I wonder if one or more knowledgable AirPods Max (and/or AirPods Pro) owners can comment on whether these cans are any good for surround MUSIC. I'm stressing "music" becase I already own a set of excellent Sony cans that realistically play the sound of surround movies and games, but not music. I suppose Sony didn't come up with a binaural algorithm fast enough to simulate several channels of music. For instance, if I were to play a quadraphonic or a 5.1 record/CD/DVD/Blu-ray/FLAC, et cetera, my current cans will let me hear all instruments, no matter whether they are supposed to be heard from the front or the rear, but I won't really hear anything as coming from the rear, whereas if I'm watching a movie and there's an explosion behind my head, I'll hear it as coming from behind. So, the question is, can the AirPods Max faithfully play back quadraphonic/surround music?
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Quadraphonics and surround music
- Thread starter PeterHolbrook
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I have an experimental music app called Surround Sound Ear Candy, where music is composed and produced specifically for Dolby Digital 5.1 surround. When iOS 14 came out, I was very impressed with how well spatial audio translated my surround music for AirPods!
So the answer to your question is yes, AirPods Max can faithfully play back surround music. However, there's a catch!
For spatial audio, the content must be in actual Dolby Digital 5.1 (or Atmos) format. This is because Apple's spatial audio takes into account the actual multichannel content, as opposed to a faux surround "effect" based on DSP algorithms. And since you can't transmit DD+ from a Blu-Ray player to your AirPods, you'd only really be getting stereo. I'd likely sound excellent, but would not be the true spatial audio/surround experience you're describing. I believe the Tidal music streaming service recently updated their app to support surround music for AirPods, but from what I've heard, their catalogue of surround content is quite limited. So while AirPods Max can faithfully play back surround music, currently the most common application for spatial audio by far is movie playback. Hope this helps.
So the answer to your question is yes, AirPods Max can faithfully play back surround music. However, there's a catch!
For spatial audio, the content must be in actual Dolby Digital 5.1 (or Atmos) format. This is because Apple's spatial audio takes into account the actual multichannel content, as opposed to a faux surround "effect" based on DSP algorithms. And since you can't transmit DD+ from a Blu-Ray player to your AirPods, you'd only really be getting stereo. I'd likely sound excellent, but would not be the true spatial audio/surround experience you're describing. I believe the Tidal music streaming service recently updated their app to support surround music for AirPods, but from what I've heard, their catalogue of surround content is quite limited. So while AirPods Max can faithfully play back surround music, currently the most common application for spatial audio by far is movie playback. Hope this helps.
