I was going to put this under “what are you listening to” but I want some input from forum members.
Last night I decided to listen to rock music from the 60’s on my Kindle which as it turns out has spatial audio.
Almost all the songs sounded like cover bands to me and I am wondering if my hearing is screwed up or what. I did listen to AM radio in the 60’s and listened to FM and had my own stereo systems in the 70’s.
I listen to music laying down with the spine of the kindle on my chest, no headphones.
The music sounded split up with instruments on my left and right sides and vocals in the middle.
The playlist was from amazon prime with a mostly good, diverse rock songs with a few bubble gums thrown in.
One song was Chuck Berry’s ‘You never can tell’. I would not have recognized it as being sung by Chuck if I hadn’t looked to see who was singing his song!
I assume new music is made with the spatial audio in mind.
its amazing. i almost refuse to listen to anything else.
but here are the caveats. you will see a million things online about how terrible it is. so number one is not all spatial recordings are done well. maybe even most. but when it’s done right, it can be mind blowing. the undoubted master at mixing atmos (which i will lump together with spatial audio, because it is essentially the same thing) is steven wilson.
the second caveat is people will say it sux and then tell you it sounds like crap on their “atmos headphones” or “atmos soundbar”. if you want to listen to atmos/spatial audio correctly the MINIMUM buy in is a 5.2.1 system. that means 5 main channel speakers (main channel L and R, center speaker, L and R surround speakers, 2 overhead atmos speakers and a subwoofer). you need speakers that are of at least halfway decent quality. if you do not want to build such a system, think it’s too complex or expensive, do not have room for such a system, etc that is completely fine. but people should not slag atmos unless they listen to it with these minimum requirements. and do not listen to any reviewer online unless they are reviewing something with these minimum requirements. my personal system, in my purpose built theater has 4 overhead atmos speakers, 4 subwoofers and 11 main speakers. which is crazy overkill but sounds OMG. one easy way to judge if atmos is good or not good is to simply go to an atmos equipped movie theater and listen to it, not only to the movie but also to any music being played in the movie soundtrack. and if that sounds good to you (and of course it will) than that is what you can duplicate in a home environment.
@itsratso Thank you for your clear and concise description of what spatial and atmos are and how you should listen to it. I do not know how long it has been around but it was not something I had heard about.
I did not mean to ‘slag’ spatial sound I just felt like it sounded very odd on the 60’s songs and with your description of the system required I can see why it sounded odd.
I did your practice space but now I have a much better understanding of what you did when you set it up.
Thanks again.
apologies, I was not referring to you. I was actually referring to… well just type in spatial audio on YouTube and you’ll see many people who I was referring to
A lot of stereo field effects (Haas effect, etc) are done via phase delay and if you do not have adequate hardware it could come out sounding like it had a phase effect applied to it (because it did). This might be the source of the opinions?
definitely, they (soundbars, headphones, single Bluetooth “Atmos ready” speakers, yada yada) are faking it with phase, eq, etc. it’s not the real thing. although to be honest, I have heard some sources like high end soundbars that can fake it pretty well. btw, I actually did just put in spatial audio on YouTube and wasn’t instantly bombarded with negative vids. so maybe opinions are changing a little.
I didn’t start listening to AM radio til early 2000’s.
Spatial Audio is Ok I guess, it’s kinda lock on to the source. I’m bummed that the Super Audio disc did not make it. I have a few that’s mixed in 5.1 and that’s incredible with the right setup it sounds like you are in a small club listening live.
I like some of the 360* audio it’s really cool with context of course.
Which kinda makes sense unless they remastered the original recordings for spatial audio. Sometimes the platform or device offers the ability to turn it off.
That’s like asking “what do you think of stereo” or “what do you think of 3D movies”. It’s a group of technologies, it doesn’t say much about how it’s used or how the sound waves get from the instruments to your ears. I’ve heard some absolutely terrible hi res and spatial audio because it was recorded/mastered poorly. Implementation is at least as important as the technology.
Realistically, i don’t care about it; i was on a binaural kick for a while which i think is far superior for headphones and I don’t really care much about that either now. Live music doesn’t sound like speakers which don’t sound like headphones. I have good headphones and IEMs, i use BT earbuds most of the time and rarely sit in a quiet controlled environment and just listen to music. I actually have 360 audio turned off on my samsung earbuds because dolby atmos sounds worse.
I listen to some spatial audio stuff on apple music but for the places i usually listen to music, it doesn’t make enough of a difference to matter. It’s cool for about the first 10 minds and then i forget about it Unless you AB stuff or it’s really bad, your brain does a lot to equalize how it sounds.
There are some albums that sound really good in spatial audio: pink floyd, the beatles, Michael Jackson and pearl jam all have some good stuff.
but sounds OMG. one easy way to judge if atmos is good or not good is to simply go to an atmos equipped movie theater and listen to it, not only to the movie but also to any music being played in the movie soundtrack. and if that sounds good to you (and of course it will) than that is what you can duplicate in a home environment.
Unless you AB stuff or it’s really bad, your brain does a lot to equalize how it sounds.
