Some Basic SSP Questions...

[xponents]

I just double checked the FLAC version on Apple Music (not the Apple records files but presumably similar?), which are the split 2 channel files. The alarm clock is still audible starting at 2:16 but it’s much quieter than in the Atmos version. As you probably know Beatles purists argue about the split 2 channel versions with the vox split either hard right or left etc, as I understand from George Martin’s “All you need is ears book”, which is a must read for any Beatles fan or audio engineering/music history enthusiast, those hard panned stereo files were an accident, not mixed that way in the studio. But it became so widely accepted they left it that way. But the Atmos version is really fantastic, while also inauthentic, it does what Atmos does, just gives you so much transparency. You really appreciate the slap reverbs on the vocal, Paul’s bass is fuller, and that acoustic guitar rhythm suddenly becomes more present, with TONS more orchestral detail, probably much closer to what it actually sounded like in the actual studio stage when Martin had them start all a different note and end on the same note, plus John’s voice in the center channel when he says “woke up got out of bed” is sooooo clean and present.

Also fun bit of trivia from George Martin’s book if you didn’t already know. Ever wonder why the Beatles early singles and many others from that era were under 3 minutes? Because at the time record lathes did not have reliable motors to allow 100% reproducibility in terms of speed which could result in pitch shifting, so they used the most reliable thing they knew of at the time: GRAVITY. The recording engineer would cue the assistant to release a set of weights, which would in turn drop similar to a grandfather clock and turn the record lathe at a consistent speed but the weights always reached the bottom by 3 minutes so the songs needed to be shorter if you were cutting a single track.

I don't know much about the Beatles, let alone that entire era of music, but that was an incredibly interesting read as always. Would you say that the book you mentioned is great for further reading into this?

 

[Bunnylebowski]

I don't know much about the Beatles, let alone that entire era of music, but that was an incredibly interesting read as always. Would you say that the book you mentioned is great for further reading into this?

Oh absolutely, though it does require at least a passing familiarly with the Beatles music, but I ate that book like candy in about 2 days as Martin’s story really is the story of not just the Beatles but of the evolution of Rock & Roll itself. The groundwork laid by these geniuses and solutions and workarounds they came up with is the foundation to so much modern entertainment. Another totally amazing musical revelation to me was learning about Carl Stalling, the conductor/composer behind all of Looney Tunes. That was literally a 96 piece orchestra playing live with no ability to edit while following a conductor who was watching the projection of the cartoon, all recorded to damn MONO and you hear EVERYTHING thanks to clever engineers who knew exactly what microphone did what and where to place them.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

Like George Martin and Carl Stalling are musical messiahs, the equivalent to music of what Einstein is to physics.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

I’m just gonna throw this info here since there’s too many Atmos/SSP threads for me to keep track of.

-You can play Dolby Atmos music off of USB if it’s in .mp4 format
-You cannot download Apple Music Atmos files to USB and get them to play on the Lucid at this time
-You cannot download Tidal Atmos files to USB at this time as far as I can tell (if someone knows better please correct me)
-You cannot play high res .mkv Atmos files in the car via USB at this time (the main viable way to play those at all is BluRay and an Atmos capable home theater…good luck!)
-The number of downloadable .mp4 DD+ music files available for download from other sources is not that large and is a bit more esoteric music with a handful of more popular music options.
-I hope Lucid implements a native Apple Music app soon as this would expand the Dolby Atmos music library available, as multi-channel audio is kind of the whole point of Surreal Sound Pro.
-I’m not complaining, we are lucky as we have one of the very few cars made that is able to play what I think is a remarkably exciting and enjoyable cutting edge music format and finally accurately represents film scores that have been mixed in at least 5.1 or higher for actual decades now.

 

[Tginther]

I’m just gonna throw this info here since there’s too many Atmos/SSP threads for me to keep track of.

-You can play Dolby Atmos music off of USB if it’s in .mp4 format
-You cannot download Apple Music Atmos files to USB and get them to play on the Lucid at this time
-You cannot download Tidal Atmos files to USB at this time as far as I can tell (if someone knows better please correct me)
-You cannot play high res .mkv Atmos files in the car via USB at this time (the main viable way to play those at all is BluRay and an Atmos capable home theater…good luck!)
-The number of downloadable .mp4 DD+ music files available for download from other sources is not that large and is a bit more esoteric music with a handful of more popular music options.
-I hope Lucid implements a native Apple Music app soon as this would expand the Dolby Atmos music library available, as multi-channel audio is kind of the whole point of Surreal Sound Pro.
-I’m not complaining, we are lucky as we have one of the very few cars made that is able to play what I think is a remarkably exciting and enjoyable cutting edge music format and finally accurately represents film scores that have been mixed in at least 5.1 or higher for actual decades now.

In the latest Lucid owner survey I completed a couple weeks ago, I read Lucid the riot act over a number of high-priced options I paid for that up until now have been a complete waste of money. One of those is SSP. When I bought the car ($2,900 option), CarPlay hadn't been released but was on the roadmap. Fair enough. I assumed once we had CarPlay I not only could finally take advantage of my Apple Music subscription but also finally listen to Dolby Atmos in the Lucid. Once Lucid released CarPlay we of course discovered that although Apple had earlier allowed Atmos to stream through CarPlay, they then removed that feature without ever explaining why - whether it ever returns or not is a question I have asked Apple.

With cars like Mercedes having a native Apple Music app which does stream Atmos, Lucid should have started working with Apple to get the native app in the car. Maybe they are doing this, I have no idea. What remains is a mess. I (and I'm sure many other owners) have subscriptions to Apple which include Apple TV and Apple Music. Through the subscription, I can listen to Atmos music and movie content in my two rooms with Atmos systems. Of course I can add a Tidal subscription, but I have a single subscription to Apple for entertainment, storage, pictures, etc. and do not want to add yet another subscription.

Then a few weeks ago, I read on Dolby's website Atmos is now available through CarPlay - they say the manufacturer must do the CarPlay integration to get it working. This was something else I pointed out to Lucid in the survey: They sell us an Atmos system, they offer CarPlay, yet they don't have the two working together. Is this something in the roadmap? If not, why?

 

[joec]

In the latest Lucid owner survey I completed a couple weeks ago, I read Lucid the riot act over a number of high-priced options I paid for that up until now have been a complete waste of money. One of those is SSP. When I bought the car ($2,900 option), CarPlay hadn't been released but was on the roadmap. Fair enough. I assumed once we had CarPlay I not only could finally take advantage of my Apple Music subscription but also finally listen to Dolby Atmos in the Lucid. Once Lucid released CarPlay we of course discovered that although Apple had earlier allowed Atmos to stream through CarPlay, they then removed that feature without ever explaining why - whether it ever returns or not is a question I have asked Apple.

With cars like Mercedes having a native Apple Music app which does stream Atmos, Lucid should have started working with Apple to get the native app in the car. Maybe they are doing this, I have no idea. What remains is a mess. I (and I'm sure many other owners) have subscriptions to Apple which include Apple TV and Apple Music. Through the subscription, I can listen to Atmos music and movie content in my two rooms with Atmos systems. Of course I can add a Tidal subscription, but I have a single subscription to Apple for entertainment, storage, pictures, etc. and do not want to add yet another subscription.

Then a few weeks ago, I read on Dolby's website Atmos is now available through CarPlay - they say the manufacturer must do the CarPlay integration to get it working. This was something else I pointed out to Lucid in the survey: They sell us an Atmos system, they offer CarPlay, yet they don't have the two working together. Is this something in the roadmap? If not, why?

I don't believe Atmos has ever been available via CarPlay. At least not in the time frame that Lucid has existed.

Also, it's still not clear whether CarPlay (or even the native Mercedes app) is putting out true Atmos. It's more likely playing Spatial Audio, which is nice, but not true Atmos. I'd take that if Lucid managed to get it going. But if they can to true Atmos via a native app, all the better.

Craig Federighi has a Lucid. He must be aware of the situation. If it's not on Lucid's road map, I agree. It should be. But don't count on it happening overnight. Dealing with Apple takes time. Just getting their attention takes time.

 

[BillHartman67]

If you'd like more classic rock variety, here's a huge list of 'Max' quality classic rock:

HiRes Classic Rock

Listen to HiRes Classic Rock on TIDAL

tidal.com

And one for modern, hard rock:

HiRes Rock

Listen to HiRes Rock on TIDAL

tidal.com

Hopefully the switch to FLAC won't mess my playlists up

While I seriously appreciate the links to SSP I don't know HOW to play these in my Lucid.

Other than adding (Heart) them to my collection, which adds about 500+ Titles?

How do I access an individual track? The Lucid interface isn't the greatest here.

 

[Neurio]

While I seriously appreciate the links to SSP I don't know HOW to play these in my Lucid.

Other than adding (Heart) them to my collection, which adds about 500+ Titles?

How do I access an individual track? The Lucid interface isn't the greatest here.

If you heart/add the playlist itself, it adds the entire playlist to your collection. To play an individual song, you can either heart the individual song and find it under your collection, or search for it through the built-in app in the car. The latter does not work well, and it's often very difficult to find the Atmos version of a song. The Tidal app has a long way to go in user friendliness.

 

[coma24]

If it helps, there are dolby-atmos playlists that can be located through Search in the vehicle while running the Tidal app. Just search for 'dolby atmos' with 'playlists' selected. It's a start.

I've also had luck using the Tidal app to find songs/lists, then add those to my collection, then waiting a random amount of time for it to be reflected in the Lucid.

 

[Bunnylebowski]

In the latest Lucid owner survey I completed a couple weeks ago, I read Lucid the riot act over a number of high-priced options I paid for that up until now have been a complete waste of money. One of those is SSP. When I bought the car ($2,900 option), CarPlay hadn't been released but was on the roadmap. Fair enough. I assumed once we had CarPlay I not only could finally take advantage of my Apple Music subscription but also finally listen to Dolby Atmos in the Lucid. Once Lucid released CarPlay we of course discovered that although Apple had earlier allowed Atmos to stream through CarPlay, they then removed that feature without ever explaining why - whether it ever returns or not is a question I have asked Apple.

With cars like Mercedes having a native Apple Music app which does stream Atmos, Lucid should have started working with Apple to get the native app in the car. Maybe they are doing this, I have no idea. What remains is a mess. I (and I'm sure many other owners) have subscriptions to Apple which include Apple TV and Apple Music. Through the subscription, I can listen to Atmos music and movie content in my two rooms with Atmos systems. Of course I can add a Tidal subscription, but I have a single subscription to Apple for entertainment, storage, pictures, etc. and do not want to add yet another subscription.

Then a few weeks ago, I read on Dolby's website Atmos is now available through CarPlay - they say the manufacturer must do the CarPlay integration to get it working. This was something else I pointed out to Lucid in the survey: They sell us an Atmos system, they offer CarPlay, yet they don't have the two working together. Is this something in the roadmap? If not, why?

Yeah apparently Rivian just released an OTA which enables native Apple Music (not CarPlay) which seems to do Spatial Audio, not true discreet Atmos even though it says it’s playing Atmos in Apple Music. That’s cool Dolby recently enabled Atmos over CarPlay. I’d expect that to take time to enable in the Lucid but maybe not too much time (can Wireless CarPlay do Atmos? Unknown?). It’s nothing to be upset over given it’s a work in progress and is just evolving over the last few weeks. When the Air was built NO cars in the US Market could play back Atmos and the only viable option at that time for Atmos streaming and native audio application was Tidal, Lucid being the first car to have it.