This feature was first demo'd on Airpods Pro within the setting of an iPhone whete all it did, was provide a directional headtracking of the music source. This started with the first use of Spatial Audio. Here's how it works in the latest iOS 15 beta: It doesn't utilize Dolby Atmos, but on the other hand it works with basically any content, although you do need AirPods Pro or AirPods Max headphones to access it. Spatialize Stereo meanwhile appears to be Apple's attempt to simulate the effect of having sound coming at you from different directions in a virtual environment. Spatial Audio with support for Dolby Atmos creates a three-dimensional experience by moving sound all around you. It's worth reiterating that Spatialize Stereo is different from Spatial Audio, which Apple brought to Apple Music subscribers earlier this week. Sure I'd pick Atmos Spatial Audio mixes over Spatialized Stereo every time, but for the moment there are only a dozen or so options for Atmos available on Apple Music, so this is such an amazing feature to have! The greatest thing about this is that it supports EVERY audio track. I assumed that if they ever did this it would warrant at the very least a mention in a Keynote, but unless I completely missed it today I don't think they said anything about it! The addition was first discovered by a Reddit user, who had this to say about it: In iOS 15 and macOS Monterey betas, Apple has quietly included a new audio feature called " Spatialize Stereo" that takes any non-Dolby stereo mix and creates a virtual spatial audio environment out of it. 'Spatialize Stereo' Feature in iOS 15 and macOS Monterey Simulates Spatial Audio for Non-Dolby Content (I suppose this'll add to the confusion.) Lots of interesting stuff showing up in MacRumours. I assume using airplay and a streamer, then you'd have a good quality stream but if you use USB DACs it seems like we won't be able to enjoy apple lossless to its full potential until they update the system output. I was quite disappointed with Apple that they didn't implement setting up the use of usb DACs directly in the player (just for convenience in the first place.) but I didn't think that it could worsen the sound by this much. (I knew it used to be a thing, hence why players like Audirvana exist I guess, but I thought this would have been fixed by Apple for a long time.) Whereas tidal with its exclusive mode option offers the possibility to give a (probably) bit perfect stream to your DAC. It's seem like the audio processing in a mac by the system still degrades the quality of the stream. Then I went back to tidal and compared the output set up on system controlled and using the DAC in exclusive mode and yet again I could hear an improvement. No differences to my hears, I could not tell which one is which. ? I changed the output of tidal to "system controlled" and did A/B tests again. Then I figured that tidal output was set up to use the DAC in exclusive mode. How is it possible I let my brain trick me like this into believing tidal is better ? I was actually very disappointed, not with apple, but with myself. Note that I'm being picky and changes are subtle but I'm pretty confident in this listening condition I was, I could tell which one is which in a blind test. For exemple Hihats on Tidal were lively, lifelike with more dynamic, with subtle changes in frequency and velocity whereas on apple they sounded more identical, linear, and flat. Apple, Tidal, Apple, Tidal, and I could definitely pick up differences. And kept listening the same 15 seconds of the track back and forth. It's full of micro details, fast transients all across the frequency range and perfect for some enjoyable critical listening I wanted to do.Īnd to my big surprise. Both sounded good after few tracks of casual listening and then I settled for one of my favorites that I used to reference my mixes and test my gear: Fhin - Your Heart Sounds Like. I was not expecting to be able to hear any difference at all but I wanted to give it a go just in case. Last night I did a late night session just before going to bed (they're the best) to A/B Apple music lossless and Tidal.
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