I tested Apple Music Dolby atmos with a couple songs. Boom by Tiesto has some crazy 3D effects when played over compatible devices like AirPods. (I know it’s still a virtual gimmick but sounds quite different from stereo). I tried on my Model 3 as well, and the 3 dimensional separation disappeared. So I’m convinced the model 3 can’t do anything with the surround music files. I’m hoping Tesla will add Dolby atmos in an update, given that Netflix is such a big deal on the cars. But I’m guessing they might not due to licensing costs.
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Audiophiles - Amazon Music Ultra HD?
- Thread starter is95aus
- Start date
Forget about the gimmicks of Atmos or any other sound processing, just give us the ability to hear true hi-res 24/96 in our cars with a software update to allow streaming from whichever source we like. I can play hi-res with the browser while parked and it does sound better than the same music from the same service at the same bitrate but using Bluetooth from the phone. Agreed that while driving at speed you likely won't hear a difference, but where I am in Brooklyn driving at speed is just a dream. You barely ever exceed 30mph with the city speed limit of 25 and the highways are always red on the traffic map. I'm usually just poking along in a very quiet car.
A bit too broad of a statement: I think just about anyone could tell the difference between lossless and say 32 kbps tracks. Also, higher bit rate tracks with poor compression are easily noticed.
It is true that most people can can't tell the difference between high bit rate quality tracks and lossless, but some (myself included) can hear the difference.
I’d say that given a chance people CAN tell the difference. The problem is most people don’t have systems discerning enough but even then you sometimes can. When I added a 24/96 input to my old Odyssey the difference was stunning. Suddenly the dull sounding OEM system was sparkling and with bass that wasn’t muddy and you could feel. When I bought my Tesla I gave the system (just a dragonfly DAC and adapter) to my daughter for her Camry and she loves it.
I never said otherwise - even gave an example of exactly how ANYONE could hear the difference. But when you lessen the difference, most people won't hear the difference unless someone who knows points out how they can discern. And even then, many people just don't care.
You and I and many others do obviously care - otherwise we wouldn't be spending the time and money we do to improve things. But the majority of the population just doesn't care about that fine difference.
sduck
Mr. Duck
Agree with the above - I wish we could put the old "people can't tell whether it's flac or mp3 or streaming once you're driving" spiel to bed once and for all. While it may or may not be true that "most people" can't tell the difference between compressed and uncompressed audio, even in the best of circumstances, there are plenty of us that can. And the artifacts and distortions that I can hear in compressed/streamed audio don't magically go away when you add car and road noise while driving.
Dbpeleed
Member
sduck
Mr. Duck
xACT is good, I also use XLD ( X Lossless Decoder: Lossless audio decoder for Mac OS X ) for this. Note that both of these aren't the most user friendly apps in the world - they're basically front ends for script loaders, but they get a lot of stuff done once you figure them out.
If you want to bulk convert and are not scared of Terminal, you might want to look at ffmpeg (free), which allows you to automate big edits. I use this, for example, to convert by entire set of ALAC files to FLAC for use in the car (on a USB drive).
Incidentally, I have a Bash script I wrote that will walk a folder tree of ALAC files and create an equivalent folder tree of FLAC files using ffpeng. I'd be happy post it here if anyone is interested (and if you are allowed to post scripts here, which might be frowned on for the risks).
Dbpeleed
Member
I have a few hundred m4a songs that I want to play (if my Y ever gets built), so converting to FLAC is the way to go, right? 40 years ago I sold esoteric stereos and the hard parts were things like getting the phono cartridge leads the right capacitance. Now I guess I need to be able to code, too. 
Dobly Atmos music has actual channels so if the device only works with stereo, there's no way for it to read the special dolby file. The software needs to be updated if the hardware can even support it. Do support Dolby, they will have to pay a license fee. Doubt they will do that.
I just had an experience that really proves that you CAN hear a difference. I just spent 3 days in the car on a cross country trip with my daughter in her old Camry, hardly a quiet car and in fact very loud. She was playing Spotify on her phone through an Audioquest Dragonfly Black DAC into the analog in to the stock system. It was an eclectic mix to say the least from classical to hip-hop. On the last day I played my own playlist on Qobuz in hi-resolution (24/96 mostly) from my phone. We weren't paying much attention. Then she started playing some of her music again on my phone with Qobuz, starting with Jay-Z, then Billy Joel (both New York songs) and then a few others I didn't recognize. She was astounded at how much better it sounded, this in a noisy car with leaky seals everywhere. The bass was tight, deep and tuneful, the highs were crisp and the mids were coherent. The Spotify was squizzy by comparison with little bass. The setup was the same except for the source being different on two identical phones, one hi-res and one not.
By comparison a Tesla is dead silent on the road and you can certainly hear the difference and I think anybody could if presented with both in succession like that. The problem is that the Tesla can't play Qobuz. I'm still hopeful that the rumor about Tidal is true and I could use that in hi-res.
My personal feeling is that, regardless of if you can hear a difference, the car audio environment is such as to make the difference relatively unimportant (to me). I tend to view all my car listening as "casual", and don't want to fret about the sound too much. When I'm at home, that's different, and then I want total quiet so I focus on the music to the exclusion of all else (and worry about the sound a lot hehe).
Casual or not, why wouldn't you want it to sound better? As I just said above, it wasn't a small difference, it was the difference between lifeless sound and music you can really hear and bop around to. And this wasn't a big system hardware upgrade, just between badly compressed Spotify and full CD quality and better Qobuz. And this wasn't in a quiet environment either, but in an older noisy car. What still pisses me off is that in a Tesla I can't get that because somebody decided that it wasn't needed. Somebody that never listens to music in the car is my guess. And yet I can get it in a beat up Camry from 12 years ago.
And see, I'm exactly the opposite. My car is my sanctuary and my daily (30-40 minutes each way) commute has become one of the best parts of my day. I put the car on AP and enjoy the time with my music. I don't get the time to do that at home.
Hence why I invested as I did.
jebinc
Well-Known Member
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