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

CPx said:
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.
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I'd say that song actually sounds very good on a surround setup. The piano and horn are well separated, with horns clearly front right right by the drummer, and the piano is to the left but mid front/back. And when the second horn comes in the more from the left, the piano is still well defined.
 
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Call me silly but after 5 minutes of testing it out, I turned it off and forced Lossless only. I then went back to Spotify and listened to songs and I feel that Spotify was superior to my ears.
 
SpringKid said:
Just remove the downloaded file and redownload it.
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Remove 100 GB of downloads and redownload it all to get the songs that have been updated, or select each individual song from the list and remove it and redownload? Sounds easy but is not at the size of my library.
 
Artemis70 said:
Remove 100 GB of downloads and redownload it all to get the songs that have been updated, or select each individual song from the list and remove it and redownload? Sounds easy but is not at the size of my library.
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It was a technical question on how to, though, not what's easy or not.
 
Kraftwerk 3-D is the best implementation of atmos I've heard so far. Apple should have spotlighted this to show off atmos, really shows the potential. Most of the stuff they're promoting sounds like crap.
 
After listening and comparing maybe a half dozen songs I've come to the conclusion that Atmos is just a different stereo mix, so it may or may not sound much different and if may or may not sound "better." It just depends upon which mix you prefer (if you can even tell the difference).

I do wonder, however, whether Atmos is mainly just a mix created automatically by a computer program whereas a normal stereo mix is determined by the person(s) who did the original mastering/mixing to stereo.

Of all of the songs that I've listened to Marvin Gaye 's "What's Going On" seems to show the greatest difference. But, that was originally released in mono and the stereo mix that they compared it to may have just been done poorly. In fact, the differences could have come from a more recent remastering for the Atmos version.
 
krebphone said:
Kraftwerk 3-D is the best implementation of atmos I've heard so far. Apple should have spotlighted this to show off atmos, really shows the potential. Most of the stuff they're promoting sounds like crap.
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I got the Kraftwerk live SACD, mixed in 5.1. Amazing stuff. 😍
 
threesixty360 said:
I think its odd really. As its really a different mix of whatever you were used to listening to. Not necessarily an improvement. It's not what the mixer and the mastering house wanted you to hear. (i.e. the original stereo mix)

What I've noticed is that it lowers the overall loudness of songs and increase the dynamic range so bass/kicks are bigger and warmer. It also kind of changes the placement of some instruments and vocals but in my opinion reduces the brightness / midrange.

This maybe because they didnt do a good job remixing for Atmos?? I dont know. But it feels like the mixer could have made the song sound in stereo the way Atmos has made it sound but just didnt want to.
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I am an independent artist who’s mixed my music and others for many years. I agree completely with your observations.

Loudness is way down, which allows bass to be louder, but is that better?

The promise of a sense of placement above your head or behind is not there, IMHO.

Also, when mixing, the goal is usually to make the track sound “glued” together, but have instruments clearly discernible. Although you can hear the instruments, spatial mixes sound messy, like they don’t gel together.

One saving grace…I noticed some songs are markedly better than others. Norah Jones, Come Away With Me genuinely offered something the stereo mix did not. So maybe the skill level of the mixing engineers needs to improve.
 
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fpnc said:
After listening and comparing maybe a half dozen songs I've come to the conclusion that Atmos is just a different stereo mix, so it may or may not sound much different and if may or may not sound "better." It just depends upon which mix you prefer (if you can even tell the difference).

I do wonder, however, whether Atmos is mainly just a mix created automatically by a computer program whereas a normal stereo mix is determined by the person(s) who did the original mastering/mixing to stereo.

Of all of the songs that I've listened to Marvin Gaye 's "What's Going On" seems to show the greatest difference. But, that was originally released in mono and the stereo mix that they compared it to may have just been done poorly. In fact, the differences could have come from a more recent remastering for the Atmos version.
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Atmos mixing is "just like" stereo mixing, still done by a mixing engineer.
 
fpnc said:
After listening and comparing maybe a half dozen songs I've come to the conclusion that Atmos is just a different stereo mix, so it may or may not sound much different and if may or may not sound "better." It just depends upon which mix you prefer (if you can even tell the difference).

I do wonder, however, whether Atmos is mainly just a mix created automatically by a computer program whereas a normal stereo mix is determined by the person(s) who did the original mastering/mixing to stereo.

Of all of the songs that I've listened to Marvin Gaye 's "What's Going On" seems to show the greatest difference. But, that was originally released in mono and the stereo mix that they compared it to may have just been done poorly. In fact, the differences could have come from a more recent remastering for the Atmos version.
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It is not done automatically. The original stems must be used, and decisions on placement and movement are made. So the mixing process is a creative one, and the engineer is really adding their own vision to the Spcial mix, just like a stereo engineer would.

But I agree, they are not all better, objectively.
 
ArtOfWarfare said:
Sounds like it's the same as HD, then.

...

When a TV gets a much higher resolution, it doesn't matter because it's always going to be 6+ feet from me.
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If you can't tell the difference between standard definition and HD then you should probably see an eye doctor. When HD came out in the early 2000's it was a massive leap forward, everyone was blown away when they first saw an HD TV fed with HD content.

HD to 4k, I can understand if people aren't wowed by this change (though it's still a definite improvement, especially with HDR) but SD to HD was/is just a massive leap.
 
Anyone of you tried The Cranberries’ Linger? Would like to hear what you all think of the Atmos version.
 
SpringKid said:
Atmos mixing is "just like" stereo mixing, still done by a mixing engineer.
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If that's true without exception then Atmos is just a simple remix, perhaps with just a little more work done exclusively in the digital domain and with the aid of a computer program.
 
fpnc said:
If that's true without exception then Atmos is just a simple remix, perhaps with just a little more work done exclusively in the digital domain and with the aid of a computer program.
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A track mixed in Atmos would also be need to be mastered differently, yes.
 
Its true. I tried and it’s like Eddy Clue said. I can’t wait to have the complete spatial audio.
 
choocn said:
Anyone of you tried The Cranberries’ Linger? Would like to hear what you all think of the Atmos version.
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Not my kind of music really, but it sure does take really good advantage of Atmos. Actually one of the best examples I've heard so far, to be honest. I'm listening on a 5.1.2 system, and the instrument separation is fantastic.
 
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IMOO Spacial Audio is just awful...
Just tried a couple of albums with my AirPods Pro and it's unbearable.
Loss of definition for a gimmick.
It's a hard pass for me.
 
Lounge vibes 05 said:
I very much disagree.
I listened to the prince song, I listen to the Marvin Gaye song, I listened to The Weeknd album.
It’s definitely a nifty feature, having the artists vocals sound like they’re coming from a room that they’re in, instead of just speakers on your left and right side.
But for the majority of music, I’m still going to prefer stereo. Especially older music, the Marvin and prince songs both sounded like they were missing things, most likely because they probably were, things that were not on the multi tracks that were on the final master, and because I like to jam my music loud, and you just can’t do that when the artist Sounds like their feet away from you
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Have you listened to it on iOS 15 though? Massive difference. It's what Spatial Audio should be on iOS 14. Bass is the same, no weird volume issues with the audio when activating Spatial like in iOS 14. It is in beta right now and cuts out sometimes with the head tracking feature, but it's going to be a GAME CHANGER. Sounds like that surround sound effect you get in movies with Spatial Audio, but with music.

Not sure why this feature wasn't included with iOS14. And guess what? Spatial Stereo works with EVERY SINGLE TRACK, not including Atmos. Was worth going Beta for this (for me at least). Really is like listening to my favorite tracks for the first time again.
 
Last I checked we only have 2 ears, so the brain ends up downmixing all this nonsense back to stereo. And since 99% of Apple Music listeners don’t run tracks through an actual Atmos speaker system, it’s already downmixed to 2 channels anyway.

We’ve been here before, when it was called quadrophonics and Super Audio CD. You need a speaker for every channel or it’s just a simulation.

Then again NosePods might be able to legitimately add a couple of bass channels.
 
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fpnc said:
Yes, this doesn't make much sense to me (i.e. spatial audio begin better that multi-channel or even stereo). No doubt, it will sound different than stereo but that doesn't mean it will sound better. I would think that you'd want to be "out front" with a balanced sound stage rather than sitting in the band. Seems like another over-hyped feature, but I'll wait until I can try it myself.

Well, I went to the Dolby Atmos site and listened to some of the demos. It does sound different with a wider sound stage, but I think the biggest difference is that the samples seemed to have different equalization, the Atmos definitely had more bass and it may have even been set louder than the "stereo" sample. So, I think Dolby may have had its "finger on the scales." That said, I think it deserves more comparison.
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This. Sitting in the middle of an orchestra isn’t the best place to be.

And it surely isn’t new technology. We listened to spatial audio headphones at Disney MGM Studios in the late 80s. Felt like the hair cut was actually happening around you in your office, like mickey mouse opened the door far away and approached, etc.

In music, it’s distracting. Unless it’s pink floyd or something intended to be spacial and theatrical.
 
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I couldn't care less about Spatial Audio. The big winner here, for me, is the Lossless audio. And so far, it sounds damn impressive compared to Qobuz and the $20/month Hi-res Tidal service.
 
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SpringKid said:
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." 👴🏻
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Mono from 2 or 4 speakers can often sound better, especially if the original was mastered in mono.

Some of the beatles songs remastered in stereo lost their blended quality, and the music was performed to be blended.
 
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