Immediately after WWDC 2021, Apple began to open up access to two new features of the Apple Music streaming service. This is spatial audio and music in lossless quality. The current update risks becoming revolutionary in the market in several ways. The first is the price, because the subscription price remains the same. The second is Spatial Audio, a large number of subscribers and label interest.

Spatial audio

Somewhere on the Internet, I came across the slang word “spatula” – this is the name of a new feature in Apple Music. I don’t know who the author is, but it sounds funny to me.

Spatial audio in playlists is marked with the Dolby Atmos icon. When this technology is activated, a sense of presence is created, which can only be achieved with the help of systems like 5.1 or 7.1. The idea is that the music, initially mixed for two channels, will sound like you are in the same room with the artists located throughout the room.

Spatial Audio in Apple Music has the potential to change the music marketplace. The fact is that Apple in 2019 had over 60 million paid subscribers to the service, and AirPods are the most popular headphones in the world. That is, labels now may be really interested in promoting music in Dolby Atmos.

What headphones does it work with?

Dolby Atmos in Apple Music will automatically turn on if you have AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, BeatsX, Beats Solo3 Wireless, Beats Studio3, Powerbeats3 Wireless, Beats Flex, Powerbeats Pro, and Beats Solo Pro.

How to turn it on?

Go to the settings of your iPhone and look for the “Music” application in the list:

In this section, you need a subsection “Sound”:

Open and select the option you want:

If you have headphones from the list above, then the “Automatic” option will do. Always on mode is activated when you have other headphones. But it will be an imitation of Dolby Atmos and most likely rather mediocre, as evidenced by the warning:

How does it sound?

I compared the sound of one Linkin Park track – In the End:

The comparison was made in three different versions:

• The usual option in AirPods Max;
• Dolby Atmos option in AirPods Max;
• Option to simulate Dolby Atmos on unsupported headphones.

To begin with, I will explain that in a past life I worked as a sound engineer, but in general I am a bit of a musician and know something about mixing music.

The original track sounds very good on AirPods Max. Everything changes with the inclusion of Dolby Atmos. In the beginning, the really new arrangement of instruments is delightful. Exactly until the guitars enter the chorus.

These guitars in the original track were rock-solid. But in the new mix, it is lost as the sound spreads to the distant edges.

Then I put on other headphones, turned on the imitation – and then everything became completely bad.

For the sake of interest, I listened to other tracks in Dolby Atmos in AirPods Max and realized that I would hardly ever listen to music in this format.

But here it is worthwhile to understand that this is purely subjective. I didn’t like it, but Vale Wylsacom really went:

Music without Dolby Atmos now feels as flat as the Earth. ?‍♂️

– Wylsacom (@wylsacom) June 8, 2021

How many albums are available in Spatial Audio?

Apple does not name the exact number. At the moment, there are several playlists with music of different genres, where tracks are presented exclusively in Dolby Atmos. There are also several highlighted old and new albums, their number does not exceed 70 pieces.

The Dolby Atmos library on Apple Music will expand over time.

Lossless and Hi-Res

If few have heard about the “spatula”, then the slang “elk” for Lossless has been known for a long time.

Lossless – lossless music. It comes in the quality that CDs can give you, where there was only one album (remember, in the 16s we bought these?), As well as DVD Audio. The quality in this case will be from 44,1 bit / 24 kHz to 48 bit / XNUMX kHz.

Hi-Res or “high-resolution audio” is one of the highest quality sound options available in relatively widespread use. In fact, many consider ordinary Lossless to be Hi-Res, but nevertheless, the sound is considered to be a real “high-res” with the quality of the above, that is, it can be from 24 bit / 50 kHz to 24 bit / 192 kHz. In the case of Apple Music, the Hi-Res will most likely be 24-bit / 192 kHz.

What are these numbers anyway?

The number in kHz is the frequency at which the analog waveform will be read for conversion to digital equivalent. The higher the frequency, the higher the quality.

The point is that an analog wave is inherently smooth and soft:

And digital sound is roughly “chopped”. The higher the frequency of reading the wave, the smoother the “cast” of this very wave, that is, the sound will be as close as possible to the analog signal.

The digit indicated in bits is the length of the signal. It indicates how many bits of information will be contained in one sample. A sample is just that piece of information that is determined by the sampling rate. That is, in the case of 192 kHz, there will be 192 thousand samples, the bit depth of which will reach 24 bits.

In both cases, the dependence “the higher the parameter, the better” works.

How many songs are featured in Lossless and Hi-Res?

Apparently, of the 75 million music library in Lossless, only 20 million tracks are available. Apple hopes to process the entire media library by the end of the year.

Sound

Hi-Res for headphones will be practically useless. The difference, connected directly with the recording itself, in Lossless and Hi-Res will be heard by a few, and with blind listening, most likely, either no one or people with very trained ears. All the difference appears when connected to amplifiers, which make significant adjustments to the signal itself.

Hi-Res for wireless connectivity will be even more useless. This is due to Bluetooth, because the bandwidth of its channel is very limited. Therefore, I made recommendations on what format to listen on.

Formats

HE-AAC is suitable for the cheapest headphones and if you don’t care deeply about sound quality. Well, either you live in a place where the Internet is really bad, and each byte costs about a billion euros.

The AAC format produces a quality that’s suitable for most people – some people like the sound on Spotify. The maximum bit rate is 256 kbps, which, due to the specifics of signal compression, can sound better in many places than mp3 sounds at 320 kbps. The difference is achieved due to the fact that AAS relies on psychoacoustics, and mp3 compresses the signal in a simple way.

The Lossless option delivers music in ALAC format with quality comparable to CD Audio and DVD Audio, that is, from 16 bit / 44,1 kHz to 24 bit / 48 kHz. This format is also suitable for listening on wireless headphones with support for the AAC codec, with the only difference that the quality will not be limited to 256 kbps, but will be about twice as high: in stereo, the maximum AAC bitrate is 529 kbps. Your AirPods and other headphones with support for such a codec will easily digest it. Wired headphones are also suitable, which can be connected via the “Lightning – 3,5 mm” dongle:

The last option is “High Resolution, Lossless”, that is, the same Hi-Res. Apple advises against listening to it without external tools like high-end DACs. Without them, the music in the mentioned quality on the iPhone will be downsampled to 24/48, since the iPhone understands that now there is no instrument that can “accelerate” the signal. But even with such DACs, you are more likely to hear only changes made by the DAC itself, rather than increasing the bitrate.

Hi-Res is great for listening to music from a computer to which you have expensive speakers connected. Or Hi-Res will work if your Apple TV is connected via HDMI to a high-quality AV receiver that already distributes the audio signal to your existing speakers.

How do I adjust the sound quality?

If you have an iPhone or iPad, then go to the settings of your device. You will need the “Music” item again:

Then go to the subsection “Sound”, there you will find the item “Sound quality”:

In the section that opens, you first need to activate the item “Lossless audio files”. After that, you will have the following items:

If you do not have an external cool DAC, then I recommend setting the quality to “Lossless”:

File size

The higher the resolution and sampling settings, the better the quality. But the better the quality, the heavier the composition will be. In the previous screenshot, you can see an approximate comparison of how much the same track will weigh in different quality.

• HE-AAC: 1,5 MB;
• AAC: 6 MB;
• “Lossless”: 36 MB;
• High Resolution Lossless: 145 MB.

In general, I would definitely not use Hi-Res for tariffs with limited traffic.