Thoughts on Apple Music Lossless and Dolby Atmos

[Roswell]

TLDR: Lossless gives a pretty amazing boost in dynamic range, even over Bluetooth. Fidelity increase even over wired headphones is pretty meh. Atmos and Spatial audio is dumb.

 

Been fiddling with lossless and Dolby on my phone and Mac with the following stuff:

• Sennheiser Momentum 1st gen via headphone jack on Mac and Lightning to 3.5mm on the phone
• Bose SoundTrue over ears via headphone jack on Mac and Lightning to 3.5mm on the phone
• Sony XM4 over ears via Bluetooth
• Earpods (Lightning version)

I haven't used the Sennheiser or Bose headphones for years and years, just wanted something wired to test with. Not sure if that skews my perception.

 

 

Thoughts...

 

1. Lossless is... slightly (if barely) noticeable as far as fidelity goes. I really had to pay attention to chaotic tracks with a bunch of trebly stuff going on at once, like a drummer smashing the hell out of their hats. I guess this is a testament to how good the original AAC codec is at 256Kbit.
2. Lossless is VERY noticeable when it comes to dynamic range for some reason. Tracks are waaaaaaay less crunched. I can't stress enough how big of a difference there was. I have no idea how much of this has to do with Apple's "Apple Digital Master" and how much of it is due to their new lossless implementation. Dynamic range sounds freaking great with it though.
3. The benefits of the superior dynamic range is almost just as noticeable over Bluetooth. 
4. The modest fidelity increase that I noticed on my wired headphones is not noticeable over Bluetooth. Duh.
5. Dolby Atmos, spatial audio and all other "3D" audio is dumb. I expected it to sound bad and it did. It pretty much ruins the audio quality and distorts the source material to a great extent. I guess if you like the 3D audio toggles on your computer or whatever, maybe you'll enjoy it. It's not for me though.
6. Not all Spatial Audio/Atmos tracks are compatible with regular headphones. Seems like anything retroactively remastered requires some form of AirPods. Anything that was mastered with Atmos from the start (new albums) DO seem to work with non Apple headphones.

 

Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised with the huge leap in dynamic range on my XM4 headphones over Bluetooth. I wasn't expecting it whatsoever and it definitely is going to make me stick to Apple Music. 

 

I guess it's unfortunate that other streaming providers don't have access to the masters that Apple does.

 

Anyone else have thoughts or experience with the changes yet?

 

[LinusTech]

7 hours ago, Roswell said:

TLDR: Lossless gives a pretty amazing boost in dynamic range, even over Bluetooth. Fidelity increase even over wired headphones is pretty meh. Atmos and Spatial audio is dumb.

 

Been fiddling with lossless and Dolby on my phone and Mac with the following stuff:

• Sennheiser Momentum 1st gen via headphone jack on Mac and Lightning to 3.5mm on the phone
• Bose SoundTrue over ears via headphone jack on Mac and Lightning to 3.5mm on the phone
• Sony XM4 over ears via Bluetooth
• Earpods (Lightning version)

I haven't used the Sennheiser or Bose headphones for years and years, just wanted something wired to test with. Not sure if that skews my perception.

 

 

Thoughts...

 

1. Lossless is... slightly (if barely) noticeable as far as fidelity goes. I really had to pay attention to chaotic tracks with a bunch of trebly stuff going on at once, like a drummer smashing the hell out of their hats. I guess this is a testament to how good the original AAC codec is at 256Kbit.
2. Lossless is VERY noticeable when it comes to dynamic range for some reason. Tracks are waaaaaaay less crunched. I can't stress enough how big of a difference there was. I have no idea how much of this has to do with Apple's "Apple Digital Master" and how much of it is due to their new lossless implementation. Dynamic range sounds freaking great with it though.
3. The benefits of the superior dynamic range is almost just as noticeable over Bluetooth. 
4. The modest fidelity increase that I noticed on my wired headphones is not noticeable over Bluetooth. Duh.
5. Dolby Atmos, spatial audio and all other "3D" audio is dumb. I expected it to sound bad and it did. It pretty much ruins the audio quality and distorts the source material to a great extent. I guess if you like the 3D audio toggles on your computer or whatever, maybe you'll enjoy it. It's not for me though.
6. Not all Spatial Audio/Atmos tracks are compatible with regular headphones. Seems like anything retroactively remastered requires some form of AirPods. Anything that was mastered with Atmos from the start (new albums) DO seem to work with non Apple headphones.

 

Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised with the huge leap in dynamic range on my XM4 headphones over Bluetooth. I wasn't expecting it whatsoever and it definitely is going to make me stick to Apple Music. 

 

I guess it's unfortunate that other streaming providers don't have access to the masters that Apple does.

 

Anyone else have thoughts or experience with the changes yet?

 

Great little mini-review

[Abdullah Bhutta]

26 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

Great little mini-review

Hey Linus, the Mr. Tech Tips; Can you correct your location?

its set to Canadia . which is a typing mistake.

[Derkoli]

On 6/10/2021 at 9:56 AM, Roswell said:

TLDR: Lossless gives a pretty amazing boost in dynamic range, even over Bluetooth. Fidelity increase even over wired headphones is pretty meh. Atmos and Spatial audio is dumb.

 

Been fiddling with lossless and Dolby on my phone and Mac with the following stuff:

• Sennheiser Momentum 1st gen via headphone jack on Mac and Lightning to 3.5mm on the phone
• Bose SoundTrue over ears via headphone jack on Mac and Lightning to 3.5mm on the phone
• Sony XM4 over ears via Bluetooth
• Earpods (Lightning version)

I haven't used the Sennheiser or Bose headphones for years and years, just wanted something wired to test with. Not sure if that skews my perception.

 

 

Thoughts...

 

1. Lossless is... slightly (if barely) noticeable as far as fidelity goes. I really had to pay attention to chaotic tracks with a bunch of trebly stuff going on at once, like a drummer smashing the hell out of their hats. I guess this is a testament to how good the original AAC codec is at 256Kbit.
2. Lossless is VERY noticeable when it comes to dynamic range for some reason. Tracks are waaaaaaay less crunched. I can't stress enough how big of a difference there was. I have no idea how much of this has to do with Apple's "Apple Digital Master" and how much of it is due to their new lossless implementation. Dynamic range sounds freaking great with it though.
3. The benefits of the superior dynamic range is almost just as noticeable over Bluetooth. 
4. The modest fidelity increase that I noticed on my wired headphones is not noticeable over Bluetooth. Duh.
5. Dolby Atmos, spatial audio and all other "3D" audio is dumb. I expected it to sound bad and it did. It pretty much ruins the audio quality and distorts the source material to a great extent. I guess if you like the 3D audio toggles on your computer or whatever, maybe you'll enjoy it. It's not for me though.
6. Not all Spatial Audio/Atmos tracks are compatible with regular headphones. Seems like anything retroactively remastered requires some form of AirPods. Anything that was mastered with Atmos from the start (new albums) DO seem to work with non Apple headphones.

 

Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised with the huge leap in dynamic range on my XM4 headphones over Bluetooth. I wasn't expecting it whatsoever and it definitely is going to make me stick to Apple Music. 

 

I guess it's unfortunate that other streaming providers don't have access to the masters that Apple does.

 

Anyone else have thoughts or experience with the changes yet?

 

I've messed around a bit with it, but it was using the apple dongle with my fiancées phone into my mixing desk, then spitting it to my JBL M2's via their DSP amplifiers. So not the highest fidelity DAC in the world. 

 

Overall, I don't think it sounds as good as Qobuz, but overall it's much better than the lossy Apple Music stuff. But I guess this isn't a surprise to anyone.

 

I'll try to do some better listening tests with some of my other kit tomorrow.