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Apple lossless official announcement

Darwin

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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.

Nope.
Pirating music drove the music stores out of business.
Spotify has not remotely driven iTunes out off business since it still exists and still sells music which I buy all the time. All that happened was Apple broke up iTunes because it was too unwieldy with all the added functionality over the years. The app is called now called Music and you buy music from...the iTunes store.
I think what will happen, and it's not difficult to predict, is that all standalone music services will go away at some point and you will have Google, Amazon, Apple etc left.
Spotify is known for treating artists badly. Often paying nothing unless forced to.
https://www.unionofmusicians.org/justice-at-spotify
 

Darwin

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I really had the impression that they're trying to push their top-up box the Apple TV. As a result, I'm also under the impression that Atmos can be passed down to an AVR through HDMI in this setup.

Correct, Apple has stated this. My Apple TV is my only source of content and I have the new one coming Friday. Looking forward to using it with my Home theater Atmos :) Tidal's Apple TV app already does Atmos from Apple TV.
https://support.tidal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004255778-Dolby-Atmos-Music
Will Dolby Atmos work on my TV?
You can stream music in Dolby on your Dolby Atmos compatible soundbars, TVs, and AVRs, in addition to your Dolby Atmos compatible Android mobile devices.
Compatible TV-connected devices include:
Apple TV 4K (running tvOS 13 or later)
Fire TV (Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV Gen 3 2017, Fire TV Cube 1st Gen or 2nd Gen)
Nvidia Shield TV and Shield TV Pro (2019 and newer models)

The updated TIDAL app is also available on Dolby Atmos enabled Android TVs from Sony and Philips.
 

Darwin

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The Airpods Max is just as detailed as my Hifiman Sundara while at the same time being Wireless, ANC headphones.

I feel like audiophiles who discredit the Max aren’t looking at the big picture. An open back audiophile headphone is useless the moment there are others living with you or when you are outside your home. The fact that Apple managed to reach the performance of a mid-fi audiophile headphone in a ANC headphone is something to be celebrated.

The sound quality and engineering gap between the AirPods Max and the rest of the audiophile world is monstrous. Just ask Sennheiser how hard it is to create a good sounding ANC headphone.

Totally agree on the Max. Great soundstage too.
 

Darwin

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I'll dig into this in the next quater's earnings report to find out. I bet Apple leverages AWS for iCloud more than anything due to the vast amount of data flowing through icloud and the scalability of AWS. Just a conjecture by me.

As an IT Architect I can tell you that Apple is constantly hiring AWS architects...
 

Darwin

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Apple should've acquire Roon ;)

Would be nice but Roon user base would not be of interest to Apple. Way too small for a mass market company with a lot of features your average consumer has no interest in and would get in their way..
 

DHT 845

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Apple TV with digital coaxial out? That would be a nice streamer....
 

_thelaughingman

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Apple TV with digital coaxial out? That would be a nice streamer....
Sad that Apple did away with that after gen 1 Apple TV.
 

Yasuo

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Ok, quality is just one factor, usually the higher the better, can't argue that.

But what about the mastering? Back in 2018 (if memory serves me well) I tried Apple Music on my Android phone (the irony, not that it matters or should matter). The problem was the way song were mastered, I quit after just a few days... They butchered "classical" songs in such a way I couldn't listen. One of the albums I first tried was Iron Maiden - Fear of the dark.
 

Nicolaas

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Not only lossless, but hi-rez.

"For the true audiophile, Apple Music also offers Hi-Resolution Lossless all the way up to 24 bit at 192 kHz"
Having seen Amir's reviews of hi-res files hi-res equals trouble! Having listened to many hi-res and sacd albums the last 10 years I don't think hi-res is worth the extra bandwidth. A well recorded CD 16b 44.1k album perfectly does the job! But maybe 24b 48k is the perfect trade off between sound quality and bandwidth...
 

Zensō

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Having seen Amir's reviews of hi-res files hi-res equals trouble! Having listened to many hi-res and sacd albums the last 10 years I don't think hi-res is worth the extra bandwidth. A well recorded CD 16b 44.1k album perfectly does the job! But maybe 24b 48k is the perfect trade off between sound quality and bandwidth...
Multiple, controlled blind tests have shown that 256 AAC and 320 Ogg Vorbis are good enough for 99%+. Anything higher is mostly for the peace of mind that comes with lossless (and now as a market differentiator, it seems). Hi-res is certainly far overkill, and may be worse than CD in some cases (though not audibly so either way). My understanding is that 48khz is the audio standard for DVDs, hence the widespread implementation.

All that said, the musical qualities and mastering of the source far outweigh any of the above.
 
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wgb113

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wgb113

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Multiple, controlled blind tests have shown that 256 AAC and 320 Ogg Vorbis are good enough for 99%+. Anything higher is mostly for the peace of mind that comes with lossless (and now as a market differentiator, it seems). Hi-res is certainly far overkill, and may be worse than CD in some cases (though not audibly so either way). My understanding is that 48khz is the audio standard for DVDs, hence the widespread implementation.

All that said, the musical qualities and mastering of the source far outweigh any of the above.
Makes you wonder why so many obsess over SOTA SINAD measurements when good enough will do.
 

oryan_dunn

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Having seen Amir's reviews of hi-res files hi-res equals trouble! Having listened to many hi-res and sacd albums the last 10 years I don't think hi-res is worth the extra bandwidth. A well recorded CD 16b 44.1k album perfectly does the job! But maybe 24b 48k is the perfect trade off between sound quality and bandwidth...
I think the main thing 48k gets you is a relaxed requirement on the low-pass filter.
 

oryan_dunn

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Multiple, controlled blind tests have shown that 256 AAC and 320 Ogg Vorbis are good enough for 99%+. Anything higher is mostly for the peace of mind that comes with lossless (and now as a market differentiator, it seems). Hi-res is certainly far overkill, and may be worse than CD in some cases (though not audibly so either way). My understanding is that 48khz is the audio standard for DVDs, hence the widespread implementation.

All that said, the musical qualities and mastering of the source far outweigh any of the above.
I think the main benefit of lossless is keeping compression artifacts at bay. It could, in theory, benefit those who listen via bluetooth by not having to stack AAC compression artifacts (what little there are).
 

Thomas_A

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Sal1950

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Makes you wonder why so many obsess over SOTA SINAD measurements when good enough will do.
Same reason we car guys obsess over having a 200 mph capable car in a 70 mph world. LOL
 

dulljadedcat

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Future AirPods update may enable Lossless audio via AirPlay

From the article:

The rumor: Streaming audio to AirPods will get a major update in the future, according to Jon Prosser (77.8% accurate) on the Genius Bar podcast.

  • While Bluetooth is too technically limited to support lossless audio streaming, a different codec or firmware update could be released in the future to support the higher bandwidth needed to stream HiFi audio on AirPods
  • Apple confirmed yesterday that no AirPods currently support lossless audio in any way, but used the word “currently”
Our take: Before announcing AirTag, Apple announced a broader Find My Network with support for 3rd party accessories: Prosser suggests that in light of recent anti-trust investigations, Apple is doing the same thing here. Announce support for lossless audio that works with 3rd-party devices weeks ahead of announcing a new proprietary Apple format for streaming HiFi music. To me, this makes a lot of sense as there’s no way Apple would intentionally misfire this intentionally.
 

Rottmannash

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This would definitely hurt Qobuz for genuine hi-res catalogue they have. The pull of Apple may cause people to leave.
Not me. I don't care for the Apple ecosystem and will persist with Qobuz for as long as it's available in the US.
 
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