By will-buy
Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers can now stream songs with spatial audio to their current headphones through the service's iOS and Android apps as well as a number of new home speaker systems. Amazon announced its vast growth of spatial audio support just hours after Apple unveiled spatial audio like a feature within the new AirPods 3 earbuds, marking an escalation within the audio streaming competition among tech giants, specially when it comes to hearables.
Time to listen to Space
Spatial audio recreates the way people hear sound in three dimensions. Amazon Music has a large number of songs mixed to mimic hearing performance within the room, with relative volume along with other elements adjusted to point out direction and distance. Amazon supports both the Sony Reality Audio and Dolby Atmos spatial audio systems, though that's relevant mainly for the artists and producers. Support for spatial audio is newly on several Sony wireless stereo speakers and home theater systems, with Sonos Arc and Beam joining the list later this season. Subscribing to Amazon Music Unlimited at $8 a month for Prime members and $10 a month for non-Prime members also automatically earns HD and Ultra HD music access too. Amazon's interest seems dedicated to spatial audio at this time.
“We've always believed that the highest-quality audio possible ought to be the norm for streaming music, and that's why today, we're making spatial audio open to our customers with no special equipment needed, with no upgrade required,” Amazon Music vice president Steve Boom said. “We can't watch for much more fans all over the world so that you can hear the vibrancy and nuance of music in spatial audio with only their most favorite headphones, and find out new details in the albums they passion for the very first time.”
3D Audio Competition
Amazon's plans for spatial audio have undoubtedly been in the whole shebang for a while. Still, it is notable the way the company shared the update less than a next day of Apple introduced the AirPods 3 headphones and their built-in spatial audio utilizing the same Dolby Atmos tech as Amazon. The $180 true-wireless headphones look nearly the same as the present AirPods Pro, albeit with upgrades and improved battery life. Apple Music started enabling spatial audio on iOS and Android over the summer, and Spotify has shared its plans for a higher audio quality service called Spotify HiFi. Spatial audio's moment extends beyond music-Netflix revealed plans for spatial audio in the mobile apps and social audio platform Clubhouse recently started incorporating spatial audio to enhance its virtual conference rooms making them feel more realistic.
Amazon is actively encouraging more audio content mixed for 3D experiences as it eyes Apple, Spotify, and other competitors. The announcement included new inclusions in the songs using the tech, including an upcoming Imagine Dragons EP set to stream exclusively on Amazon Music along with a remix famous Alicia Keys' body of work.
“Over the last year, my engineer Ann Mincieli and that i worked passionately to reimagine my catalog in 360 Reality Audio, a procedure that found us poring through music we love endlessly!” Alicia Keys said in a statement. “Making these spatial audio mixes revealed unforgettable moments-little details that comprise a song but tend to hide in the mix. I'm so happy with the results, and I can't watch for you to definitely fall madly in love all over again with my music in 360 Reality Audio on Amazon Music.”
