An icon for Spatial Audio or Surround Audio?

[Reyn 桐生]

Well I have read in the forum that they were thinking of implementing icons for high resolutions, I was wondering if you could add a Spatial Audio or Surround Audio icon for files with 5.1 channels or more, also for the xHE-AAC since all files in this format have spatial audio.

[Fitzian]

PA processes music in stereo, any multichannel formats are downmixed appropriately via ffmpeg for said processing. So not sure what an icon for spatial formats will truly indicate, here.

[Reyn 桐生]

And for XHE-AAC? The USAC codec works entirely with a stereo or mono spatial image, so it would be nice to recognize this format with spatial sound support.

 

By the way, wouldn't there be a way to decode such 5.1 files without a downmix? I have an app on Android that decodes such files via FFMPEG without downmixing and using WAV as well as Samsung Music decodes such files without downmixing.

[Fitzian]

1 hour ago, Reyn 桐生 said:

And for XHE-AAC? The USAC codec works entirely with a stereo or mono spatial image, so it would be nice to recognize this format with spatial sound support.

 

By the way, wouldn't there be a way to decode such 5.1 files without a downmix? I have an app on Android that decodes such files via FFMPEG without downmixing and using WAV as well as Samsung Music decodes such files without downmixing.

I'm merely stating what Poweramp does currently. It processes music in stereo, which is perfectly capable for 99% of recorded music in human history.

I've yet to see any store selling music for digital downloads in any format other than stereo, so for an app focused on local music playback, stereo should suffice.

What Poweramp's audio engine may do in the future, vs what other apps may do now, is an entirely different request. An icon to indicate multichannel audio or spatial audio serves no purpose in Poweramp today.

[Reyn 桐生]

Of course, although I suggested the icon for XHE-AAC as the main focus, as you say 99% of the music content is in stereo and taking advantage that the USAC codec is already compatible with Poweramp it could indicate that these files have spatial sound as it is a standard when working with this codec and it works with stereo.