<story><title>Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio</title><url>https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/05/apple-music-announces-spatial-audio-and-lossless-audio/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Someone1234</author><text>This is included&amp;#x2F;no additional cost which is fantastic.&lt;p&gt;I do wonder if in the longer term if Apple&amp;#x27;s Spatial Audio with &amp;quot;dynamic head tracking&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t the next 3D TVs&amp;#x2F;3D Content i.e. a gimmick.&lt;p&gt;Taking traditional multi-source audio (Dolby&amp;#x2F;Atmos&amp;#x2F;etc) and jamming it into stereo is old tech, it doesn&amp;#x27;t work particularly well but is cheap to make&amp;#x2F;consume, thus &lt;i&gt;mostly&lt;/i&gt; harmless. The new Spatial Audio is using gyroscopes to measure head movements in order to adjust the audio accordingly, and new audio formats to make it work.&lt;p&gt;This may sound interesting if you haven&amp;#x27;t tried it, but it results in: Either you keep your head stationary and get the non-Spatial Audio sound (i.e. what they optimized for 90%+ of their audience) or whipping your head around to &amp;quot;enjoy&amp;quot; the effect (which is largely a movement accurate degradation).&lt;p&gt;It feels like cart-before-the-horse tech wherein they figured out they can do this thing, and now want to work backwards into what it may be useful for.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>crazygringo</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Either you keep your head stationary and get the non-Spatial Audio sound (i.e. what they optimized for 90%+ of their audience)&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I literally have no idea what you&amp;#x27;re talking about.&lt;p&gt;Using Spatial Audio on my AirPods Pro is &lt;i&gt;insanely&lt;/i&gt; better, and still &lt;i&gt;very much&lt;/i&gt; spatial, even &lt;i&gt;without&lt;/i&gt; actively moving my head.&lt;p&gt;First, the sound appears to be coming from outside of my head, rather than between my ears -- no &amp;quot;headphone fatigue&amp;quot;. It&amp;#x27;s vastly more comfortable and realistic.&lt;p&gt;Second, while dialog comes from straight ahead, sound effects like doors opening, cars honking etc. clearly come from angles, and things like wind come from all around, like an actual surround sound experience.&lt;p&gt;Third, because the dialog tracks are separated from other sounds spatially, the dialog is &lt;i&gt;easier to understand&lt;/i&gt; as well. I used to sometimes put on subtitles for certain material to understand fully in normal stereo -- I never have to anymore with spatial audio.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;Taking traditional multi-source audio (Dolby&amp;#x2F;Atmos&amp;#x2F;etc) and jamming it into stereo is old tech&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve used all that old tech too, and for whatever reason Apple&amp;#x27;s spatial audio is leagues better. I&amp;#x27;m not sure if it&amp;#x27;s something about being optimized for known headphone characteristics, or the head tracking, or something clever with the inward-facing microphones, or all of the above, but it&amp;#x27;s &lt;i&gt;nothing&lt;/i&gt; like that old tech.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;now want to work backwards into what it may be useful for.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s useful for listening, end of story. I&amp;#x27;m honestly mystified why you think it&amp;#x27;s a gimmick. I can&amp;#x27;t even imagine going back to listening to movies and TV without it. (I project from my iPad onto a screen, connect my AirPods Pro, and it&amp;#x27;s basically like being in an actual cinema, but without waking anyone else up at night from booming surround sound.)</text></comment>
<story><title>Apple Music Announces Spatial Audio and Lossless Audio</title><url>https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/05/apple-music-announces-spatial-audio-and-lossless-audio/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Someone1234</author><text>This is included&amp;#x2F;no additional cost which is fantastic.&lt;p&gt;I do wonder if in the longer term if Apple&amp;#x27;s Spatial Audio with &amp;quot;dynamic head tracking&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t the next 3D TVs&amp;#x2F;3D Content i.e. a gimmick.&lt;p&gt;Taking traditional multi-source audio (Dolby&amp;#x2F;Atmos&amp;#x2F;etc) and jamming it into stereo is old tech, it doesn&amp;#x27;t work particularly well but is cheap to make&amp;#x2F;consume, thus &lt;i&gt;mostly&lt;/i&gt; harmless. The new Spatial Audio is using gyroscopes to measure head movements in order to adjust the audio accordingly, and new audio formats to make it work.&lt;p&gt;This may sound interesting if you haven&amp;#x27;t tried it, but it results in: Either you keep your head stationary and get the non-Spatial Audio sound (i.e. what they optimized for 90%+ of their audience) or whipping your head around to &amp;quot;enjoy&amp;quot; the effect (which is largely a movement accurate degradation).&lt;p&gt;It feels like cart-before-the-horse tech wherein they figured out they can do this thing, and now want to work backwards into what it may be useful for.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>solarmist</author><text>The cart before the horse doesn’t sound very Apple like.  They’re the kind to keep it private and mess with it until they find a use for it and get it working very well.&lt;p&gt;Instead they’d just find a way to make the battery bigger because they know people care a ton about that.&lt;p&gt;Also, everyone keeps talking about consciously moving your head around. Record yourself doing something on your computer for 5 minutes and watch how much your head already, unconsciously moves around. It’s a lot.&lt;p&gt;Yes it’s subtle, but it’s supposed to be. You’re meant to forget about it. It’s trying to more accurately reproduce our natural abilities.</text></comment>