Does spatial audio actually improve music to you?
Just asking for opinions. I've got a subscription to Apple Music at the moment (redeemed a free three months I've been sitting on before it expired), and the one thing that's been bugging me is that some songs are available with spacial audio; they're "surround" mixed, and when listening to music with my airpods, it tracks the rotation of my head and simulates speaker placements based on it.
Does anyone really think that their music is actually improved with this feature? Seriously. I don't get it. Why is it better that when I turn my head the quality of the mix goes down? It wouldn't be too bad, but I'm rather annoyed with Apple's implementation because it assumes that if your head is in one place for a while that's how the virtual speakers should be orientated, which is really annoying when using my desktop multi-monitor setup, which requires me to move my head from time to time.
I do research in immersive audio, and I have this feature firmly turned off. The tracking is pretty good, but it's coming from a set of bluetooth earphones so it's never going to feel or have the impact of the real thing. Real playback of spacial audio is awe inspiring, it can be freakishly convincing and very immersive. The Apple version, whether it's how they're simulating it (or just the lack of bass response/driver accuracy/individualised HRTFs/room simulation/weird implementation) just doesn't carry that over.
I think Apple’s version is hamstrung a little because of the size of their speakers. It’s just limited to headphones and the Vision Pro (which has much, much better special audio performance than the AirPods do but still lack bass). I’d love to see what they could do with their computational algorithms in a full sized setup because like you said, actual Atmos or DTS:X is extremely impressive, even in a budget home set up.
I generally only use Apple’s spacial audio features for video content and leave it turned off for music.
It works incredibly well when it is done well but the mixing can be wildly variable. Sometimes it’s subtle and great but other times it’s way too overdone.
With video content though, i love it. It’s A pretty damn good approximation of a surround sound system because it can use the actual 5.1 mix, which is a lot less common for music.
I will also say that the spacial audio features of the Vision Pro are incredible and some of the best speakers I’ve ever heard for their size.
Yeah, spatial audio works really well in TV shows, particulary with AirPods Max (though it’s not bad on Pro 2’s) and is really immersive (I’ve thought a door opening/closing in the show was real on a few occaisions) but it’s kinda meh for music.
I would recommend changing your AirPods settings to have Spatial Audio at "Fixed" rather than "Head Tracked". You'll gain the benefits without the annoying changes from head movement that you're describing. Like you, I dislike that too and don't understand why they needed to make it the default.
You'll also need to be sure you're listening to a Dolby Atmos enabled track to really get the most of it. I can recommend The Court (In-Side Mix) by Peter Gabriel for a demo piece.
EDIT: I just listened to Pearl Jam's Wreckage without Spatial Audio, since I've been listening to it on repeat lately, and I would say it's better with than without Spatial. But the differences are minor. I don't perceive anything worse about it but I do feel like instruments have more separation in a pleasing way. However, I'm suspicious Apple intentionally has the Dolby Audio version be slightly louder which makes head to head comparisons harder.
I would turn off head tracking and see how you like it then. To me, it is kind of a dumb gimmick meant to flex their DSP chain.
I like spatial audio when using my AirPods because it, somewhat convincingly, expands the soundstage of these tiny single driver wireless earphones, all while working with ANC.
Does it hold up to a well mixed stereo song on a pair of nice open back headphones? Not really. There's only so much you can do with a universal HRTF, and the fact that the drivers shoot sound straight into your ear canal instead of bouncing around your pinna first makes accurately simulating the sound of a bunch of loudspeakers even harder.
But most importantly, I'm not about to take my Sennheiser HD 650s on an airplane or to the office. Spatial audio on my AirPods lets me listen to music in these kinds of environments without the fatiguing super-intimate soundstage typical of true wireless earphones.
As with everything audio though, there are few "right answers" and the best way to listen to your music is the way that makes you happiest.
Mixing nerd time: a disproportionate amount of music listening is done on truly terrible speaker setups, whether it's cheap Bluetooth speakers, cheap phone speakers, or base model car speakers...so people who find themselves mixing music, whether professionally or as a hobby, tend to take pains to ensure the music sounds acceptable on even truly terrible speakers.
e.g. cars and phones tend to get overwhelmed by bass frequencies—the cones just bounce hard and your midrange sounds muffled and terrible, so that low end energy has to be controlled in the mic.
An example of this is the Magic Shitbox™️ test. The idea being that if your music sounds okay on an $8 Walmart Bluetooth speaker, it will probably sound great on good speakers.
I've always wondered about this. So much time is spent on mixing audio, when the majority of listening devices are, in comparison to studio gear, kinda garbage.
I would imagine there are some scenarios where you have to make a decision based on that, right? One of those appeal to the masses or produce the best output to be appreciated only by a small subset of people situation?
I mostly know enough to be dangerous, but I think bass is one of those scenarios: a lot of dance music is designed for clubs and is mixed to control powerful subwoofers. The audio system cuts over to the subwoofers at something like 55-80Hz, and they may be cranking out something like 25Hz hard compared to consumer gear. (55Hz, incidentally, is the fundamental frequency of a default 909 kick drum tuned to A.)
My gut says those are potentially mixed with relatively hot bass, and a separate mix is made for streaming distribution, with a more aggressive roll-off on the low end to avoid terrorizing the aforementioned phone and car speakers that can't handle the sub-bass.
Live music is also inherently designed for mono systems, so mono compatibility is a major concern for the mix. Because if you're on one side of the building, you'll otherwise only be hearing half the music, based on whichever speakers you're closer to. This is also surprisingly important for consumer gear, which is often mono or has speakers that are too close together to create true stereo, but can be profoundly bad on a club setup.
It’s actually not super uncommon to see “audiophile mixes” for songs floating around. I know I’ve seen a few record labels that specialize in that in the past, and it’s fairly common for classical releases in particular. Such mixes typically also avoid attempting to make things as loud as possible so you get more dynamic range, though the improvement on that aspect is highly dependent on the song.
It all depends on the mix to me, sometimes the Dolby Atmos mix was done really well and sometimes the stereo sounds way better. I have noticed that having AirPods gen 2 with a good ear tip seal has improved Spatial Audio a lot over my poorly fitting gen 1s.
A favorite mix of mine where I think Spatial Audio sounds better than the stereo is Turnstile’s Blackout.