'Spatialize Stereo' Feature in iOS 15 and macOS Monterey Simulates Spatial Audio for Non-Dolby Content

[123]

Dolby atmos needs 7.2.2 at least, left and right is stereo, it’s a gimmick makes music sound like demos I turned it off

You have 7 ears?

 

[Kylo83]

You have 7 ears?

Do you even know what real surround is, having separate channels placed around you you hear a read 3D sound, Dolby atmos needee speakers behind and above; having headphones they can’t do that it’s only virtual

 

[miq]

Em... no thanks. The 'real' spatial audio is underwhelming enough as it is. This simulated version will be pure garbage.

 

[ChromeAce]

Introducing Paintings. You’ve never seen the Mona Lisa in neon pastels!

 

[Prabas]

As a music producer who spends a lot of time and effort mixing to get just the right stereo sound field and 'wall of sound,' putting this kind of crap on top of one of my tracks would make me cry. lol. Please don't dishonor the work of many audio engineers and technicians, mastering experts, etc. by applying this junk to their tracks.

The thing is, if it sounds better to me, I really won't care what was intended by the artist or whoever, I'll choose what I like and not someone else.

I tried it on my AirPods and it made me feel like going from mono to stereo. Stereo sounded flat, like the sound was coming from one point inside my head and spatial made it feel like it was coming from everywhere.

In the past I had tried these surround things and they all sucked, like windows sonic/surround thing for headphones, EQ stuff, none of it sounded great, but this is something else. I even installed iOS 15 on my main phone with all those bugs because I don't want to listen to 'old' music again.

 

[YourBoss]

It sounds like what Boom 3D does

 

[Marbles1]

Awful. And certainly not very 'Apple'-like.

An album built for the ground up for this technology - maybe something produced by Jean Michel Jarre or BT - would be an interesting experience.

I can't think why anyone would want to listen to fudged / over-processed versions of their existing music collections.

 

[ouimetnick]

This already exists for movies. I have a movie purchased from iTunes (John Denver: The Wildlife Concert) I noticed it sounded funny when I was listening to it a month ago with AirPods Pro. Turns out that spatial audio was enabled and it was trying to give me a Dolby Atmos experience. Not sure how the concert footage was encoded (I also have this on VHS and DVD, and CD), but it sounds like garbage. I turned it back off and it sounded like it should.

In fact the stereo recording is so well done that when I’m sitting in the correct “sweet spot” with my real stereo you can pin point each instrument in front of you. If sounds and feels like I was sitting in the front row at the concert.

I also tried Dolby Atmos last night with my AirPods pro on my mom’s phone (she used AM). Very unimpressed. Vocals sound muddy and it sounds like a filter was applied similar to applying a filter in Audacity. I listened to some John Lennon songs and Maroon5.

I’ll stick with stereo and lossless. Are there any impressive Dolby Atmos examples in AM that I should try tonight? Maybe I just picked 4 bad songs.

 

[antiprotest]

Am I the only one who finds that stereo sounds better than spatial audio? I played a song, then went into the music settings and switched it between “off” and “always on” as the track was playing and found stereo to be so much better. I’m using AirPods Pro btw.

You are in the majority. I've seen very, very few say that spatial sounds better.

 

[JosephAW]

Cool, looking forward to Spatialize Mono button next… 😉

How about mono earbud mode where is uses different drivers in one ear to make it single ear stereo.

 

[ghanwani]

Too many features in iOS now. We need to get back to simplicity. My suggestion -- Get Ive & Co working on iOS 16 so that it has less features than iOS 1.

 

[123]

Do you even know what real surround is, having separate channels placed around you you hear a read 3D sound, Dolby atmos needee speakers behind and above; having headphones they can’t do that it’s only virtual

Do you even know how hearing works? Of course they can (in theory).

 

[123]

The greatest thing about this is that it supports EVERY audio track.

The greatest thing about this would be if it actually worked well...

 

[sflagel]

One massive difference with "native" Dolby Atmos tracks on Apple Music is that the source has been mixed with Dolby Atmos in mind from the getgo.

Sure, you are virtualising when playing back on headphones as you only have two speakers. But comparing this to the age-old surround virtualisation we have had for years isn't fair.

If you are using a Windows PC and run old surround virtualisation tech like Dolby Headphones or Creative CMSS:3D that have existed for a very long time, you apply it to music from iTunes or whatever. You are taking a 2-channel source and apply algorithm/DSP, trying to map it to 7-channels, and that is then being played back and simulated by your 2-channel headphones.


With Dolby Atmos tracks on Apple Music, Apple receives new masters from the record labels where Dolby Atmos is already in the source. How much time and attention the labels and producers have put into their Dolby Atmos mixing will differ. But Apple is receiving source material directly with Dolby Atmos metadata attached.

There is no algorithm/DSP trying to redefine how this 2-channel source should be upsampled to 7-channels. The labels and producers themselves have worked directly and attached the metadata telling Dolby Atmos what should be played where within Dolby Atmos 360-degree sphere of sound.

Obviously, when being played back on a pair of 2-channel headphones, you are still faced with simulated playback. But the whole idea behind Dolby Atmos is to have a reference format used by the creators and throughout the entire playback chain. When using headphones supporting Dolby Atmos, the headphones are supposed to follow the Dolby Atmos spec and be capable of interpreting and handling the Dolby Atmos metadata. So even though it's still simulations, the source and the simulation being done are talking the same language, providing a much more cohesive and better experience overall. The source contains the metadata telling the headphones exactly where in this 360-degree sphere the audio is supposed to come from, and Dolby Atmos capable headphones are supposed to simulate this with decent precision. It's not pure guesswork like it was with things like Dolby Headphones etc., back in the day.


Dolby Atmos is not like your regular surround either. Dolby Atmos doesn't limit itself to the old static notion of 5-channel, 7-channel surround. With Atmos, you have this 360-degree sphere, and you can mix your playback to have sound coming from any point within this sphere. You can have up to a total of 128-channels per track. Even if you have 12-channels in your home theatre, a Dolby Atmos track will most likely contain metadata that exceeds the number of static channels you have in your setup. But if your home theatre supports Dolby Atmos, it should read this metadata and apply simulation using all the channels you have available to try to do whatever it can to achieve best the playback information contained in the metadata.

If it was just virtualisation there would be no need to have Dolby Atmos tracks on Apple Music. Apple could just implement the spaceilised setero feature and virtualise all the 2-channel tracks into "Spatial Audio".

Strange record labels that would place the violins of the orchestra playing The Nutcracker on the front right and the percussion in the middle.... I love the experience of Atmos, but when its a gimmick so that the violas move around the stage, it makes my head explode. And I am NOT a classical music aficionado.

 

[x-evil-x]

The thing is, if it sounds better to me, I really won't care what was intended by the artist or whoever, I'll choose what I like and not someone else.

I tried it on my AirPods and it made me feel like going from mono to stereo. Stereo sounded flat, like the sound was coming from one point inside my head and spatial made it feel like it was coming from everywhere.

In the past I had tried these surround things and they all sucked, like windows sonic/surround thing for headphones, EQ stuff, none of it sounded great, but this is something else. I even installed iOS 15 on my main phone with all those bugs because I don't want to listen to 'old' music again.

you should really get a receiver and some speakers if you liked what it did to headphones. Upmixing 2 channel has always been good to me. I like dolby's upmixer for music and dts up mixer for movies. Theres a whole different world with home theatre.

 

[MVMNT]

Normalising a faux feature to make it desirable within premium hardware that does the real thing. Right?

 

[Populus]

This feature is cool but I don’t have Airpods Pro (only AirPods second gen) or Airpods Max (“only” Solo Pro)... It is a pity that this feature is so limited regarding to the headphones that support it.

 

[Nuvi]

Am I the only one who finds that stereo sounds better than spatial audio? I played a song, then went into the music settings and switched it between “off” and “always on” as the track was playing and found stereo to be so much better. I’m using AirPods Pro btw.

No you’re not. Most of Dolby Atmos Music mixes are utter crap. IMHO some sound as if they were converted without human input. For example, REM’s “Drive” has fairly strong reverb and delay on vocals and now with this “Dolby Atmos mix” you have extra echo baked to it making the whole track just insanely bad. I have hard time believing any self respecting audio engineer would have allowed this happen on the mix.

 

[Squillace]

I'm not convinced yet.

When I go to a concert, the stage and the sound system are in front of me. Every musician is playing right from the (pretty much) same spot. So, trying to spatialize something that is not supposed to be spatial, is kinda weird. I'm not saying it can't be enjoyable, but it must be recorded with that intent from the beginning for that to make sense.

Spatial and surround in movies, in the other hand, makes perfect sense. You're supposed to get immersed in a real three dimensional scene with all the sounds coming from every direction.

 

[Zeke92]

They are counting on people liking this way more than they actually will/do. There needs to be SERIOUS improvement

 

[sflagel]

Why, oh why, could they not just do Spatial without Atmos - so that your earphones sound like your listening to your home stereo but without the 3D gimmickery of floating guitars?

 

[Zeke92]

I’d also like to add the Apple needs to showcase what the original music was mastered in along with the lossless label and digital master label. I don’t want these software tricks on my music. I’d like to listen as the artists and engineers intended. Some of the songs are horrid

 

[ChromeAce]

Here’s an idea… Let’s take a stereo master and upmix it to Atmos and put it on Music so listeners can downmix it back to two channel earbuds inserted into two ears and call it an improvement.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Am I the only one who finds that stereo sounds better than spatial audio? I played a song, then went into the music settings and switched it between “off” and “always on” as the track was playing and found stereo to be so much better. I’m using AirPods Pro btw.

You are in the majority. I've seen very, very few say that spatial sounds better.

A lot of folks used to listening to stereo will prefer stereo over anything else just because that’s what’s familiar to them. It’s expected, really. Some folks don’t like the Apple Pencil because it erases without flipping and the screen doesn’t feel like paper when they use it. Some folks don’t like touch screens because they’re used to the mouse.

And people that hate a thing will always be more vocal than those that like or don’t care one way or the other.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Every musician is playing right from the (pretty much) same spot. So, trying to spatialize something that is not supposed to be spatial, is kinda weird. I'm not saying it can't be enjoyable, but it must be recorded with that intent from the beginning for that to make sense.

Some folks feel the same about mono. I knew someone that was working on creating stereo mixes from mono recordings. It was quality work and I was impressed. However, those that ONLY ever knew the mono recordings just couldn’t get with it. It’s expected, some folks really don’t like change.