Interesting news for me since AppleTV is my main playback device these days. Using headphones, I haven't been able to detect a meaningful difference between 256 AAC and lossless, so I've written it off as completely unimportant to me.
As I started reading this thread I was listening to Ports of Call, with Paul Paray conducting the Detroit Symphony:
https://www.discogs.com/Ravel-Ibert...vane-Pour-Une-Infante-Défunte/release/7465939
I've had this CD since my tender youth and have enjoyed it many times. Listening to the 256AAC being streamed to the Apple TV, coming through the HDMI output, which goes into the TV, which then sends the signal by optical to the digital crossover, I thought it sounded pretty nice through my big horn speakers, but not as wonderful as I recall from my golden past. So as an experiment I dug out the dusty CD and loaded it in the blue-ray player and listened through its coaxial digital output, bypassing the TV.
Hmm... I could swear it sounds very noticeably more lovely. Big complex crescendos don't get weird sounding in a way that makes me want to turn it down. They remain bright and airy and spacious. So it makes me wonder, does it really have anything to do with 256 AAC compression or is it some problem with the signal chain going through the cheap-ass TV? Is it possible I can detect things through the big speakers that are harder to hear on the headphones? Spacial effects maybe? Maybe there's something spacial about uncompressed music?
As I started reading this thread I was listening to Ports of Call, with Paul Paray conducting the Detroit Symphony:
https://www.discogs.com/Ravel-Ibert...vane-Pour-Une-Infante-Défunte/release/7465939
I've had this CD since my tender youth and have enjoyed it many times. Listening to the 256AAC being streamed to the Apple TV, coming through the HDMI output, which goes into the TV, which then sends the signal by optical to the digital crossover, I thought it sounded pretty nice through my big horn speakers, but not as wonderful as I recall from my golden past. So as an experiment I dug out the dusty CD and loaded it in the blue-ray player and listened through its coaxial digital output, bypassing the TV.
Hmm... I could swear it sounds very noticeably more lovely. Big complex crescendos don't get weird sounding in a way that makes me want to turn it down. They remain bright and airy and spacious. So it makes me wonder, does it really have anything to do with 256 AAC compression or is it some problem with the signal chain going through the cheap-ass TV? Is it possible I can detect things through the big speakers that are harder to hear on the headphones? Spacial effects maybe? Maybe there's something spacial about uncompressed music?