[Heyyoudvd]

Dolby has put up a page with demos of the Spatial/Atmos music playback.

https://www.dolby.com/music/

On first listen, it sounds quite good. It’s much better than those gimmicky features from 90s sound cards and audio equipment.

If this pans out, it seems like it obviates the entire concepts of soundstage and imaging. If you can get a truly immersive sound, wouldn’t that essentially make audiophile metrics like soundstage and imaging obsolete?

 

[MayaTlab]

If this pans out, it seems like it obviates the entire concepts of soundstage and imaging. If you can get a truly immersive sound, wouldn’t that essentially make audiophile metrics like soundstage and imaging obsolete?

Soundstage and imaging aren't metrics, that's the whole problem .

Quite the contrary though, I think that an object based surround sound simulation with algorithmic transposition to a set number of channels is probably a key piece to enable accurate sound localisation on headphones vs. prerecorded stereo channels with no crossfeed (IMO I've never understood what people mean by "soundstage" with headphones other than "everything sounds further or closer away" or "I can hear reverb more clearly" since they by design eliminate some key aspects of how we locate sounds).
The problem then becomes this : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function
Remains to be seen whether generic profiles or not can accurately give proper sound localisation to everyone. So far I've never been truly convinced, particularly for front / back or up / down localisation. That includes Apple's Spatial Audio.

 

[Rob49]

Dolby has put up a page with demos of the Spatial/Atmos music playback.

https://www.dolby.com/music/

On first listen, it sounds quite good. It’s much better than those gimmicky features from 90s sound cards and audio equipment.

If this pans out, it seems like it obviates the entire concepts of soundstage and imaging. If you can get a truly immersive sound, wouldn’t that essentially make audiophile metrics like soundstage and imaging obsolete?

I’ve just seen this.....my first question is, are AirPod Max headphones any good ?? Do you get drop outs at all in sound ?

Readinf that there’s no extra cost to Apple subscribers for lossless & Dolby Atmos tracks. Do you necessarily need to buy a Apple 4K box, for all this ?? I’m assuming only if you want to listen to speakers, with a receiver with Dolby Atmos capability ?

 

[SparkOnShore]

Apple doesn’t have their own devices support that output. Apple’s simply saying the option is there if you want it. But they also do run to the aftermarket to expand a lot of functionality of their stuff since it tends to be more profitable that way for them.

I agree with the way you put it, so to say. Option is there, but it’s not that important to Apple in order to compromise wireless ease of use and simplicity for questionable audio quality gains. At the bottom line they offer Dolby atmos to their headphones, which may become game changing. Yes, it could be that way…

 

[SparkOnShore]

Yet we have a lot of folks here who claim the APMs sound as good as high quality wired sets so they’re not wrong…

They sound really good to my ears. But certainly would reveal more detail when wired, with hi res lossless. We could have both options, which would be perfect, but it doesn’t mean that without having the hi res option I will give mine back. Of course I won’t, I love them anyway.

 

[rcoranje]

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/05/17/airpods-max-no-direct-lossless-lightning-support/

unbelievable really!!

No, quite logical as long as you know what you are talking about. Just nobody has found a way yet to to push Alac, or Flac, reliably through over bluetooth. Using wifi might be a possibility but that's not a piece of cake either.

 

[RamGuy]

Dolby has put up a page with demos of the Spatial/Atmos music playback.

https://www.dolby.com/music/

On first listen, it sounds quite good. It’s much better than those gimmicky features from 90s sound cards and audio equipment.

If this pans out, it seems like it obviates the entire concepts of soundstage and imaging. If you can get a truly immersive sound, wouldn’t that essentially make audiophile metrics like soundstage and imaging obsolete?

Sounds just like what I would expect music to sound like when you have up to 128-channels that can be utilised in a 360-degree sphere around you. The key to Dolby Atmos sound great for music will be the production actually recording and mastering it using additional channels in a meaningful way.

If we start taking regular 2-channel music and emulate them into Dolby Atmos it will be just like "upscaling" stereo music to surround music back in the day. It might in terms of creating a better "full room experience" but it won't give you anything when it comes to fidelity or perspective.

So the big question is. How many record labels will be producing decent masters for the like of Apple, Spotify, Tidal etc so they can create encodes utilising Dolby Atmos capable hardware, and Apple Spatial Audio capable hardware in order to provide this object base audio reproduction? And it has to be done with some kind of sense applied to it. There is no point tossing things in the song to random channels just for the effect. Artists and creators need to have these new capabilities in mind when they create their music otherwise it will become a gimmick just like surround music did.

What's promising is that every huge streaming service seems to be on board. Amazon, Apple and Tidal are already listed as supporting Dolby Atmos and I'd bet Spotify will be joining the list. It might sound different when using different services. Apple is feeding the Dolby Atmos metadata into their own proprietary Spatial Audio HRTF technology for instance. What kind of extra functionality might add to the results I have no clue.

It needs broad adaptation by all the major service providers. Otherwise record labs, artist and producers have no reason to spend time and resources on creating Dolby Atmos masters of their music. And we just end up with yet another gimmick.

 

[retskrad]

The AirPods Max doesn’t come with a lightning to a headphone hack connector in the box. Apple clearly doesn’t want you to use this product unless it’s wireless.

The fact that it cannot play Hi-Res Lossness doesn’t surprise me. I just think the Apple Music department messed up. They shouldn’t have released this feature at all because now they got a bunch of bad press. This is a rare case of two departments at Apple not communicating.

You can’t even tell the difference between 320kbps and Lossless. Hi-Res Lossless is even more ridiculous. Apple shot themselves in the foot for no reason.

 

[RamGuy]

The thing I can’t figure out is how Apple can offer a service their own headphones cannot support. All Apple and Beats headphones are wireless and the company has been pushing wireless audio all along. They sell the AirPods max, meanwhile now saying they have a higher quality audio which their flagship cannot reproduce! So, if you admit cables are the best solution for the highest quality audio, why you ended up selling only wireless headphones and iPhone dongles?? If you admit AAC is indeed inferior to ALAC, why your 600 eur product has not been made to reproduce it? At the bottom line, dear Apple, since it seems you have changed your mind, give me the equipment to enjoy your highest quality service and take back the current half baked wireless ones. Whatever, this whole high res by Apple does not make much sense to me…

It does look strange. But I think this is simply Apple going after Tidal HiFi, Amazon HD, Qobuz etc customers. Apple isn't a company that tends to believe in "snake oil" and going 24-bit/192kHz for audio doesn't really make much sense from a technical (or a physiological) standpoint.

To me, this looks like Apple giving the other services that demand a higher price for their Lossless and Hi-Res offering the middle finger. By providing the same but for no additional cost, they are simply telling all of the customers who tell themselves they can hear a difference and needs these 24-bit/192kHz sources that now they can get the same from Apple Music at a lower cost.

It seems like a marketing ploy in order for Apple to achieve a higher market share for Apple Music. They know people that about 24-bit/192kHz will undoubtedly get the headlines that Apple is adding this for no additional cost so these might be customers that are rather easy to convert into Apple Music customers.


I've tested 24-bit/192kHz, 16-bit/44.1kHz lossless and 16-bit/44.1kHz lossy on my Hegel HD12+Schiit Magnius fully balanced combo running balanced cabling to my Sennheiser HD800S and there is no way for me to tell any of them apart. I do love great audio, why else would I have this equipment. But I'm not drinking this snake oil and claiming "Hi-Res" have any practical use. When looking at all the technical details behind it and all studies we have around human hearing there is nothing even theoretical that points to it being remotely capable of providing any noticeable benefits for end-users regardless of their equipment.


Apple's focus seems to be on the Dolby Atmos + Apple Spatial Audio combination. And that seems to be way more interesting and something that might actually change how we listen to music. It has much greater potential compared to the Hi-Res and Lossless. The only question is if object-based audio has anything going for it when it comes to music or if it's going to be yet another gimmick. Gimmick or not it at least has some potential to be something other than pure snake oil.

 

[Gamerlingual]

Guess the answer to third party ear pads/cushions is no. I'll check ali express just in case

 

[RamGuy]

The AirPods Max doesn’t come with a lightning to a headphone hack connector in the box. Apple clearly doesn’t want you to use this product unless it’s wireless.

The fact that it cannot play Hi-Res Lossness doesn’t surprise me. I just think the Apple Music department messed up. They shouldn’t have released this feature at all because now they got a bunch of bad press. This is a rare case of two departments at Apple not communicating.

You can’t even tell the difference between 320kbps and Lossless. Hi-Res Lossless is even more ridiculous. Apple shot themselves in the foot for no reason.

The AirPods Max is digital-only and I suspect that is for a very good reason. They won't sound any good without the computational audio/DSP. They have clearly been designed and tuned around this very active and high-tech DSP. Remove the DPS and they won't be any good at all is what I suspect.

If you feed them with an analogue signal you would bypass the built-in DAC and DSP. Apple clearly doesn't want this to happen but still know some people will want to use a cable for whatever reason and that's why you have this awkward situation where you have a minijack to lightning cable that has to contain its own ADC as the analogue minijack signal needs to be converted back to digital before it hits the headphones.

 

[tinyman392]

Guess the answer to third party ear pads/cushions is no. I'll check ali express just in case

The answer is likely no. If it were to exist right now it would need to be custom made most likely. You could also try to email Vesper Audio and see if they have any plans to make pads for them. I have a set of custom pads from them for my Sine.

 

[Gamerlingual]

The answer is likely no. If it were to exist right now it would need to be custom made most likely. You could also try to email Vesper Audio and see if they have any plans to make pads for them. I have a set of custom pads from them for my Sine.

Thank you. I’ll contact them

 

[oryan_dunn]

I’ve just seen this.....my first question is, are AirPod Max headphones any good ?? Do you get drop outs at all in sound ?

Readinf that there’s no extra cost to Apple subscribers for lossless & Dolby Atmos tracks. Do you necessarily need to buy a Apple 4K box, for all this ?? I’m assuming only if you want to listen to speakers, with a receiver with Dolby Atmos capability ?

You don't need Airpods or Beats to be able to listen to the Atmos tracks. The only thing you get with those headphones is auto selection of the Atmos track. You can manually turn on Atmos tracks in the Music app settings to listen with any headphones.

 

[Rob49]

You don't need Airpods or Beats to be able to listen to the Atmos tracks. The only thing you get with those headphones is auto selection of the Atmos track. You can manually turn on Atmos tracks in the Music app settings to listen with any headphones.

Thanks, was aware you can use any headphone, but doesn’t the AirPods have specific technology for listening to Dolby Atmos & spatial sound, or whatever the term is ! ?