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Apple lossless official announcement

simbloke

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So basically you're telling me that i should be 'unhappy' about the fact that a service that is very well integrated into my phone and laptop is getting improved free of charge?

Why should I care about the benefit of a company like Spotify or Tidal but not my own benefit and convenience?

As for the claim that a monopoly will form, how? Amazon literally lowered their prices in response. it's a win win situation for all consumers.
I'm not telling you to be unhappy. It's nice for you that it's all working out so well.
 

abdo123

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I'm not telling you to be unhappy. It's nice for you that it's all working out so well.

iTunes drove out the 'local music store' out of business, Spotify drove iTunes out of business and now Apple music will have the biggest library and the best quality for the lowest price. It's competition.

we should all be happy that music is being consumed at a rate that has never been whitnessed before in human history thanks to these services. the only thing that i would protest is the fact that artists are being paid peanuts in spite of the massive consumption.
 

sergeauckland

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I really don't see why people are so happy about this. If eventually it means the end of Qobuz, Tidal and Spotify it also means the end of streaming to platforms that are not from the big manufacturers. I don't think Apple are going to care about those who want to stream to Linux and Pi based players. Amazon and Google already don't care.

Once the small players are gone you'll be forced to buy Apple hardware and subscription prices will go back up.

I wonder whether LMS will ever support or be allowed to support Apple streaming. The recent integration of Spotify in LMS works beautifully, and I would be very sad if Spotify disappears. For me, as a mostly classical music listener, I suppose it's back to buying lots of CDs, which my descendants will eventually have to dispose of. Happily, there are lots of used CDs available at very low prices.

S.
 

pierre

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we can't tell till it's released whether you can just plug-in a multichannel DAC to a macbook and call it a day for Atmos.

I would be very surprised if that will be the case. There is no software decoder that goes to a DAC over USB. Some go over HDMI to preserve encryption (like in Win 10). The idea is that you cannot decode the stream. I guess Dolby thinks that it will prevent pirating.
 

Honken

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I wonder whether LMS will ever support or be allowed to support Apple streaming. The recent integration of Spotify in LMS works beautifully, and I would be very sad if Spotify disappears. For me, as a mostly classical music listener, I suppose it's back to buying lots of CDs, which my descendants will eventually have to dispose of. Happily, there are lots of used CDs available at very low prices.

S.
I don't really know what kind of APIs Spotify offers but Apple does offer one for Apple Music. One can take a look at this page for a list of quite a few third party tools and players. If a player (that isn't iTunes) could combine my local library with my Apple Music one that would be very nice (and it'd save my phones battery as I'm usually streaming from that over AirPlay).
 

restorer-john

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we should all be happy that music is being consumed at a rate that has never been whitnessed before in human history thanks to these services.

How do you come up with that unqualified statement? It reeks of utter BS.

Music was and has been consumed all the time, on radio, cassette, vinyl and CD. People were listneing to the radio, in their cars, on their portables and in their homes, and if they weren't for a short period, it was because they were playing whatever they had just bought on some other format.

Nothing has changed except the attention span of the listeners and how discerning they aren't.
 

abdo123

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How do you come up with that unqualified statement? It reeks of utter BS.

it's going to be really difficult to come up with A vs B numbers, but 50% of the world is connected to the internet. meaning that 50% of the population on this world has access to music via youtube or spotify at least.

reading further between the lines, green house gases emissions from the music industry is indeed record high, it is fair to assume that consumption is equivalently rising.

source: https://pitchfork.com/news/emissions-from-music-consumption-reach-unprecedented-high-study-shows/

As for my point for the artists making peanuts out of the music itself.

'The research also shows that while the environmental cost of music consumption has never been higher, the price consumers are willing to pay for music has never been lower. In 1997, consumers were willing to pay roughly 4.83% of an average weekly salary. That percentage decreased to roughly 1.22% of an average weekly salary in 2013. Since the advent of streaming, the research shows that consumers now pay only just over 1% of their weekly salary to listen to a vast library of music.'
 

dmac6419

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How do you come up with that unqualified statement? It reeks of utter BS.

Music was and has been consumed all the time, on radio, cassette, vinyl and CD. People were listneing to the radio, in their cars, on their portables and in their homes, and if they weren't for a short period, it was because they were playing whatever they had just bought on some other format.

Nothing has changed except the attention span of the listeners and how discerning they aren't.
My motto had always been Just enjoy your music, don’t overthink it =)
 

Zensō

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it's going to be really difficult to come up with A vs B numbers, but 50% of the world is connected to the internet. meaning that 50% of the population on this world has access to music via youtube or spotify at least.

reading further between the lines, green house gases emissions from the music industry is indeed record high, it is fair to assume that consumption is equivalently rising.

source: https://pitchfork.com/news/emissions-from-music-consumption-reach-unprecedented-high-study-shows/

As for my point for the artists making peanuts out of the music itself.

'The research also shows that while the environmental cost of music consumption has never been higher, the price consumers are willing to pay for music has never been lower. In 1997, consumers were willing to pay roughly 4.83% of an average weekly salary. That percentage decreased to roughly 1.22% of an average weekly salary in 2013. Since the advent of streaming, the research shows that consumers now pay only just over 1% of their weekly salary to listen to a vast library of music.'
We should probably be paying more for music streaming. One thing that seems to get missed though, is that the record labels are making huge amounts from streaming while artists and streaming services are struggling. I see lots of criticism of the streaming services, but it appears the major labels are primarily to blame for this predicament due to their predatory recording contracts:

https://mashable.com/article/major-music-labels-19-million-per-day-streaming.amp
 
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_thelaughingman

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We should probably be paying more for music streaming. One thing that seems to get missed though, is that the record labels are making huge amounts from streaming while artists and streaming services are struggling. I see lots of criticism of the streaming services, but it appears the major labels are primarily to blame for this predicament due to their predatory recording contracts:

https://mashable.com/article/major-music-labels-19-million-per-day-streaming.amp
It’s such a sad fact that the record label’s and publishers absolutely screw the artists over with their predatory agreements. The estimated payout for many of the streaming platforms is a minuscule 1cent per stream or less. Not to mention that it’s based on an absurd equation of x amount of stream quotas before the payout.
 

Ata

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Apple should've acquire Roon ;)

Not much to gain for Apple, Roon Labs, or you as the customer.

BTW Apple Music already uses AMG for its metadata.
 

Zensō

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It’s such a sad fact that the record label’s and publishers absolutely screw the artists over with their predatory agreements. The estimated payout for many of the streaming platforms is a minuscule 1cent per stream or less. Not to mention that it’s based on an absurd equation of x amount of stream quotas before the payout.
The “service-centric” formula used for determining how revenues are distributed is also to blame. We need to go to a “user-centric” system:
https://www.audiomentor.com/businessmoney/how-music-streaming-services-pay/
 
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ENG

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Which hardware support Apple Music from their firmware. Apart from Airplay (sucks your iPhone and iPad) and PC? Sonos have Apple Music in their firmware. But not Bluesound and Simaudio (MiND), which I am using.
 

Saidera

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Hem... https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...pple-vs-google-usb-c-headphone-adapters.5541/
The capacity of a DAC to be compatible with high res files doesn't make it "better".
It's probably rather that Apple's engineers rightfully don't really see the point of bothering.

I wish to open up that whole unwritten discussion about who actually started the 24/48 limit in the first place. I hated that limit (now I don't since basically every dongle goes up to 32/384 PCM or DoP DSD128). Apple iPhones, aptX HD, and Realtek PC codecs etc put in the 24/48 limit around 2016 or thereabouts. I checked every DAC in every PC in a store once in late 2019, while waiting for my aunt, and each one was limited to 24/48 playback with some only able to record 16/48. It's just like basically forcing consumers to buy DACs (in addition to the removal of the jack). I remember PCs with 24/192 as their limit starting from 2005 and lasting to about 2014 or later. Not that format support matters, but it's convenient or preferable not to downsample 24/96 to 24/48 anyway. Of course, most of those 24/192 laptops would likely perform worse than the great Apple 24/48 dongle, so 'doesn't make it "better"' is correct.

Somebody in a senior position at Apple years ago must have put forward the idea that Sony's push for HiRes audio is rubbish, and any format above 24/48 is unnecessary. After Archimago's post on such matters, I can easily agree. But so many people think their DACs perform better calculations on the data or cause less errors, if you upsample the data before playback. Filters and so on affect less of the audible spectrum.

The matter I just can't comprehend is why so many companies followed suit. And without any explanation put forward.

Nearly every non-audio specific device you have is probably 24/48 only, except most Android phones.

In any event, Hidizs S8, with its wide format compatibility, is overall better than Apple dongle. Perhaps it is around the right time now to no longer consider the Apple dongle as a standard by which to dismiss other products. Yet its price, performance and availability is just too powerful. That dongle is equivalent to the audio output of iPhones. It measures and sounds better than the Mac mini M1 3.5mm output. Despite what may be inferred from the recent announcement, I submit that Apple should consider the direct contender of 2019 (Meizu Hifi using CS43131) and create another dongle now in response. I will be there lining up at the door on the day of its release.

Apple's 24/48 is the sole reason why an urge arose in me to DIY and try to understand some of the engineering concepts. Before exposure to that 24/48 limit, I was so brainwashed by marketing from Sony's HiRes push and prior VAIO DSD effort led by Mr Ayataka Nishio that I just couldn't get past it. A similar way of thinking appeared when I tried to push for Made in Japan plug adaptors/sockets for its materials, quality and craftsmanship compared to cheaply made Chinese variants. Again with the clear superiority of Chinese Medicine philosophy over what I have experienced as a generally fundamentally flawed way of treating illnesses by the American or global medical or hospital system. But then, sometimes cheap stuff is necessary, and MRI or physiotherapy is very useful and has no negative effect at all. So Apple's 24/48 will continue for some time I'm sure.
 
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Katji

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Apple is so huge and so profitable it is difficult to put into perspective. Apple's net profit is roughly equal to the revenue of General Motors. Apple Music rides on the huge investment of Apple's cloud infrastructure, which is amortized over so many services. I'm not familiar with what Spotify does, but almost certainly they use someone else's cloud computing services, which is expensive. Amazon is like Apple.
I think spotify utilizes some AWS infrastructure if i remember reading it correctly somewhere.

Spotify uses Google Cloud.

(Referred in a recent article/interview. (I'll post a link.) Also clear enough evidence that Spotify software development infrastructure and philosophy is way superior - at least to [laughables like] Tidal and Qobuz, not in the same league.)
 

dkinric

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This is such a miss on Apple's part, imho. If the new Apple tv 4K box simply had an additional USB or coax output to connect to an existing audio system, it would be a very compelling product.
By putting in lots of horsepower with the new bionic chip, the picture adjustment feature, and a good UI, it's a compelling, albeit pricey, tv streaming box. Someone already invested in iphones and ipads could use these (or even the new box remote) to control Apple Music lossless/hi-rez music streaming from the box, with side benefit of displaying lyrics and other visuals on the tv along with the music.
Rare miss to really "own the living room" from Apple.
 

Zensō

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This is such a miss on Apple's part, imho. If the new Apple tv 4K box simply had an additional USB or coax output to connect to an existing audio system, it would be a very compelling product.
By putting in lots of horsepower with the new bionic chip, the picture adjustment feature, and a good UI, it's a compelling, albeit pricey, tv streaming box. Someone already invested in iphones and ipads could use these (or even the new box remote) to control Apple Music lossless/hi-rez music streaming from the box, with side benefit of displaying lyrics and other visuals on the tv along with the music.
Rare miss to really "own the living room" from Apple.
I don’t at all disagree, but I think it points to the fact that the desire for hi-res music is minuscule in the context of the wider consumer market.
 

DavidS

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I really don't see why people are so happy about this. If eventually it means the end of Qobuz, Tidal and Spotify it also means the end of streaming to platforms that are not from the big manufacturers. I don't think Apple are going to care about those who want to stream to Linux and Pi based players. Amazon and Google already don't care.

Once the small players are gone you'll be forced to buy Apple hardware and subscription prices will go back up.

Qobuz/Tidal make it very easy to get into eq using UAPP and very low cost if you have an Android phone around. I’d be sad to lose that option.
 

oryan_dunn

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voodooless

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I have a feeling it's a disconnect with their PR people. The $9 Apple dongle has the hardware for 24/192.
https://www.qobuz.com/be-nl/info/hi-res-guide/bancs-d-essai/we-ve-tried-it-the-apple-lightning178666

The fact that the DAC might handle 24/192 does not mean the USB interface can.

Regardless, the link above probably does not have up-to-date info. As far as I know, the DAC chip is custom. Also, the specs do not conform with the measurements of @amirm, which shows a 10 dB better SINAD than the Cirrus spec.
 
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