that do, and they will tell me on Control Center in iOS if it's in Atmos, but I can't figure out how to tell for HomePod or AM on Mac.
That’s how I feel listening to it in my room setup 5.1.2. I was pretty shocked how good it sounded being actual atmos file showing up on my receiver. Lossless tracks are way improved as well. I’ll try it on my main system in a few hours. The 7.1.4.
I wonder how they are putting objects in places so well. The seperation of instruments you feel like it’s almost a live show. You can sense where a guitar player or drummer is. It’s very open and airy sounding compared to what apple music was before.
thought it would be gimmicky but I was very wrong.
might be with headphones but not a home system.
Also curious with that as well. There probably has to be an update with the Sony app I’m assuming.
Ok, maybe people should listen to this playlist from Apple Music. It really highlights how Spatial Audio can sound amazing. Like a lot of the comments going around on here, it depends on the song. Not everything will automatically sound better. Some of the great tracks to listen to from this playlist are "All I Wanna Do" by Sheryl Crow, "The Imperial March" from Star Wars, "Don't Know Why" by Norah Jones, "Renegade" by Styx, "You Don't Know How It Feels" by Tom Petty, just to name a few. It is not surprising to me that these more minimalist songs/acoustic really make the Spatial Audio feature shine. I am glad I found this to hear some stellar examples.
Apple Music Spatial Audio playlist.
Apple Music Spatial Audio playlist.
Ok I have an example of a song where spatial audio seems pretty dubious to me. Listen to Song For My Father by Horace Silver. The first 1:40 sounds cool, but once the piano becomes the lead, well, the piano just sounds muffled and diminished with spatial audio. Especially when the piano and horn both start going off in the latter half of the song. In the stereo mix it’s clear you are supposed to hear both the piano and the horn, but with spatial audio, the piano gets lost and pushed to the background. I’m using headphones by the way, I’m curious what it sounds like on a proper speaker setup.
Sounds like it's the same as HD, then.
...
I tend to be really dismissive of graphics improvements, but I have to say, going from the old 320x480 iPhone displays to the Retina displays was really noticable - far more so than Retina on Macs or TVs going HD. I think the difference is just because of how close iPhone screens are to your face. When a TV gets a much higher resolution, it doesn't matter because it's always going to be 6+ feet from me.
