Spatial Audio on Apple Music Promoted in New 'Beyond Stereo' Ad

[MacRumors]

Just days after the launch of Spatial Audio on Apple Music, Apple has promoted the feature with a new "Beyond Stereo" ad set to "Mystery Lady" by Masego and Don Toliver.

Spatial Audio, based on Dolby Atmos, is an immersive surround sound audio format that enables musicians to mix music so it sounds like the instruments are all around you in space. Thousands of Apple Music songs are available in Spatial Audio as of last week, such as Lady Gaga's "Rain on Me" and Kanye West's "Black Skinhead."

Spatial Audio is available to all Apple Music subscribers at no additional cost. The streaming music service costs $9.99 per month for individuals, $4.99 per month for students, and $14.99 per month for families of up to six people.

Article Link: Spatial Audio on Apple Music Promoted in New 'Beyond Stereo' Ad

 

[Serban55]

Beautiful, it works wonderful with the right audio files/tracks

 

[widestload]

I'm yet to be convinced from the handful of tracks I tried it with before switching back to Stereo.

 

[Kylo83]

It ruins songs, trust me someone that has been in music production for years it makes songs sound like they are demos and give you a fake surround sound that ruins the original song;

 

[Serban55]

It ruins songs, trust me someone that has been in music production for years it makes songs sound like they are demos and give you a fake surround sound that ruins the original song;

again, it depends on the tracks...not all sounds bad...the right ones sounds that this is a big step forward..
The issue here is the consistency because half of them sounds strange and fake, but half of them sounds wonderful
Trust me

 

[steevn]

It’s nice, but no doubt there will be a bunch of people on here claiming it’s awful after only listening to it for 10 seconds.

I am a little confused by some of the songs they chose to add to spatial audio first though, as not every song is immediately better upon first release of the new sound.

I am actually really shocked Daft Punk wasn’t included in the original release of songs, as I’m sure their music will sound amazing in Atmos. Maybe that will be a separate highlighted release though.

 

[nvmls]

Glitter mirrors.

 

[iSayuSay]

again, it depends on the tracks...not all sounds bad...the right ones sounds that this is a big step forward..
The issue here is the consistency because half of them sounds strange and fake, but half of them sounds wonderful
Trust me

To my understanding it depends on the artist whether they want to upload and convert their songs into the new Dolby Atmos or regular stereo? The conversion is fully automated, so it doesn't work all well with any songs.

 

[xxray]

Spatial audio sounds worse than the normal song.

 

[Uofmtiger]

We really like it on speakers for the most part compared to my wireless Jabra headphones (which I still prefer the stereo versions). I plan to listen on higher resolution headphones, but I may be too used to stereo to appreciate it. I pulled my old Beatsx to see if Apple was adding a little more magic dust to their own products... but the battery is dead.

 

[TheYayAreaLiving 🎗️]

Not sure if this will sound great or if this is a gimmick?

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Wouldn't "beyond stereo" be surround sound, which people have been able to set up in their own homes for over 20 years?

 

[ghostface147]

For me, it depends on the song. Some songs knock it out of the park, some just hit a weak comebacker to the pitcher. Also, I rarely use my headphones for listening to music. I'm streaming my DVR shows and such with my headphones instead. I stream music in my car and spatial audio is useless there.

 

[javanate]

If the song wasn't recorded with this is mind, it's probably as good as simulated surround sound on an old movie. I've been listening to the spatial audio for old songs and that's what it reminds me of.

 

[Kylo83]

Also the lower volume is horrible it’s such a downgrade it makes the normal stereo track sound amazing

 

[Kylo83]

Now Lossless audio is the real deal for more clearer sound this feature is what’s exciting

 

[pelowj]

Spatial Audio can be the best thing ever or total crap in my experience.

But on my surround systems at home it's been brilliant. Previously all music played as Stereo PCM and it always sounded dull to me. Now it comes though beautifully crisp with Atmos. It even downsamples to Dolby 5.1 on another system.

 

[coolthings]

again, it depends on the tracks...not all sounds bad...the right ones sounds that this is a big step forward..
The issue here is the consistency because half of them sounds strange and fake, but half of them sounds wonderful
Trust me

I have indeed found a couple of track that were huge upgrade. Felt like inside a movie. But that was just two of them.

Can you make a playlist with your good ones?

 

[WaterOz]

What's bizarre here though, because I just checked - Mystery Lady isn't available in Dolby Atmos. I mean, you can obviously spatialize all stereo now if you so desire, but weird to use a song in an ad for spatial audio that's not natively available in spatial audio, amiright?
Unless my Apple Music isn't behaving right today

 

[fontman]

over 40 not needed

 

[urbanmacUser]

I had SACD about 18 years ago, that was 5.1 sound.
Never took off, probably as they SACD's were about 50% more in price.

 

[bwcmusic]

As another composer/producer/engineer over a decade, Spatial Audio is cool. It's fun to use at night with AirPods and Apple TV to keep from waking up the house. It's fun to hear songs in a new way.

It's not better. At least, not yet. It sounds fun on some older soul/jazz etc. songs. Those songs were sort of lacking due to restrictions of the time, but still amazing.

On Pop? Electronic? No. It removes the punch from the drums, pushes the ambient material into the BG, the vocals are less intimate and more pushed back as well. You lose some highs, but gain space.

That being said, I'm excited to mess around with it if and when Logic receives the update of support.

It's cool, but it's just not there.

 

[appleguy123]

I wish they’d give us a quick button in the music app to turn Dolby Atmos off for specific songs. Some sound better, some sound a lot worse. Would be great if we could just tap the atmos button the toggle on and off.

 

[GermanSuplex]

Maybe you need the right headphones. I tried listening to tons of tracks of various genres on my 2nd-gen AirPods and it just sound like someone remixed the multi tracks and tweaked the EQ settings. Maybe I’ll try with a decent set of studio headphones.

 

[WaterOz]

I wish they’d give us a quick button to turn Dolby Atmos off for specific songs. Some sound better, some sound worse. Would be great if we could just tap the atmos button the toggle on and off.

Yeah, I wish it would be right there on the song. Yes, you can pull down control center, long press volume control, turn it off - but that is way more steps than I want to take if I'm listening to a song that's a really bad Atmos mix (like "What's My Age Again" by Blink-182. I don't know why they are even having that show up in their playlists because it's BAD)