Apple Music and Dolby Atmos - Your Album Reviews

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Freebird, Aug 27, 2021.

  1. supermd

    supermd Senior Member

    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    Hey there. I’m curious if you could point out a couple specific songs you were disappointed with.
     
  2. supermd

    supermd Senior Member

    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    Great news. How did you come to find this information?
     
  3. Beaneydave

    Beaneydave Forum Resident

    It should be a law that Atmos mixes have to be done by Steve Wilson. Never less than excellent!


    peace and love✌Dave
     
    J_Surround, Terry, jamesc and 2 others like this.
  4. tlake6659

    tlake6659 Senior Member

    Location:
    NJ
    He posted about it on Facebook I believe.
     
    supermd likes this.
  5. dobyblue

    dobyblue Forum Resident

    Yes he did, acknowledging that he knows there are people out there dissatisfied with the quality of lossy streaming Atmos and hoping we will see a physical Atmos release.

    "On a side note I know a lot of people still prefer physical editions in high resolution rather than streaming compressed files, myself included. All I can say is that I’m always pushing for this to happen (also with the recent Chic remixes), and while there are no guarantees the conversations are happening, so fingers crossed. Lots more on the way..."
     
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  6. dobyblue

    dobyblue Forum Resident

    I know these comments are old, but because no-one posted a link I thought I'd add one here. Turns out 768 Kbps is the max for DD+JOC which is what they're using for streaming at Apple, but it can be lower. No wonder from a fidelity standpoint all the lossy Atmos mixes I've heard that are also available as TrueHD/Atmos on Blu-ray sound significantly poorer.

    "Dolby Atmos audio in Dolby Digital Plus is typically encoded at bitrates between 384 and 768 kbps."

    Technology Dolby Audio Dolby Digital Plus | Dolby Developer
    https://professionalsupport.dolby.c...ral-experience-in-daps-or-dams?language=en_US
     
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  7. Cast Iron Shore

    Cast Iron Shore Forum Resident

    Location:
    US
    All the albums except for All Things Must Pass, and except for some of the bonus tracks on the other titles.
     
  8. supermd

    supermd Senior Member

    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    Interesting. I listened to Living in the Material World, and it sounded great. I also have a 5.1 setup and have not noticed the duplication of all rear stuff in the front. The center speaker doesn’t bother me - the lead vocal still sounds like it’s coming from the front center in the surround image. I also threw on “Got My Mind Set On You” and there is plenty of discrete material in the rears. And they have been mastered very well, not to mention the levels of the instruments and vocals are appropriate (no overly-loud vocals, for instance, as happened on the ATMP mix). I’m very happy with these.

    Some of the bonus tracks like “Deep Blue” are true oddities, in that they sound like everything is coming from the rears. I’ll grant you that.
     
  9. supermd

    supermd Senior Member

    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    @Cast Iron Shore
    I threw on Moondance, and noticed very tight separation of the instruments. I went back to some George Harrison stuff, and I hear what you are saying. They’re not as discrete in the rears as they could be due to the rears being present a bit in the fronts. Regardless, I don’t find it that distracting, and as long as it is clear to me that a sound is separated from the front to the back (like the opening of “The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea”), I’m fine with it.
     
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  10. gdpeck

    gdpeck Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mesa, AZ
    I'm liking this mix a lot. So far I've only listened to And it Stoned Me and Moondance all the way through. I skip through all of the tracks and they all "lit up"the atmos indicator on my iPhone. Listening on AirPods Pro 2, and a few times the sound is so far outside my headspace that I'm not positive there aren't speakers turned on.
     
  11. Beaneydave

    Beaneydave Forum Resident

    When are Apple going to sort out the Browse page. The “now in spatial audio” is never upto date apart from the odd album. You have to search a band and look at each album to find Atmos it’s rubbish.

    peace and love✌Dave
     
  12. supermd

    supermd Senior Member

    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    Does it truly sound like sounds are coming from behind you? It all sounds like stereo on my AirPods.
     
  13. gdpeck

    gdpeck Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mesa, AZ
    Not behind, but more in the room than in my ears.
     
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  14. Raf

    Raf Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    I think it depends on the mix. I was on the subway recently listening to an Apple Music playlist of Atmos tracks on my AirPods Pro, when a Lady Gaga song started playing (couldn’t tell you which song exactly, sorry). During the chorus there were suddenly sounds coming from what seemed like a few feet behind my head. It was quite startling, and pretty impressive.
     
    supermd likes this.
  15. supermd

    supermd Senior Member

    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    I’ve done their calibration thing for your specific ears, and didn’t notice a difference after that. I’ll mess around a bit more. I am able to stream Atmos to my 5.1 setup, so I’m pretty dang happy with that.
     
  16. Kayaker

    Kayaker Senior Member

    Location:
    New Joisey Now
    Just did a back to back listening of Moondance on Apple Music (Steven Wilson) Vs. the Blu-ray Audio (Elliot Scheiner) . (Don't have Atmos speakers so my Atmos capable processor down-converted it 5.1). Much prefer the Blu-ray Audio. Typical Steven Wilson mix of the vocals entirely in the center channel - which really impacts the depth in the soundstage on this one. The Atmos version is also a very "dry" mix which does not suit the music well.
     
    Chemguy likes this.
  17. supermd

    supermd Senior Member

    Location:
    San Jose, CA
    This Moondance Atmos is fantastic. I’d love to buy this physically. I’m hoping SDE tackles it.
     
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  18. Hymie the Robot

    Hymie the Robot Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    I thought Brainwashed sounded really good. I haven't got around to any of the others yet.
     
    supermd likes this.
  19. crossroads69

    crossroads69 Senior Member

    Location:
    London Town
    Playing it at lunch time, sounds great! It’s my first time with this album and am liking what I am hearing so far.
     
    supermd likes this.
  20. crossroads69

    crossroads69 Senior Member

    Location:
    London Town
    Strangely I am still unable to play the Harrison albums in Atmos. The Apple TV plays everything else in Atmos but when I select Harrison album, it just plays stereo. Weird….
     
    supermd likes this.
  21. Raf

    Raf Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    If you'd previously downloaded the non-Atmos Harrison tracks to your library, delete them and re-download.
     
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  22. Bossyman

    Bossyman Forum Resident

    I noticed this happens to almost all music (CDs) I ALREADY have uploaded to my iTunes library. The Dolby Atmos mix doesn’t play. Only my upload.
     
  23. Raf

    Raf Senior Member

    Location:
    Toronto, Ontario
    Isn't that how it's supposed to work? Defaulting to the uploaded tracks I mean.
     
  24. Bossyman

    Bossyman Forum Resident

    Honestly, I don’t know. I’d love to hear from EXPERIENCED users.

    I listen on my iPhone, on occasion with a DAC, and it’s very disappointing.

    As example, I want to hear Moondance in Dolby Atmos, but it defaults to my upload of Moondance. So no Dolby Atmos mix, just a stream of my upload (in 256K, I’m pretty sure, since I use apple’s cloud match).

    Another example, I went to listen to a B.B. King album yesterday that is “lossless” through Apple Music. However, it played my upload instead, and it wasn’t lossless, obviously.

    If anyone has a workaround, without deleting my years and years and years of uploads, I would love to hear from you.
     
    TheAbsentMind likes this.
  25. Bevok

    Bevok Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Zealand
    I know of someone who has had a similar issue on Apple TV, in that case where they had listened to something in prerelease then when the Atmos version came out it would keep playing the stereo version - must have been cached. I'd try these troubleshooting steps (proceed to next step if it doesn't work!):
    - delete from library and re-add Atmos version of album
    - Settings - Music - Downloaded Music, find the artist and click on them, then Edit top right and click the minus by the album
    - Settings - Music - disable Sync Library, open Music and leave open for a couple of minutes, then re-enable "Sync Library" in settings
    - Remove the Music app and re-instlall

    Be interested to know how you get on. Something else I've noticed is often downloaded albums don't show the Lossless icon in now playing, however if you go into "Settings - Music - Downloaded Music" it clearly is lossless (based on size).
     
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