Apple music streaming via ipad vs tidal wiim mini

[Diseasex]

Hi, so I was streaming Apple Music for about 2 years after ditching tidal in its favour. The reason was superior discovery of new music in my opinion.

Well I just came back to tidal (via wiim mini) and oh boy the details the sound quality (I doubt it’s subjective at all) ! The music started to sound great again. I could hear much more depth to the music across the board (various songs I was accustomed to)

What’s at play here ? I thought iPad and Apple Music was supposed to be lossless 24-bit/44.1 ALAC? Why is it so inferior to tidal/wiim mini? Or is it optical (wiim mini -> minidsp flex) vs USB B (iPad -> minidsp flex)?
Note both scenarios use DAC - minidsp flex .

 

[staticV3]

If you want to find out to what extent the two streams differ, then you can capture them both using a Hifime UR23 and Hifime UT23/SMSL PO100 2024.

Load both recordings into Pkane Deltawave and it'll tell you what's different.

I used the same method to test whether Spotify Lossless was actually lossless:

Lossless Listening Arrives on Spotify Premium

It sounds great to me. Of course their previous 320kbps also sounded great too. I prefer to use Spotify over other services because their app is the best and their connect feature works with every device I have. I agree. As we have a family sub, with the other members using Spotify (various...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Alternatively, you can just wait for members to shoot off theories as to why you may be hearing the things you hear (difference in levels, different masters, cognitive bias etc.)

 

[Diseasex]

I don’t have that tools. At the moment Apple Music is dead to me especially with the hassle of lack of streamers and having to use 5m usb from sofa to an iPad to play it like its Middle Ages

 

[jdg78]

This might be of some relevance:

 

[Diseasex]

This might be of some relevance:

If I read it right , guy is saying that lots of songs aren’t stored lossless.
But in my scenario both streaming services report the song as this. And they sound different when they shouldn’t , I doubt the artist uploaded different files to both

 

[mermayer]

This was already written by me in another thread:
I think, Apple Music is not what it seems. I have verified this: Apple Music Lossless and active crossfading (iPad Air M3, RME ADI-2 DAC).
The song starts at 48kHz and about in the last third, the sampling rate changes to 44.1kHz. I hear a dropout and the display in the DAC changes to 44.1kHz. However, the display in Apple Music remains at 48kHz. The song fades into the next one, which has a sampling rate of 44.1kHz. This is then also displayed correctly in Apple Music. This always happens when the next song has a different sampling rate.
A bug or a feature? Very strange.

Try it with lossless and crossfading. You'll get the same result. Either apple is cheating with the sampling rates and these are not native but artificially generated or the Apple Music player has a bug because the sampling rate changes in the middle of the song and not during the crossfade.

 

[Diseasex]

This was already written by me in another thread:
I think, Apple Music is not what it seems. I have verified this: Apple Music Lossless and active crossfading (iPad Air M3, RME ADI-2 DAC).
The song starts at 48kHz and about in the last third, the sampling rate changes to 44.1kHz. I hear a dropout and the display in the DAC changes to 44.1kHz. However, the display in Apple Music remains at 48kHz. The song fades into the next one, which has a sampling rate of 44.1kHz. This is then also displayed correctly in Apple Music. This always happens when the next song has a different sampling rate.
A bug or a feature? Very strange.

Try it with lossless and crossfading. You'll get the same result. Either apple is cheating with the sampling rates and these are not native but artificially generated or the Apple Music player has a bug because the sampling rate changes in the middle of the song and not during the crossfade.

They owe me for 2 years of subpar experience!

 

[ckernel8]

Hi, so I was streaming Apple Music for about 2 years after ditching tidal in its favour. The reason was superior discovery of new music in my opinion.

Well I just came back to tidal (via wiim mini) and oh boy the details the sound quality (I doubt it’s subjective at all) ! The music started to sound great again. I could hear much more depth to the music across the board (various songs I was accustomed to)

What’s at play here ? I thought iPad and Apple Music was supposed to be lossless 24-bit/44.1 ALAC? Why is it so inferior to tidal/wiim mini? Or is it optical (wiim mini -> minidsp flex) vs USB B (iPad -> minidsp flex)?
Note both scenarios use DAC - minidsp flex .

What's at play? Certainly not any measurable difference in the signal.

 

[Diseasex]

What's at play? Certainly not any measurable difference in the signal.

The output is different.
I don’t understand science of streaming enough so can’t competently point to a culprit but I know that on paper assuming the source is the same, given it goes digitally to the same dac it should sound the same but it’s not

 

[Behrelec 37]

I have Apple Music and Apple Classical. Both apps work well on my Everolo dmp 6 master edition, even though my Eversolo is a little slow to respond to commands in this Apple app. I use Classical considerably less often.

I also use Apple TV, which also has this Apple Music app, but then the TV screen is involved.The sound is completely identical in both sources, but with Eversolo you can also listen to high-resolution music, and then the depth and breathability of the sound becomes somewhat more beautiful, depending on the genre of music. Sometimes, however, this is not the case.

The update version on my Eversolo is the latest 1.5.30.

 

[Diseasex]

I have Apple Music and Apple Classical. Both apps work well on my Everolo dmp 6 master edition, even though my Eversolo is a little slow to respond to commands in this Apple app. I use Classical considerably less often.

I also use Apple TV, which also has this Apple Music app, but then the TV screen is involved.The sound is completely identical in both sources, but with Eversolo you can also listen to high-resolution music, and then the depth and breathability of the sound becomes somewhat more beautiful, depending on the genre of music. Sometimes, however, this is not the case.

The update version on my Eversolo is the latest 1.5.30.

I was about to buy ever solo for simple fact of streaming Apple Music. But if iPad can’t pull this off I don’t think ever solo will too

 

[Behrelec 37]

Diseasex.

I often control Eversolo with my iPad M1 screen. It has so many different apps that I don't need most of them myself. Dozens of radio stations from different countries are a really nice addition, and the latest update seems to have brought cover art to my TV screen, but so far only and exclusively through Apple TV, which is opened wirelessly via the Eversolo app, and only my own music stored on this Eversolo on my 2 TB hard drive. I haven't been able to get Apple's own music cover art on my TV screen yet, but maybe this will be possible in future updates. I don't know about other streaming services, as I only have this one source on my Eversolo.

 

[masterhw]

Both Apple Music and Tidal are, without a doubt, delivering lossless if they say they are (provided you’re not then casting it over bluetooth or airplay or something). The non-bit perfect playback is probably not a smoking gun either, a 48kHz track downsampled to 44.1 for crossmixing is not going to be audible either unless it is an offensively poor OS downsampler, which I haven’t seen iOS/iPad OS ever accused of.

A far more likely explanation to me is different clientside processing, double check your Music settings. For bit perfect playback you would want sound check off, transitions off, EQ off, and you should also take care to ensure you’re not comparing the Atmos mix on one service to non-atmos on another. Different mixes/masters is an order of magnitude bigger of a difference than any of the other explanations.

Can you give us an example of a track that sounds different across services? I bet some of us have near enough gear we could try and recreate. This is a serious enough accusation that it warrants investigation.

 

[Diseasex]

Both Apple Music and Tidal are, without a doubt, delivering lossless if they say they are (provided you’re not then casting it over bluetooth or airplay or something). The non-bit perfect playback is probably not a smoking gun either, a 48kHz track downsampled to 44.1 for crossmixing is not going to be audible either unless it is an offensively poor OS downsampler, which I haven’t seen iOS/iPad OS ever accused of.

A far more likely explanation to me is different clientside processing, double check your Music settings. For bit perfect playback you would want sound check off, transitions off, EQ off, and you should also take care to ensure you’re not comparing the Atmos mix on one service to non-atmos on another. Different mixes/masters is an order of magnitude bigger of a difference than any of the other explanations.
View attachment 485966

Can you give us an example of a track that sounds different across services? I bet some of us have near enough gear we could try and recreate. This is a serious enough accusation that it warrants investigation.

I will check over the weekend as I’m away, cheers

 

[ckernel8]

Both Apple Music and Tidal are, without a doubt, delivering lossless if they say they are (provided you’re not then casting it over bluetooth or airplay or something). The non-bit perfect playback is probably not a smoking gun either, a 48kHz track downsampled to 44.1 for crossmixing is not going to be audible either unless it is an offensively poor OS downsampler, which I haven’t seen iOS/iPad OS ever accused of.

A far more likely explanation to me is different clientside processing, double check your Music settings. For bit perfect playback you would want sound check off, transitions off, EQ off, and you should also take care to ensure you’re not comparing the Atmos mix on one service to non-atmos on another. Different mixes/masters is an order of magnitude bigger of a difference than any of the other explanations.
View attachment 485966

Can you give us an example of a track that sounds different across services? I bet some of us have near enough gear we could try and recreate. This is a serious enough accusation that it warrants investigation.

AirPlay 2 (which is the default nowadays) is good for 48kHz/24bit uncompressed.

 

[Diseasex]

AirPlay 2 (which is the default nowadays) is good for 48kHz/24bit uncompressed.

AirPlay 2 is lossy unlike AirPlay 1 though…

 

[MarkS]

This might be of some relevance:

Great video.

Happily he did not do any listening tests through his Zu speakers ...

 

[masterhw]

AirPlay 2 (which is the default nowadays) is good for 48kHz/24bit uncompressed.

I’ve seen Airplay 2 (the format) do that if the app itself is only Airplay 1. But in the most popular implementations, where both are Airplay 2 (like the iPhone and Mac AM apps) it does 256k AAC.
The only app i’ve personally encountered that sends lossless is the Windows AM app which does 24-bit/48k to my Airplay 2 capable Denon AVR.

 

[ckernel8]

AirPlay 2 is lossy unlike AirPlay 1 though…

No it isn't.

 

[masterhw]

No it isn't.

Airplay 2 is capable of lossless when something in the chain is only Airplay 1. The graphic is actually incorrect and the max quality is 24/48. But, when everything is Airplay 2, which is the most common usage mode, it is lossy.