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AirPods, AirPods Max and AirPods Pro Don't Support Apple Music Lossless Audio

DaSal said:
I wonder why the Max doesn’t support lossless even while wired. That seems bizar to me.

How would a wire specifically only support lossy?
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...probably something to do with the fact that the audio path for wired APM goes from your digital source to an analog converter, then back from analog to digital, and then back again to analog...The ADC step is going to be lossy. Why you can't play AirPods Max with a straight lightening-to-lightening cable to keep the stream digital until it hits the drivers is beyond me.
 
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SanderEvers said:
Actually LDAC is a thing, and it supports up to 32bit. On bluetooth.
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first article in a google search mentions this is up to 24bit, and their testing says it still falls short.

then i read a couple more articles that mention 32bit, but this is sony tech only supported on android devices running 8.0 or higher.

a user suggested that one could use a bluetooth transmitter and dac with the iphone that supports ldac.

at any rate, anyone genuinely caring about very high quality audio is not at all relying on bluetooth. this whole thing is a non issue. it’s people being excited about hifi and lossless who dont understand how audiophiles go about taking advantage of this kind of sound.
 
maybe I've been drinking too much kool-aid, but in Bizarro world, could the wizards at apple come up with a clever algorithm that would broadcast a proprietary compressed audio signal over BT, but carry all the necessary information to be "lossless" upon receipt and decompression on the max or pro? I don't know the first thing about data transmission and HiFi data requirements, but it is hard to believe Apple didn't see this coming...
Yeah, I know, "don't Bogart that joint", but I had to ask...
 
"We love our customers". At some point some on here will finally get it, this company cares about one thing, and one thing only, your money.
 
Orange Bat said:
I am also a classically trained musician and sometime audio engineer. I can definitely tell the difference between lossless and lossy audio. The difference to my ear is generally in the overtones and silences. Lossless just has a much more natural sound than lossy codecs do. However, the best recording you can hear without going directly to masters are on record albums. But record albums are a pain to store properly, not portable, and degrade easily. IMO, analog still beats digital in pure quality, but digital gets better all the time. Digital is in fact good enough that I would never make an analog recording as it’s just too inconvenient and not worth the little extra quality just so somebody can listen through a pair of cheap, $10 headphones. And in the end, that’s the real issue. Audio quality is only as good as the equipment your using. If you don’t have decent equipment you don’t need lossless.
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fun fact a big reason people prefer analog over digital is that digital is too good for our ears, we tend to prefer the sound of records due to not actually having a better definition but a softer reproduction of sound, there more noise in a record playback than there is in a perfect digital playback.

as animals, our ears pretty junk.
 
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krspkbl said:
It seems you might be able to listen to lossless on AirPod Max with a wire connection. Airpods/airpods pro = nope. Not supported on bluetooth.

i’m sure next gen airpods will tho. Start saving up.
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The battery in one of my AirPods is starting to go anyway. Good old built in obsolescence.

I'm still not sure anyway, that t3.com article is a bit ambiguous about it, and apple.com only says "Note that Hi-Res Lossless requires external equipment such as a USB digital to analog converter." Doesn't mention any requirements for non-hi-res lossless. I wonder if they're going to upgrade the firmware on AirPods to support it.

It would be rather odd for Apple to:

a) Release a service that no Apple headphones can utilise
b) Release a new entry level AirPods that plays higher quality music than the recently released Max
c) Provide two types of lossless if the lower quality one isn't designed for wireless
d) Not mention it on the webpage
 
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Did anyone expect lossless audio over Bluetooth? I didn’t. Even with the wire a converter was always going to be necessary. Also lossless audio will use so much data.
 
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MrLoL said:
View attachment 1776220
https://twitter.com/x/status/1394349176020815875

oh boy
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This is the kind of thing where it becomes abundantly clear that this is a massive company where teams of people working on companion products/services do not talk to each other.

Surely a product manager working with AirPods Max would have made sure these brand new headphones would be compatible (via lightning) with a lossless audio codec that the Apple Music team was going to release 6 months later. We likely won't see a new generation of AirPods Max till 2023 or 2024, so I don't think this is a case of holding back a feature to sell a new model.
 
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Hope they at least offer a lossless lightning adapter exchange for us suckers that already got the Max AND the adapter.
 
skategeezer said:
There is not a pair of Bluetooth headphones that will support this either.
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Don't waste your breath. It's highly possible that some are paid people to come here to post one-liners to purposely upset the forum. Had this been any other tech company nobody would care. They would simply say, "Awesome update! I've got some high-end headphones will work great with the new lossless feature."
 
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I just, I can't, I can't believe what I'm reading! Let's review the timeline of events:

2017: Apple removes the headphone jack, because only Apple has the courage™ to usher in the future of wireless audio.

2020: Apple releases $500 headphones that only support wireless audio, because see above about courage and the future.

2021: Apple Announces that the highest quality music on their own streaming service won't work with wireless headphones. They suggest customers buy a headphone jack adapter.

I don't even care about lossless audio. I just want my damn headphone jack back! 😭
 
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When it says "Apple confirms that lossless audio can be listened to on an iPhone" does that mean just through he iPhone speaker?

For the AirPods Max it says "AirPods Max will also not support lossless audio over the Lightning cable, Apple told Micah Singleton" so assume no headphones plugged in via a lightening dongle to the iPhone would get lossless.
 
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Drama.

I am super excited about lossless. I will listen on a system that will do it justice, I never in a million years would have an expectation that it would stream over bluetooth for f sake.
 
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WOW! thats gotta hurt. Spend $550 for headphones and they don't even support the new HI FI streaming.

OUCH

Almost as bad as spending $6500 Plus on a Mac Pro 7.1 only to find out in 2 years Intel Processor support will be dropped.
 
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