Atmos (Spatial Audio), Some Thoughts with an AirPods Max
Playlist discussed: "
Spatial Audio: Made for Spatial Audio"
Not Loud Enough
If you try switching between Spatial Audio turned on and turned off, you will hear just how much louder the music is when Spatial Audio is turned
off. This louder sound coming from the setting turned off continues on all tracks. Which frequency responses are lowered so much, or if it is across the board, I cannot say. But try going to any track on your own. Pick at random or try them all, it won't matter. The difference is so substantial with what physically fills the space around the ear, with so much less sound pressure, that the Spatial Audio turned on carries with it a drastically
less impactful state of music listening.
Take, for example, Blinding Lights by The Weeknd. Here is what I measured...
Spatial Audio
ON
Spatial Audio
OFF
The "Leq," or average decibels measured over the course of the recording, is the most telling alongside the "Max" dB that was measured. With Spatial Audio on, the Leq was about six and half dB less than when Spatial Audio was off. The max dB was similarly apart, by about six dB.
What does this mean?
Spatial audio does not reach as loud. Plain and simple*. For blinding Lights, I
got more joy out of Spatial Audio turned OFF. That lack of ability for Atmos to hit 80 dB, as well as averaging a quieter presence both in raw measurement and qualitative
closeness, meant that Atmos/Spatial Audio suffered in engagement compared to Atmos turned off.
That being said, is Spatial Audio still listenable? Is it still at least enjoyable for what it offers in place of a loss in loudness? Listenable sure, but enjoyable it is not. Turning Spatial OFF brings immediately more joy. In this track, for me and my tastes personally, the APM shows to be less engaging when Spatial Audio is turned on. Your mileage may ever vary.
*I would ignore the "Min" dB's recorded, since that may differ due to ambient changes to my open recorded environment in my home. However, if the minimum dB values present a true difference in the playback between Spatial turned off and on, then these results would infer that there is greater dynamic range when Spatial Audio is turned off. I doubt this to be the case. More likely, my AC turned on or off during recording, or some other extraneous errors like my finger tapping the glass of my phone to stop the recording, or starting my dB reader recording at slightly different moments each time.
Is louder music playback important elsewhere?
What about the crescendos of a symphony?
Spatial Audio
ON
Spatial Audio
OFF
How loud should something ever get, even if only instantaneously? Classical is known for the quietest sounds being appreciated alongside the wildest instants of engaging overbearing thunderously loud crescendos. I like having that ability to reach higher heights in that dynamic range. The APM is able to portray the quiet moments clearly with Spatial on or off. However, the issue on Atmos with classical arises when trying to appreciate the louder moments.
The max loudness was 85 dB with Spatial/Atmos, compared to a higher 90 dB with Atmos off. This means that the dramatic moments with Atmos may not feel as loud as I would have
wanted them to. I kept feeling like Atmos lacked raw impact - just as I felt before with the modern hit song, Blinding Lights.
So what about the soundstage and 3D soundscape capability of Atmos?
Dolby Atmos (Spatial Audio), Better than Stereo?
Usually? No.
Sometimes? Yes, but it depends.
Is Atmos’ 3D and bigger soundstage worth the quieter and sometimes less intimate playback? YMMV
With many tracks I tried that were, seemingly and probably, originally mastered in stereo, Atmos works its magic by giving the impression that the instruments have been spread out around you. As good as this sounds, the negative effect of gaining so much soundstage is sometimes that the staging isn't actually very appealing - compared to the original stereo master. I hear this loss in artistically tasteful sound staging with vocals in particular, on quite a few tracks. Not all tracks, but enough to be an issue for many.
Where the problem is heard, it is when move from close up and pleasantly intimate in stereo, to being somewhere further around you in space. Vocals, on many tracks, somehow end up pushed in the back somewhere ahead of you - or someplace difficult to discern further away that seems like it wasn’t likely what the mastering would’ve intended. Voices just kept feeling further from me and actually much quieter than they used to with Atmos turned off. That is, in normal stereo listening mode, Atmos turned off, voices can often feel far more engaging and intentionally placed.
Let's take a look at Billie Eilish's "Bad Guy" as a prime example of vocal staging gone wrong. And keep in mind,
this was a track Apple put on their list of songs as "Made for Spatial Audio."
Go to 2:50 up through the end of the track. Try that with Atmos on and off. What do you notice immediately? Go try it for yourself...
Did you try it? To at least my ear, and I bet yours too, her voice sounded far better and more intentionally placed close to your ears when Atmos was turned OFF. With Atmos off, her voice was so close to the ears that it may as well have been ASMR. She was next to your
face, she felt so close. It is likely that the engineers and artist
wanted this effect when they released the stereo version. But, when Spatial Audio mode is turned on, her voice goes away further from the head and it loses its purposeful intimacy.
With Atmos turned ON again, her voice lost all of that ASMR quality completely. This example shows me more clearly to me just how much an Atmos application can go wrong. Truly great sound staging will have to be crafted with care.
Picture depicts how Atmos allows for sound engineers, and listeners, to simulate acoustics originating from anywhere in all three dimensions.
Atmos would seem like it obviously has a higher potential for musical listening possibilities on paper. After all, sound engineers can use Atmos plugins in their workflow. When mastering a track, this plugin would allow sound engineers to place specific instruments in any position around the listener and to mix the loudness and so on to produce a convincingly authentic musical experience.
There would seem to only be more tools now available to artists and engineers than ever to bring about a new chapter in musical enjoyment. Heck, the Atmos track of the future for classical could place all music from various points in the front but also the top and back to mimic the natural reverb coming from multiple directions in a performance hall. Or what about jazz clubs or live concerts. Apple is pushing forward ahead with getting Atmos the launching power it needs to garner further development.
But right now, with the many of tracks I have heard on Apple's recommended playlist for Spatial Audio, and perhaps most music among my own favorites, I did not get a pleasant overall interest with the voice-butchering distance Atmos had created between the vocals and the rest of the music. So, on top of having low volume overall when listening to Atmos, the voices in Atmos are even quieter compared to the track's other instruments.
If Atmos is utilized to the full extent of what it should technically allow for, it could be great...but...
You can have as wide, deep, and tall of a soundstage as much as you would like to have, but it doesn't matter if the instruments are misplaced and under-heard. It doesn't matter to have a 3D space if music doesn't engage nor appear overall any more naturally authentic than stereo.
Atmos's 3D soundstage concept should open many doors for both engineers and listeners. I sincerely hope that the best Atmos has to offer won't be limited to an inevitable new wave of ASMR videos.
I'm still, currently, finding more joy in the old non-Atmos mode. I hope vocal placement, across-stage placement, and overly quiet volume can all be improved on. That's my current take anyway.
I'll end by trying to share some tracks that had something to their Atmos quality that seemed to work well. But in every case, they were still just too quiet and suffered from impact because of this overall lower volume.
Where Atmos does well, maybe even MUCH better
Here are some tracks I genuinely enjoyed more for what Atmos did to vocals and overall, but may still be having an issue with max dB capacity.
Olivia Rodrigo's "good 4 u"
Disclosure's "Latch (feat. Sam Smith)"
Conclusion: Atmos is not fully ready, but shows promise
That's all there is to it, from what I've heard so far on APM. Atmos places voices and instruments in places that aren't always favorable to how they were originally mastered in stereo. Yet, there is great promise, especially now that Apple has put its full weight into the technology. Hopefully, we will see more and more tracks that are mastered in Atmos, or within 3D toolsets, so that we may all enjoy music in a new and potentially more immersive way.
I hope you all find enjoyment where you find it in your music. Maybe someone loves Atmos in more cases than me, but it's just not for me yet with most music. Someday maybe.
Cheers
