Apple Music Dolby Atmos not working on my Mac

[CJM]

Not sure if I'm doing something wrong here, but I can't get Dolby Atmos to work on my Mac with a third party DAC, via Bluetooth or USB. The same DAC is working fine with my iPhone.

In the Music app on macOS I've set it to Always use Dolby Atmos (so yes I'm on 11.4). Is there something I'm missing? iTunes seems to show the Lossless symbol fine in the Now Playing bar, but doesn't give any info as to whether it's Dolby Atmos, unlike iOS.

edit: Ok I've narrowed it down to the Music app not choosing the Dolby Atmos stream when outputting to either of my DACs. Tried with a headphone amp as well via USB and Music instantly switched when changing the output.
It does work using the built-in headphone out port. Any thoughts?

 

[Irken Skoodge]

I’m having the same problem with a Schiit usb DAC and amp. It only plays lossless, and no Atmos logo. If I plug in headphones to the built in headphone port it plays Atmos and shows the logo. I’m using a Mac mini 2018

 

[IllIllIll]

I'm having the same issue. Tried using a FIIO M11 Pro DAP in USB DAC mode connected to the following:

2020 M1 Mac Mini
2021 M1 MBP
2020 11" iPad Pro

The lossless and Atmos indicators only show up intermittently, almost at random. Looks like there's some bugs that need to be worked out.

 

[Kier-XF]

The entire roll out on macOS is a dreadful mess. It seems pretty solid on iOS, iPadOS and TVOS so hopefully Apple will pay attention to macOS at some point... but I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

[CJM]

Glad everyone was able to confirm. Pretty sure the audio backend on the Mac is completely different to that on the iOS family; hence why it took so long for HomePod Stereo to come to the Mac.

Bit of a shame as I started a 1 month trial of Apple Music specifically for this reason. I'll do a bug report for Apple (but I'm sure they have engineers who know)

 

[andymodem]

I've noticed on my Mac that I'm not able to directly start playing songs from the track list and have Atmos or Lossless displayed. I have to click the play button under the playlist/album info and then Atmos or Lossless will work correctly.

Edit: removed color description of play button since that's not universal.

 

[rumormiller]

I've noticed on my Mac that I'm not able to directly start playing songs from the track list and have Atmos or Lossless displayed. I have to click the blue play button under the playlist/album info and then Atmos or Lossless will work correctly.

Thanks for finding the bug! The playlist Play button only retrieves the Dolby Atmos versions of the tracks. My late 2013 iMac is connected to a Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 Receiver and selecting Atmos now correctly plays 5.1 audio as it should as Dolby formats are backwards compatible.

You'll see the Dolby Atmos symbol in the player bar.

This is pretty great as before you needed SACD 5.1 discs and a player. Sounds really good with a real AV receiver and quality speakers and subwoofer - I was never impressed with Dolby Atmos for headphones when I tried it.

 

[riggles]

The same is true for albums I've noticed. Clicking the album Play button loads the Atmos stream, while clicking play (or double clicking) on a specific track in that album will load the standard AAC stream, not even lossless.

 

[Seppinho]

I noticed that adding the tracks to your library and starting them from there also loads the Atmos version.
Adding the entire playlist to your library also seems to work.

 

[Kier-XF]

The same is true for albums I've noticed. Clicking the album Play button loads the Atmos stream, while clicking play (or double clicking) on a specific track in that album will load the standard AAC stream, not even lossless.

Well done identifying this - it's been driving me mad trying to work out what's causing the breakage.

 

[Ghost-Hardware]

I don't know if anyone already mentioned this, but I've noticed that when you put Dolby Atmos to Always on, you won't see the Atmos logo anymore in the Now Playing bar.
You have to get it set on Auto to see the logo again. I've tried Always On with AirPods Pro and I couldn't see the logo anymore.

 

[317342]

On Mac, it works fine if I hit "Play" at the top of the playlist; otherwise, it doesn't work consistently or reliably when selecting tracks individually, playlist or otherwise. Automatic or Always On for Atmos doesn't make any difference for me.

(Using AirPods Pro + M1 Mini)

On iOS, it works perfectly and without a hitch.

 

[BeeEss]

I'm having the same issue as CJM - I get Atmos from the built-in headphone port in my MBP, but it won't send me the Atmos stream if I'm using the SPDIF output on a CalDigit Thunderbolt dock.

 

[JippaLippa]

What an absolute mess...
I can forgive Apple for the current state of the service (being a complex new feature to implement) if they'll be able to patch it soon, perhaps with the 11.5 release.

For now I'm quite happy to get lossless.

On my iPhone my NON-APPLE wireless earbuds can get dolby atmos, and on the mac I cannot get it any way I try...
Not even on the same wireless headphones that work so well on iOS.

 

[Kier-XF]

What an absolute mess...
I can forgive Apple for the current state of the service (being a complex new feature to implement) if they'll be able to patch it soon, perhaps with the 11.5 release.

For now I'm quite happy to get lossless.

On my iPhone my NON-APPLE wireless earbuds can get dolby atmos, and on the mac I cannot get it any way I try...
Not even on the same wireless headphones that work so well on iOS.

Try this

Not getting Atmos or Lossless when you expect to on Mac? Workaround here

Have you found that on macOS you can be playing an album or playlist that is supposed to be Atmos enabled, only to find that some of the tracks don’t play Atmos versions at all? There’s a workaround for this incredibly annoying glitch. If you load an album or playlist then click directly on...

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