Digging into Amazon Music Unlimited’s spatial audio offerings for headphones.

Whenever people say I have my head in the clouds, I often take it as a compliment— even if they don’t mean it that way. (I can usually tell they don’t, especially if there’s an expletive modifying the word “head” and/or “clouds.”) Chances are, you have your own “head in the clouds” moments as well— probably after having donned your favorite pair of headphones to envelop yourself in the musical silo of your choice at the highest of hi-res levels possible. Fact is, headphone listening often gives us that singular sense of being enmeshed in a sonic cocoon of our own making that is equal parts comfort and joy.

Over the years, more than a few attempts have been made at what I’ll refer to as 3D audio for the mind, or music encoded for the 360-degree listening experience with headphones on. During the first half of 2021, Apple Music launched a library of Dolby Atmos music tracks that could be listened to with any headphones, not just the company’s Airpods line. Later, in mid-october 2021, Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers were essentially granted that same favor by being given the official greenlight to stream the service’s spatial audio content via its IOS and Android apps, with headphone listening most specifically intended. As with Atmos on Apple Music, this could be done, according to Amazon Music “without any special equipment needed, and no upgrade required”—further adding we could do this via any headphones of our choosing.

Sounds like a bleepin’ awesome deal to me—and it should to you, too. For the record, the Amazon Music Unlimited Individual Plan costs $7.99/month for Prime members and $9.99/month for Amazon customers, while Family Plan users can stream Amazon Music Unlimited for $14.99/month on up to six devices. Given all the aural benefits available, locking into any of these plans is a literal no-brainer.

Following through on Amazon Music Unlimited’s “any headphones” maxim, I pulled out four options to test this theory— namely, my high-end Sennheisers, wireless Marleys, Sony ’phones I use mainly for Zoom calls, and truly old-school USB Apple earbuds— to see just how the claim stacked up. I listened to a wide selection of Amazon Music Unlimited’s spatial audio mixes in Dolby Atmos while I rotated through my headphone quartet connected with a variety of devices including my iphone, HP laptop, and Roku Ultra. True, the better the headphones, the more immersively intense the listening experience was— but I can report if you wanna go the earbuds route, your experience will be relatively top-notch, and likely better than you might expect.

Naturally, I began my headphone sessions at the top of the spatial audio foodchain with a key selection from the irrepressible Steven Wilson. I cued up one of the best Atmos tracks from his January 2021 release The Future Bites, and one that wasn’t used in our spatial audio evaluation feature in the October/november 2021 issue— namely, the frenzied 9-minute product acquisition indictment “Personal Shopper.” The all-aswirl middle section starting around 5:20 rattled around in my head like an errant aural pinball. Here, the track’s special guest voice Elton John rattled off a litany of allegedly desirable consumer goods, starting from the center position before each subsequent item citing fanned out in all directions. I also picked up on some additional details I hadn’t focused on in previous open-air listening sessions, such as the subversively angelic/operatic vocal lines supporting Sir Elton’s declarations.

Next, I dialed into my already overflowing Amazon Music library of Queen songs. One thing I discovered that you’ll also have to be mindful of is not every track on each HD album is available in spatial audio yet, so you’ll need to scrutinize all track listings individually for the distinction between Atmos, Ultra HD, and sometimes “just” HD. For example, only three of the 11 tracks on Queen’s June 1980 genre-shifting opus The Game are in Atmos—somewhat of a shame, since “Dragon Attack” is my favorite Queen-in-surround song besides, of course, “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Nonetheless, I was impressed with the skullpounding bass content and rotating divebombing effects on “Another One Bites the Dust” and the rumbling rockabilly swagger of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”

Finally, I consulted the Amazoncurated Best of Spatial Audio playlist for some more modern offerings. Among the standouts include Coldplay and BTS swapping lead vocal positioning on “My Universe,” The Weeknd high-harmonizing around sampled slap drums and gliding keyboard accents on the ubiquitous but still undeniable “Blinding Lights,” and, yes, Olivia Rodrigo’s emotive vocals that are placed upfront in the mix ahead of her supportively simple piano lines on “drivers license.” Be sure to take note of the recurring, ping-ponging handclaps that commence on the second verse and the semi-subconscious exhale and foot-pedal shifting each time Rodrigo falls short of finishing the word “street.”

It’s little details like these that reinforce why spatial audio on Amazon Music Unlimited is worth dominating your listening time. In fact, you could say it’s just the ticket for keeping your head in the clouds all day—in a good way.

深入了解Amazon Music Unlimited的耳机空间音频产品。

每当人们说我的头在云中时，我经常把它当作一种恭维—— 即使他们不是那样想的。（我通常可以看出他们没有，特别是如果有一个咒骂性的修改词"头"和/或"云"。很有可能，你也有自己的"云中之头"时刻 - 可能是在戴上你最喜欢的耳机之后，以尽可能高的高分辨率水平将自己包裹在您选择的音乐筒仓中。事实上，耳机聆听经常给我们带来一种奇特的感觉，即被卷入我们自己制造的声波茧中，这种茧既是舒适又快乐。

多年来，已经进行了多次尝试，我将称之为心灵的3D音频，或者为戴着耳机的360度聆听体验编码的音乐。在2021年上半年，Apple Music推出了一个杜比全景声（Dolby Atmos）音乐曲目库，可以使用任何耳机收听，而不仅仅是该公司的Airpods系列。后来，在2021年10月中旬，Amazon Music Unlimited的订阅者基本上获得了同样的青睐，因为他们获得了通过其IOS和Android应用程序流式传输该服务的空间音频内容的官方绿灯，耳机收听最具体。与根据亚马逊音乐的说法，Apple Music上的Atmos可以做到这一点，"不需要任何特殊设备，也不需要升级" - 进一步补充说，我们可以通过我们选择的任何耳机做到这一点。

对我来说，这听起来像是一笔令人敬畏的交易-对你来说也应该如此。根据记录，亚马逊音乐无限个人计划Prime会员每月收费7.99美元，亚马逊客户每月收费9.99美元，而家庭计划用户可以在最多六台设备上以14.99美元的价格流式传输亚马逊音乐无限。鉴于所有可用的听觉优势，锁定这些计划中的任何一个都是一个明智的选择。

在亚马逊音乐无限的"任何耳机"格言之后，我拿出了四个选项来测试这个理论——即我的高端Sennheisers、无线Marleys、我主要用于Zoom通话的索尼手机，以及真正的老式USB Apple耳塞——看看这种说法是如何堆积起来的。我用杜比全景声（Dolby Atmos）收听了亚马逊音乐无限（Amazon Music Unlimited）的各种空间音频混音，同时我旋转着耳机四重奏，这些设备与各种设备（包括我的iPhone，HP笔记本电脑和Roku Ultra）相连。没错，耳机越好，聆听体验就越具有沉浸感- 但我可以报告，如果你想走耳塞路线，你的体验将是相对一流的，并且可能比你预期的要好。

很自然地，我在空间音频食物链的顶部开始了我的耳机会话，从不可抑制的史蒂文·威尔逊（Steven Wilson）那里选择了一个关键选项。我从他2021年1月发行的《The Future Bites》中调出了一首最好的Atmos曲目，以及2021年10月/11月刊中我们的空间音频评估功能中没有使用的歌曲之一，即疯狂的9分钟产品获取起诉书"个人购物者"。从5：20左右开始的全漩涡中间部分在我的脑海中嘎嘎作响，就像一个错误的听觉弹球。在这里，这首歌的特别嘉宾埃尔顿·约翰（Elton John）嘎嘎作响，从中心位置开始，然后每个后续项目向各个方向扇出。我还发现了一些我在之前的露天聆听课程中没有关注的其他细节，例如支持埃尔顿爵士宣言的颠覆性天使/歌剧声线。

接下来，我拨入了已经溢出的皇后乐队歌曲的亚马逊音乐库。我发现您还必须注意的一件事是，并非每个高清专辑中的每首曲目都以空间音频形式提供，因此您需要单独检查所有曲目列表，以了解Atmos，Ultra HD和有时"只是"HD之间的区别。例如，皇后乐队1980年6月的类型转换作品《游戏》的11首曲目中只有三首是在Atmos中 - 这有点可惜，因为"Dragon Attack"是我最喜欢的皇后环绕歌曲，当然，除了"波西米亚狂想曲"。尽管如此，我对"另一个咬尘埃"的骷髅头低音内容和旋转俯冲炸弹效果以及"疯狂的小东西叫爱"的隆隆摇滚摇摆印象深刻。

最后，我查阅了亚马逊精选的最佳空间音频播放列表，以获取一些更现代的产品。其中的佼佼者包括酷玩乐队和BTS在"我的宇宙"中交换主唱位置，The Weeknd在无处不在但仍然不可否认的"Blinding Lights"上围绕采样的耳光鼓和滑动键盘口音进行高和谐，是的，Olivia Rodrigo的情感人声被放置在混音中，在她支持简单的钢琴行之前在"驾驶执照"上。一定要注意从第二节开始的反复出现的乒乓手拍打，以及每次罗德里戈没有完成"街道"这个词时半潜意识的呼气和脚踏板移动。

像这样的小细节强化了为什么亚马逊音乐无限上的空间音频值得主导你的收听时间。事实上，你可以说这只是一张整天把头放在云端的门票——以一种好的方式。