Thank you. My NAS thanks you, too. Maybe I’ll do the 60 day free trial they are offering, and see if they have improved the UI.
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Interesting. I’m not a headphone user (haven’t been in decades) so I didn’t know about this. Leave it to Apple to take a generic term used by the industry and name one of their products with it. Hopefully Apple will eventually allow those with full Atmos/X speaker setups to play back Atmos music on them.
Yeah, I don’t think ’s implementation will pass through Dolby Atmos to a USB DAC for example. I could be wrong though.
Spatial audio is decade old. Primitive forms date back to the 1920s. The oldest I personally remember is SRS (Sound Retrieval System) that dates almost forty years. Better than fake stereo, but still left a lot to be desired. And, of course, in the mid seventies, you had quad sound, with SQ, QS and CD-4 ducking it out. They even tried quad radio broadcasts. Quad sound was way better than spatial sound back then.
Yeah and all the different implementations vary drastically in my experience.
I’ve used Windows Sonic, Atmos and Sony 360.
Sony 360 just sounded worse to me, quality wise.
I was thinking more along the lines of the (soon-to-be) Apple TV 4K in my HT. My DAC is just two channels anyway (don’t believe I’ve seen a multichannel one).
I’m a little confused here with my hardware.
In my living room, I have my TV and Nvidia Shield hooked into my Denon AVR-X2200W that has Dolby Atmos support. It’s connected by HDMI.
In my office, my GPU in my PC is a Nvidia GTX MSI 1080. My headphones are Turtle Beach Wired Xbox headphones hooked directly into that card. Although I do have monitor speakers as well, same hookup.
What am I gonna need to get the max out of this Apple situation? I’ll need to get the latest Apple TV in the living room to replace the Shield? I’ll need to get a DAC to hook in between the Apple TV and Denon AVR? I’ll need a DAC to hook in between my speakers/headphones and PC GPU?
Sorry, I’m a bit of a noob. I’ve been using Roon with Tidal and it sounds wayyyy better than Spotify.
I’m reminded of Apple’s foray into photography with Aperture. Aperture was very good until Apple abandoned it in favor of its very dumbed-down Photos. Musica Amans Emptor.
Nope! Still hard to let it go.
What am I missing here? Are the majority of Roon users using Roon for the benefit of streaming and linking to Tidal or Qobuz! If so I can see this as a problem for Roon. BUT… this presumes the majority of these users are HEADPHONE users. Is this the case? Apple Music cannot be integrated into a proper home theater environment in its current iteration.
I signed up for Roon expressly for the purpose of listening to my vast download and ripped library of files as I love the integration and interface of Roon. I subsequently signed up for Qobuz and LOVE it. It added great value for me to Roon.
So my takeaway given all the reaction here is that the majority of the Roon user base must be streamers and/or headphones users? And wouldn’t it make great sense for Apple to simply AQUIRE Roon and thereby really put the hurt on ALL the streaming competition ? After all, Roon has the best interface and Apple likes PREMIUM acquisitions.
Currently correct because Apple Music does not support Spatial Audio and Atmos yet. It’s not even released.
Apple TV 4K already supports Dolby Atmos for shows/movies.
Apple Music will be added and will include music mixed in Dolby Atmos.
Just needs an Atmos system to hear it.
Atmos is not just for Airpods…
Correct and understand as I’m a huge Apple TV fan and enjoy Atmos when available. Irrespective of when Apple deploys this update it is still problematic for me - primarily because there is no way I’d want to turn on a Sony 77 inch OLED Tv for the purpose of listening to music. Why draw all that current and burn out a tv prematurely just to listen to music? And from what I indeed understand there are hardware limitations on ATV that restrict bit rate to 44/16. If Apple could make a platform with supported hi res output such that I could run it on my Mac Mini as I enjoy Roon, well, then THAT would be a game changer. I use to stream my files from iTunes but that was a pain in the butt as it required I use a Remote Desktop app. With Roon I just wake my Mac from sleep and grab my iPad.
Do you need the TV on right now, if you Airplay an Atoms movie from iPad to have Atmos audio?
Just talking about audio - obviously the TV needs to be on for a movie.
Dolby Atmos audio is seperate from Apple Lossless audio. I don’t think the two should be talked about as same thing (bit depth, sample rates etc).
Yes, in fact I do because I’m a Control4 customer and in order to use Apple TV I must switch to that source which by default of course turns on the tv. I use a Lyngdorf MP-60 SSP which is at the hub of my system. When listening to 2.0 stereo music I simply engage a Bryston preamp which I have set up in bypass mode so I can use my DSD DAC which has a better DAC than the DAC in my Lyngdorf. I understand I am not the typical user. So my TV is programmed NOT to power on when the command is “listen to music Mac Mini.”
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All good. With all this additional info, you’re indeed a special case.
Apple Music and Atmos may not be the fit for you if you don’t want the TV on.
We’re really just guessing though - in practise there may be another way that rears its head when the release goes live.
Let’s wait and see if you can have your cake and eat it too ! 
I haven’t touched headphones in decades and I use Roon with Qobuz (and with my FLAC library which I’m sure is one of the smaller ones for a Roon user). Do you not use Roon with a 2/2.1 ch system?
And yet I’ve seen no mention in all of the press releases I’ve read of Apple TV hardware supporting Atmos music. Seems like headphones only, unless I’m missing something?
Glad to see Apple succeeding in their ongoing campaign of obfuscation, fabrication, and bait and switch. They are the ultimate con artists (and this is from someone who has pretty much an Apple ecosystem apart from my personal Samsung cell phone). The Apple Music app is a WPOS (at least on iPhone/iPad). Most AM users will not be able to hear any difference from what they’ve always had, and anyone who actually wants to have hi-res Apple music will have to have a Mac or other type of device directly connected via USB to a DAC and will not be able to control that from their armchair like we can all do with Roon.
It’s all smoke and mirrors, and the fact that this thread is full of posts about Atmos and “Spatial audio” tells one all one needs to know - Apple has already succeeded in conning a bunch of people who should know a whole lot better.
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Don’t think so. Below info from the music industry:
Napster
$0.019 per stream
Tidal
$0.01284 per stream
Apple Music
$0.00783 per stream
Deezer
$0.0064 per stream
Spotify
$0.00437 per stream
Amazon
$0.00402 per stream
Pandora
$0.00133 per stream
YouTube
$0.0.00069 per view
Source: dittomusic
On Bandcamp you can buy directly from the artist!
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I have. I cannot and will not use it. I keep a Tidal sub and soundiiz to sync my Qobuz library to a playlist within Tidal Hifi just so I can have my collection on the go and using UAPP I have full functionality on library discovery. Remote functionality wasn’t a problem for much of the last year when I switched to Qobuz but is becoming one now that we actually go outside.
Add Tidal Hi Res is dependent on MQA then that is not a long term option for me.
These types of problems is what puts these services in a precarious position. And also Roon itself in a precarious position as many sub to Roon because they have a sub to one of these services.
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Do people really think the already Atmos compatible Apple TV 4K would miss out.
There’s already Atmos music floating on other streaming services etc but Apple supporting it should result a big increase in content. At least initially.
Apple Music Dolby Atmos Compatible With All AirPods Models and Other Headphones - MacRumors