[tomsem]

I agree that interpretation of SA is confusing.

However, I’m impressed with the experience for music, it makes it easier to isolate the various elements somehow.

I rarely use headphones to watch TV (and don’t do much video on mobile devices) so whatever it offers for video isn’t that important to me. The sound system we have hooked up to the TV is at least 20 years old, just basic Dolby 5.1, and sounds okay.

Apple is highlighting SA and Lossless because Tidal, Spotify, Amazon Music have had ‘hi-def’ streaming for awhile now. Hi-def/lossless is lost on most people, especially when their equipment isn’t up to it, and hearing is as much about what is between the ears as the ears themselves. Amazingly people enjoy music even when the sound is crappy. The brain fills it all in.

There’s an app, NYA (Neil Young Archives), that lets you toggle between 320/CD/Hi-Res bit rates, and it serves as a good benchmark. Yes, I can tell the difference between the 3, and Hi-Res is ‘best’, by just a bit. Neil Young has been a long time critic of the low quality sound that everybody seems to be satisfied with, even produced a hi-res audio player for awhile. So far, on Apple Music, all of his stuff is Lossless, but not Lossless Hi-Res. It’ll be interesting to see if he takes enough interest to publish hi-res and remix for Dolby Atmos, but he seems to be busy re-mixing and publishing his archive of bootleg live recordings up in Canada, taking advantage of COVID lockdown.

But SA is really noticeable, and potentially sets Apple Music apart. The main issue is lack of content: there are 8 (5-9 hour) playlists, and maybe a few dozen albums from which those playlists draw. I’m especially disappointed with Jazz, there are no recent recordings that have SA, and only about 12 albums total. It’s not clear how quickly more content can be added, or what the incentive is for publishers to do so. If I were self-publishing, I would want to jump on the train, it might get more listeners, given how Apple is promoting it.