Apple Joining the Atmos streaming game!
- Thread starter Mcallister
- Start date
Help Support QuadraphonicQuad:
Great idea and that works great. You can press "see all" and it is easier to look at. Add + from your phone and they are on your TV when you get home.@miketuens I find it's easiest to use the apple music app on my phone, click search, then click spatial audio, then the titles are there by genre. Each Thursday night at midnight EST new albums are added.
A google doc is a fine idea.
Plays of Spatial Audio tracks on Apple Music have QUADrupled since September, the Cupertino Colossus tells Billboard.
https://macdailynews.com/2022/02/15...-apple-music-have-quadrupled-since-september/
https://macdailynews.com/2022/02/15...-apple-music-have-quadrupled-since-september/
Last edited:
musicmemorabiliashoppellc
2K Club - QQ Super Nova
So which ATMOS is best APPLE/Amazon or TIDAL?
what y’all think? Why?
what y’all think? Why?
QUADrupled!
Very good! Thanks! Have adjusted accordingly…
Apple in my opinion, tidal is much lower in output.
Quadrupled from what? Wasn’t it basically zero in September?
I read this as a HUGE win for surround/immersive music.
Recall that Atmos started in June 2021 on AM. So from September to now, plays have quadruped according to the article. That's incredible growth.
Growth is meaningless without context.
Anytime a press release or news article only provides a single data point which can mean almost anything - rather than actual numbers - I assume it’s spin. And it almost always is.
Ha! Yes it was June. September is when Apple does it’s major software updates for
the year. I can’t remember what extra utility was added then. Also when the bug was introduced on the Atmos and Dolby Audio playback on Apple TV 4K. What if the increase in useage was due to all those users skipping back to the beginning of the track to restore multichannel from mono. He He! (I’m joking). I hope the artists were paid the extra.
You could well be right about this
There is context and a lot of number quoted.
In fact I can add context - when in June ‘21 AM had 0 listens to Spatial Audio. So anything from there is a percentage increase. Any increase is good news, no spin there.
There’s nothing there but percentage increases. No actual numbers. It’s just PR BS. Not even the share of listens compared to stereo. That could be 25% or 0.025%. Both could be true from the info provided and both could represent growth. The first would be amazing news; the second would be dismal news.There is context and a lot of number quoted.
In fact I can add context - when in June ‘21 AM had 0 listens to Spatial Audio. So anything from there is a percentage increase. Any increase is good news, no spin there.
Well in that case your take is "glass half empty" and mine is "glass half full." We both are full of PR BS.
The takeaways from the article are as follows and we can spin them all sorts of ways:
- "listeners have increased by 50% since September"
- "Plays of Spatial Audio tracks have also quadrupled since September"
- "catalog growing sevenfold since Spatial Audio became available last summer"
- "Since the beginning of the year, 37% of the top 10 songs on Apple Music’s global Daily Top 100 songs chart are available in Spatial Audio"
- "42% of the platform’s top 100 songs in the U.S. today are available in Spatial Audio"
- "40% of the biggest new releases on Apple Music since September have been available in Spatial Audio"
- "When The Weeknd re-released his 2016 album Starboy in Spatial Audio on June 7, Apple says his first-time listeners increased by 20% over the eight weeks following compared to the eight weeks prior. "
- "[Billie] Eilish matched that growth in the same time frame when she re-released When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go in Spatial Audio. [Post] Malone’s Hollywood’s Bleeding and [Taylor] Swift’s Lover saw even greater gains, growing new listeners 40% and 50%, respectively"
My spin on these...if they remove spatial audio from apple music than none of these gains are realized. Even if listens increased by 50% that means from 1 listen to 2 listens! Positive gains!
Positive movement in what is already a niche format that we all adore and wish there would be greater adoption! And here it is, we are getting greater adoption of surround/immersive than ever before.
Yeah, I read the Apple press release as them being happy with it. They wouldn't come out with those numbers otherwise.
As to long term support:
I speak as a somewhat outsider. I don't have a "full" surround setup (an Atmos 5.1.2, with rears and sub soundbar. At that, a Costco special atmos soundbar...), but have been fascinated with binaural audio for ages. I'm 26 and for most people my age, getting a nice pair of headphones (wired or wireless) and perhaps a DAC/Amp seems to be the way to go for music. I'm unusual in that I have multiple nice headphones and a decent turntable setup (AT-LP120, ortofon 2m red, Audio Engine a2+ speakers, a Schiit Magni 2 uber headphone amp, and a Art DJ Pro premp).
Apple is all in on Atmos in more ways than one, and if you zoom out to their overall business it makes sense. They have the Apple TV box which is their main competitor to the Roku's and Firesticks of the world, and one of the selling points is all the streaming services that use Atmos works in Atmos on their box. On top of that, they have the Apple TV+ streaming service with original content where everything is in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos as a mandate (archival things like the Charlie Brown specials they bought the rights to and Fraggle Rock are in Stereo/Mono respectively).
On top of that they have a range of wireless earbuds and headphones with motion sensors that they carefully control the DSP chain on so they can tune Atmos tracks to sound great with those. Yes, Apple Music Atmos works on Atmos setups, and all other headphones, but in all the marketing they're pushing Airpods gen 3, Pro, and Max (gotta say, the Max are nice. Definitely not worth $550, but they've become my go to "I just wanna listen to music" headphones).
On top of all that, while not confirmed just yet (expected to be announced this year), it seems like Apple's throwing their hat into the AR/VR headset space. As someone who has worked on VR projects (small solo stuff, nothing big), part of what makes VR and AR applications so engaging and compelling is a fully 3D mapped soundscape, so Apple pushing their spatial audio binaural downmix tech (which they even put into Facetime for group calls. Voices come relative to where they are on the screen) is them trying to have that in people's hearts and minds when they reveal their headset.
And then if you zoom out further you see things like Microsoft building Dolby Atmos for Headphones, DTS:X for headphones, and their own (free, and not great) in house solution into all windows installs, and all Xboxes, Sony dedicating an entire extra CPU on the PS5 for "3D Audio", andfacebook Meta's VR headsets have speakers just above the ears that attempt to do a spatial mix (to mixed results), as well as binaural mixdowns when using headphones.
Surround audio, both downmixed to binaural, as well as on a home theater setup is the next push in tech right now as far as I can see. Most of the big tech companies are investing in it in some way or form, and it's likely to get more and more mainstream pushes. I can't locate a source, but I recall seeing one beta tester of the upcoming and long delayed Spotify "hifi" tier saw Atmos stuff in there as well, meaning that if that's true, the big 4 main streaming services (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and Tidal, listed by market share order) will all support surround music. It's a win win for everyone. An Atmos mix on a new release draws more eyes towards your music, and if you're a smaller artist that helps a lot. Hearing from a friend that an album sounds great in Atmos drives them to a service that has Atmos, and it can't cost that much more to store and stream those files on the corporate end. Do a twitter search for Atmos + Apple Music or Spatial + Apple Music and you see non-audiophile people being blown away by it. The fact that it also benefits audiophiles is icing on the cake for Apple.
As to long term support:
I speak as a somewhat outsider. I don't have a "full" surround setup (an Atmos 5.1.2, with rears and sub soundbar. At that, a Costco special atmos soundbar...), but have been fascinated with binaural audio for ages. I'm 26 and for most people my age, getting a nice pair of headphones (wired or wireless) and perhaps a DAC/Amp seems to be the way to go for music. I'm unusual in that I have multiple nice headphones and a decent turntable setup (AT-LP120, ortofon 2m red, Audio Engine a2+ speakers, a Schiit Magni 2 uber headphone amp, and a Art DJ Pro premp).
Apple is all in on Atmos in more ways than one, and if you zoom out to their overall business it makes sense. They have the Apple TV box which is their main competitor to the Roku's and Firesticks of the world, and one of the selling points is all the streaming services that use Atmos works in Atmos on their box. On top of that, they have the Apple TV+ streaming service with original content where everything is in Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos as a mandate (archival things like the Charlie Brown specials they bought the rights to and Fraggle Rock are in Stereo/Mono respectively).
On top of that they have a range of wireless earbuds and headphones with motion sensors that they carefully control the DSP chain on so they can tune Atmos tracks to sound great with those. Yes, Apple Music Atmos works on Atmos setups, and all other headphones, but in all the marketing they're pushing Airpods gen 3, Pro, and Max (gotta say, the Max are nice. Definitely not worth $550, but they've become my go to "I just wanna listen to music" headphones).
On top of all that, while not confirmed just yet (expected to be announced this year), it seems like Apple's throwing their hat into the AR/VR headset space. As someone who has worked on VR projects (small solo stuff, nothing big), part of what makes VR and AR applications so engaging and compelling is a fully 3D mapped soundscape, so Apple pushing their spatial audio binaural downmix tech (which they even put into Facetime for group calls. Voices come relative to where they are on the screen) is them trying to have that in people's hearts and minds when they reveal their headset.
And then if you zoom out further you see things like Microsoft building Dolby Atmos for Headphones, DTS:X for headphones, and their own (free, and not great) in house solution into all windows installs, and all Xboxes, Sony dedicating an entire extra CPU on the PS5 for "3D Audio", and
Surround audio, both downmixed to binaural, as well as on a home theater setup is the next push in tech right now as far as I can see. Most of the big tech companies are investing in it in some way or form, and it's likely to get more and more mainstream pushes. I can't locate a source, but I recall seeing one beta tester of the upcoming and long delayed Spotify "hifi" tier saw Atmos stuff in there as well, meaning that if that's true, the big 4 main streaming services (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and Tidal, listed by market share order) will all support surround music. It's a win win for everyone. An Atmos mix on a new release draws more eyes towards your music, and if you're a smaller artist that helps a lot. Hearing from a friend that an album sounds great in Atmos drives them to a service that has Atmos, and it can't cost that much more to store and stream those files on the corporate end. Do a twitter search for Atmos + Apple Music or Spatial + Apple Music and you see non-audiophile people being blown away by it. The fact that it also benefits audiophiles is icing on the cake for Apple.
Thanks for the detailed write-up. Promising times indeed.
Mistermono
Member
So I got an Apple TV 4K box and I cannot for the life of me get the surround feature working. I have updated to the latest OS and checked my settings and everything that I have read about in this forum that is supposed to be available in MC/quad plays in stereo.
I have an older non-Atmos (but 5.1 capable) AVR. I am connecting the Apple TV box via hdmi to a Denon AVR 1513.
I am in Canada. Is this a feature that is not available in Canada? The Apple Canada website makes it sound like it is available here.
Any help or advice is appreciated!
I have an older non-Atmos (but 5.1 capable) AVR. I am connecting the Apple TV box via hdmi to a Denon AVR 1513.
I am in Canada. Is this a feature that is not available in Canada? The Apple Canada website makes it sound like it is available here.
Any help or advice is appreciated!
jaap74
Senior Member
I think you MUST have an Atmos capable AVR to get Atmos. I have a Marantz which is Atmos ready, I only have a 5.1 setup however it 'downmixes' (for want of a better word) to 5.1.....
Mistermono
Member
That’s the thing. I don’t care about Atmos or downmixing. I can’t get anything to play in surround e.g. the quad mixes for Argent and The Byrds.
