Plays of Spatial Audio tracks on Apple Music have quadrupled since September, the Cupertino Colossus tells Billboard.
Micah Singleton for Billboard:
Eight months after it was released, the early results are in, and Spatial Audio is rapidly growing on Apple Music. The majority of Apple Music subscribers have experienced Spatial Audio, and listeners have increased by 50% since September, the company tells Billboard. Plays of Spatial Audio tracks have also quadrupled since September, and the catalog has rapidly expanded, growing sevenfold since Spatial Audio became available last summer.
Last June, Apple Music released Spatial Audio, its version of Dolby Atmos Music, the immersive audio experience that has been billed as a successor to stereo.
The growth of Spatial Audio is reflected in Apple Music’s charts. Since the beginning of the year, 37% of the top 10 songs on Apple Music’s global Daily Top 100 songs chart are available in Spatial Audio and 42% of the platform’s top 100 songs in the U.S. today are available in Spatial Audio. Additionally, 40% of the biggest new releases on Apple Music since September have been available in Spatial Audio, according to the streaming service…
When The Weeknd re-released his 2016 album Starboy in Spatial Audio on June 7, Apple says his first-time listeners increased by 20% over the eight weeks following compared to the eight weeks prior. [Billie] Eilish matched that growth in the same time frame when she re-released When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go in Spatial Audio. [Post] Malone’s Hollywood’s Bleeding and [Taylor] Swift’s Lover saw even greater gains, growing new listeners 40% and 50%, respectively, according to Apple Music.
MacDailyNews Take: Clearly, Spatial Audio is a booming success for Apple Music, the No.1 streaming music service in America, the No.1 music market!
Spatial Audio is Apple-only. Spotify does not have, nor have they announced, anything like it. — MacDailyNews, June 8, 2021
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Spatial can be very good but not so good in other circumstances.
For me personally, the Atmos-Spatial can provide best ever version of the sing IF they keep the “sound” of the song essentially the same. The remix should be just to “tune” it for Atmos-Spatial. But other songs get a substantial “sound” difference for the Atmos-Spatial remix. Almost as substantially different than a live version track versus a studio version track.
Just IMHO, the Atmos-Spatial remix isn’t there for the sing to be reimagined. Just remix-retune it to take advantage of the Atmos-Spatial and not a recreation of the song (again IMHO).
Honestly, I have trouble hearing the difference between normal and Spatial Audio when using my AirPod Pros. I’ve cycled the feature on and off during playback (yes, on tracks that are marked Spatial Audio), and in the few times I can hear a slight difference, it’s nothing special — certainly nothing substantially better.
Just my two cents…
I’ve noticed a difference on my home systems.
Probably depends on the DAC, how the computer output is setup, and of course the music.
Wonder how much bandwidth is being wasted worldwide on those who wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.
One more reason I prefer MQA.