Yes - headphone Atmos is dumb. However, I don't get to listen to my proper 5.2.4 system as much as I did pre-kid life, so I consume a lot of headphone music. I find about 1/4 of the time I prefer the "Atmos" headphone mix. As dumb as headphone "Atmos" is, the fact that seemingly a lot of people enjoy it, is a good thing for us multi-channel music nerds. It's the best thing to happen to our hobby in a loooong time. 768 kbps / 48 kHz - who cares. Its good enough, and people need to stop comparing these modern audio compression algorithms to MP3. That's like comparing X265 video compression to .wmv or .avi.
Listening to in Dolby Atmos Streaming, via Tidal/Apple/Amazon
- Thread starter beerking
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salsdali
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
This is how FM should be mixed in atmos, but if I understand it correct Ken Caillat did both the DVD-A and this atmos so I guess he learned a thing or two along the way.
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It’s good as long as the powers-that-be don’t think headphone Atmos is good enough for 90% of the people and sells more Apple hardware, etc - and abandons the real thing.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-band-remastered/1440846597
The first two tracks are in Atmos. “Across The Great Divide”, and “Rag Mama Rag”.
The first two tracks are in Atmos. “Across The Great Divide”, and “Rag Mama Rag”.
Strange! 'Rag Mama Rag' is only showing Lossless for me. I noticed 'Across The Great Divide' in mid-November. I think I posted about it then hoping for the whole album. I've reloaded; removed most of my older versions of the album from Itunes etc etc. Still Lossless. Will try later.
I'm only getting the first song in Atmos, and I notice that all the other tracks show (Remastered) after the titles.
It appears to me it could be one of those one-off demo tracks they do.
Strange they would pick that one.
Other than being Track 1 on the record, it certainly didn't get the most airplay.
An oldie but goody, if not a bit random. Just as it appeared releases were slowing down. Herman’s Hermits ‘Theres a Kind Of Hush’. Apologies if already posted somewhere!
https://music.apple.com/us/album/theres-a-kind-of-hush/1599315736?i=1599315740
https://music.apple.com/us/album/theres-a-kind-of-hush/1599315736?i=1599315740
These are The Band tracks that I've found in Atmos on Apple (no Rag Mama Rag):
Across the Great Divide by The Band
Up On Cripple Creek by The Band
Ophelia by The Band
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down by The Band
Another classic. Ben E King ‘Stand By Me’. Again apologies if posted already!
https://music.apple.com/us/album/stand-by-me/68211636?i=68210790
https://music.apple.com/us/album/stand-by-me/68211636?i=68210790
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So this was linked in the comments:
https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/pr...atmos-mix-will-sound-different-on-apple-music
It turns out Apple is really messing with the Atmos audio if you listen over headphones. No wonder there are complaints. Good thing nobody here would do such a thing!
If you read that article (and others) we can see that Apple is not doing Atmos Headphone at all but rather their own "Spatial Audio", or even Dolby Atmos on speakers, unless you connect via HDMI to an AVR with Dolby Atmos decoder:
- Apple is using their own Renderer called "Spatial Audio" to playback Dolby Atmos mixes that are delivered to your Apple device as a DD+JOC codec.
- Any Dolby Atmos mix that you listen to on Apple Music is played back by Apple's own Renderer and does not (!) use the Dolby Renderer that you are using when monitoring your Dolby Atmos during mixing.
- The only exception is when playing back Apple Music content on the AppleTV through the HDMI output connected to a Dolby Atmos capable AV receiver or soundbar. In that case, you are listening to the Dolby Renderer and not the Apple Renderer.
- Apple is using the original Dolby Atmos mix in the form of the encoded DD+JOC file, but their own Renderer, the spatial audio engine, creates a Headphone Virtualization (their form of Binaural Audio) and Speaker Virtualization (for playing on their supported iPads and Macs). It is more like a "spatial interpretation" of your Dolby Atmos mix, and there is no "Apple Spatial Audio Emulation" button that you can enable while creating your Dolby Atmos mix. Bottom line, you are mixing blind for Apple Music because you don't know how your Atmos mix will sound.
But this is what matters:
The only exception is when playing back Apple Music content on the AppleTV through the HDMI output connected to a Dolby Atmos capable AV receiver or soundbar. In that case, you are listening to the Dolby Renderer and not the Apple Renderer.
The only exception is when playing back Apple Music content on the AppleTV through the HDMI output connected to a Dolby Atmos capable AV receiver or soundbar. In that case, you are listening to the Dolby Renderer and not the Apple Renderer.
That is what matters for a minimum fraction of the listeners: The ones with AV receiver and discrete speakers. Soundbars and bouncing Atmos enabled speakers will deliver worse sound.
But the supossed major amount of target will be listening something not beeing tested by the mixers (??).
Will Apple try to compete with his own renderer against Dolby? Also eventually with another different Apple encoder, that would be then properly monitored by mixers?
Apple wants to sell that it is different from the others. But necessarily better?
I don't like this. Time will tell.
So I guess the only way to find out if what Apple is doing with headphone Atmos is bad/worse than Dolby, is to do have Apple Music and an iPhone VS Tidal and an Android device. Kind of a tough ask, because I’m sure not too many people are going to have both Tidal and AM subs, *and* an iPhone and Android phone laying around.
salsdali
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
The Cahoots album are there in Atmos too.
harync
Senior Member
Having only ever listened to streaming Atmos via Amazon Firestick on Tidal or Apple TV 4K on Apple Music to my Atmos AVR, I never realized the depths of the problem. Unfortunately we are looking at something the QQ folks should be used to, competing formats with different hardware. In the one corner we have Tidal, which is your open(-ish) solution running on a bunch of different platforms. In the other corner we have the locked-down hardware/software solution with Apple. By using their own binaural rendering, Apple is not doing us surround-loving folks any favors by putting out an inferior interpretation of Atmos/5.1 that is causing people to be turned off to the format.
What are you talking about? If you are listening to Atmos on AppleTV connected via HDMI to an Atmos capable receiver you are getting the real thing.
Whether Dolby's headphone virtualization algorithms for headphones are any better than Apple's "spatial audio" is anybody's game and I really don't care that much.
Apple is providing the same or better Dolby Atmos experience via the AppleTV. If you care about fake headphone virtualization, you need to provide some evidence that Apple's is worst than Dolby's. No doubt it is different given its support for a directional sound field based on motion or device position (not sure Dolby has that?) but saying it is inferior needs some evidence.
salsdali
1K Club - QQ Shooting Star
in all fairness it is inferior compared to a physical disc due to bitrate and bandwith limitations.
I don't think the post I replied to mentioned physical media. There is no question that streaming Atmos is inferior to Blu-ray 4K lossless Atmos. The question here is whether the Apple "headphone virtualization" of Atmos is worse than the Dolby version and it doesn't look to me like anyone has seriously compared them.
I have experienced that kind of thing with my VR Oculus headset. In addition to the moving games, It was a short concert of somebody playing guitar and singing. You start with the sound at your back and do not see him. Then you turn your head and as the visual turns around you hear the guitar and his voice turning around until you look near his face and listen directly with sound coming from the front near you. It was a very very immersive thing. Very progressive moving, very real. You were there just at the side of the player.
This was a very amazing sound render, depending on your head position. Was it Dolby or Apple? Who renders sounds for Oculus or others VR headsets?
That kind of sensations are impresive with the aditional visuals to get you there, but without visuals, only sound changing direction as you move your head, is another kind of immersion that could work well. Really, this is nothing more than the emulation of what we have in our home cinema room with discrete speakers. As you move, the differentt sounds remain where they are. They do not move with you as you turn you head, as they do with traditional headsets.
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