[bigshot]

In receivers it doesn't end up stereo. It ends up discrete. On the iPhone > AirPods Max it definitely ends up stereo. That doesn't even end up with sound that even rivals Dolby Stereo on a multichannel speaker system. Stereo is stereo. I don't know why they'd even bother downloading and processing multichannel Atmos when headphones are the bottleneck. Just stream stereo and process it.

 

[Davesrose]

That is my question. Can the iPhone handle multichannel audio? Is there any other app or application that runs multichannel sound through an iPhone? Can you stream Netflix on your phone and cast it to your AVR and listen in multichannel Atmos on speakers? I've never tried to do that, so I don't know.

From what I have read, the iPhone and iPad fully support Atmos with spatial audio for AirPods. You can Airplay 4K movies with Atmos to Apple TV, and get Atmos with your receiver. There are now plenty of streaming services that offer movies (or some TV shows) in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Atmos is just an audio track that has a bed of sound channels (with streaming, it's Dolby Digital+: with UHD disc, it's TrueHD) and the extra 128 tracks are metadata (not taking up as much space with the stream). With Netflix, it will indicate if a movie or show is 4K HDR, Dolby Vision, and/or Dolby Atmos based in the info (and if your hardware supports it, and if you're subscribed to the 4K tier).

Whether spatial audio with Atmos is convincing with Apple AirPods, Apple's literature does say it processes Atmos (with iPhone and iPad, it's with other movie services....with Apple TV, it's just Apple Music). I suspect that since Apple has recently announced this stuff, there aren't much songs that are delivered in Atmos.

 

[bigshot]

So you can cast from a phone to AppleTV with multichannel audio? The AppleTV is playing from the phone, not streaming itself?

 

[Davesrose]

So you can cast from a phone to AppleTV with multichannel audio? The AppleTV is playing from the phone, not streaming itself?

Well I think that's a complicated answer. If you're playing from an app that you also have on the Apple TV, I think the Apple TV streams from itself (and is basing timeline off what you're also watching on the iPhone). However, you can also Airplay files that are on your phone. If those files are Atmos, the Apple TV will switch to it.

What complicates things further is that with other streaming devices, you can just bitstream the audio to your receiver (and keep the audio DD+ with Atmos for the receiver to handle). Apple TV, on the other hand, just bitstreams the audio if it has an Atmos stream....otherwise it converts the audio to multichannel PCM.

 

[KeithPhantom]

I would love to get multichannel that sounds as good as stereo without any post processing other than the ones done at mixing and mastering. All multichannel music that is not reproduced in the target system sounds so…processed??

 

[Davesrose]

I would love to get multichannel that sounds as good as stereo without any post processing other than the ones done at mixing and mastering. All multichannel music that is not reproduced in the target system sounds so…processed??

I have some great sounding blu-ray concerts mastered in DTS-MA 5.1. Otherwise, I like my setup for movies. Atmos receivers also have a "new" Dolby Surround (which matrixes 5.1 or 7.1 to 3D audio), as well as the DTS equivalent (DTS Neural:X). It can be pretty impressive. I've watched 5.1 movies where scenes do have things happen over head (like helicopter blades, or things happening above deck in a ship).

 

[bigshot]

I would love to get multichannel that sounds as good as stereo without any post processing other than the ones done at mixing and mastering. All multichannel music that is not reproduced in the target system sounds so…processed??

That's a matter of system calibration. The more speakers you add to a system, the more critical the balances are. Multichannel isn't plug and play, that's for sure.

 

[bigshot]

I've been investigating Spatial Audio since I got my AirPods Maxes. The results have been very frustrating. I subscribed to Apple Music to sample the Atmos music there and I've learned a few things...

The AirPods Max can't come anywhere close to the dimensionality of a multichannel speaker system. It still sounds like stereo.

The quality of the Atmos music on Apple Music is wildly inconsistent. Switching Spatial Audio on and off, the difference can be an improvement or it can sound worse. In most cases, the ones that sound better are remixes, and the ones that sound worse appear to be stereo run through a DSP to add a bit of bass bloom and reverb.

Played on an AppleTV set top box through a true multichannel speaker system, the playback is true Atmos. In another forum a person had a device that plotted the sound objects in an Atmos mix and showed that the output was true Atmos.

My conclusion is that Spatial Audio on AirPods isn't very impressive because the Dolby DSP being applied is pretty primitive. I'm told there is a significant upgrade to the processing in iOS15 which will come out in September. I can see that this has potential, because the music in Apple Music is true multichannel audio. But in order for it to play back as "spatial" in AirPods, Apple is going to have to do a lot more with the menu settings to allow HRTF calibration. Currently there are only two settings and they have to do with equalization, not spatial audio.

I'm not unhappy that I got the AirPod Maxes. They are excellent headphones and the way they integrate into the Apple ecosystem is nothing short of amazing. I just hope that they will work on the spatial audio to make it live up to the hype a little. I think this has more potential than MQA, but frankly, so far it isn't delivering on its promise much better than MQA did.

 

[Davesrose]

I've been investigating Spatial Audio since I got my AirPods Maxes. The results have been very frustrating. I subscribed to Apple Music to sample the Atmos music there and I've learned a few things...

The AirPods Max can't come anywhere close to the dimensionality of a multichannel speaker system. It still sounds like stereo.

The quality of the Atmos music on Apple Music is wildly inconsistent. Switching Spatial Audio on and off, the difference can be an improvement or it can sound worse. In most cases, the ones that sound better are remixes, and the ones that sound worse appear to be stereo run through a DSP to add a bit of bass bloom and reverb.

Played on an AppleTV set top box through a true multichannel speaker system, the playback is true Atmos. In another forum a person had a device that plotted the sound objects in an Atmos mix and showed that the output was true Atmos.

My conclusion is that Spatial Audio on AirPods isn't very impressive because the Dolby DSP being applied is pretty primitive. I'm told there is a significant upgrade to the processing in iOS15 which will come out in September. I can see that this has potential, because the music in Apple Music is true multichannel audio. But in order for it to play back as "spatial" in AirPods, Apple is going to have to do a lot more with the menu settings to allow HRTF calibration. Currently there are only two settings and they have to do with equalization, not spatial audio.

I'm not unhappy that I got the AirPod Maxes. They are excellent headphones and the way they integrate into the Apple ecosystem is nothing short of amazing. I just hope that they will work on the spatial audio to make it live up to the hype a little. I think this has more potential than MQA, but frankly, so far it isn't delivering on its promise much better than MQA did.

Thanks for the heads up. I didn't realize Apple had a full playlist up of spatial audio with Dolby Atmos. I'm playing a stereo album I've had (that I've also matrixed in surround on my AV system). It seems the album (Oh, What a World; Kacey Musgraves) is also inconsistent with Atmos on my 7.1.4 speaker setup. Some tracks just have the instrumentation on my main speakers. Seems they like to place guitars towards the sides and rear of your head. It's kind of distracting as it's not what a live performance would be ( where musicians aren't in all corners of the audience). The only main song I kind of appreciate a difference is the title song: Oh, What a World: the rears act more as reverb and some voice accompaniment that's better balanced. I guess I'll reserve judgement until I hear more albums....but so far I still prefer blu-ray concerts mastered in 5.1 (as they were engineered as a live recording).

Edit, actually browsing more music on Apple Music, I see quite a few albums that are already listed as lossless Dolby Atmos. Just randomly listening to some classical: there's some albums that do a good job of layering instruments towards the front. Some have voices go to the side of you (but perhaps not in an obtrusive way).

When it comes to Apple's spatial audio: since the Atmos tracks do sound legit on my speaker system, I wouldn't blame Dolby. I think it's more that the Apple headphones are taking a source that's meant for positional audio with speakers, and they're doing their own processing beyond that. For home audio, I'm sure those JVC headphones will have positional audio since they do Atmos well. On the other hand, the potential for Apple (if they get spatial audio done right) is that it would be portable with the iPhone.

 

[bigshot]

They aren’t close yet.