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

[maxsquared]

Would something as little as this work? It does say 24bit/192khz

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www.amazon.co.uk

 

[ebernet]

not true lossless audio are supported on iphone thats why there is amazon hd, tidal and other streaming apps available. Bluetooth connection can support 16/44.1 khz and 24/48khz which is above CD quality or lossless. IF you go beyond 24/96khz-192khz you need additional equipment or external devices. do not be fooled by this article its a ********

No, there is no lossless Bluetooth protocol. Have you not been paying any attention? Yes, the iPhone supports 24x48 with their built in DACs so if you had a way to get analog out you could (so built in audio can be lossless, but that is using the built in speakers). You can also connect a DAC to a USB iPad or to a camera connection kit USB adapter and get the same res or higher, and you can use AirPlay to get out lossless 24x48 to Airplay 2 speakers or stereo, which would be lossless. But Bluetooth? NO.

 

[genovelle]

So an over $500 set of headphones can't play high res audio? This is a real facepalm for Apple here.

It can play hi res audio just like any other high end headphones but Apple doesn’t consider it completely lossless because you loose some data when you convert to analog and travel across a wire.

 

[Ansath]

Here we go. Definitive info direct from Apple, after people were just guessing and assuming earlier in the thread:

About lossless audio in Apple Music - Apple Support

Learn about lossless audio in Apple Music and how to turn it on or off for your device.

support.apple.com

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Here we go. Definitive info direct from Apple, after people were just guessing and assuming earlier in the thread:

View attachment 1779740

About lossless audio in Apple Music - Apple Support

Learn about lossless audio in Apple Music and how to turn it on or off for your device.

support.apple.com

Huh, so maybe we’ll see a usb to lightning cable.

 

[ebernet]

Huh, so maybe we’ll see a usb to lightning cable.

You mean instead of the camera connection kit, a Lightning male to USB female adapter of some kind? I'd say just make one (camera connection kit) without the SD slot so as we can still connect power to it. Or find a way to supply power in some way to the new adapter. Might not be necessary I guess if you do Induction/Qi/Magsafe charging when you have the adapter cable plugged in. Welcome to dongletown....

It is really high time apple replace the lightning connecter across the board with USB-C, you know? Would avoid stupid crap like this....

 

[AppleRobert]

So even if you have camera adapter and audioquest dragonfly you cannot get hi Rez audio from apple Music through lightning, correct?? Color me confused since you can get complete lossless using tidal, Qobuz etc using iphone or iPad through lightning.

 

[ErikGrim]

So even if you have camera adapter and audioquest dragonfly you cannot get hi Rez audio from apple Music through lightning, correct?? Color me confused since you can get complete lossless using tidal, Qobuz etc using iphone or iPad through lightning.

The DAC in the AirPod Max will downsample it to 16/44 yes

 

[deevey]

So even if you have camera adapter and audioquest dragonfly you cannot get hi Rez audio from apple Music through lightning, correct?? Color me confused since you can get complete lossless using tidal, Qobuz etc using iphone or iPad through lightning.

If you have the lightning camera adaptor you CAN stream Hi Def Lossless to analogue headphones.

However, you cannot stream full HD lossless to AirPods Max without them downsampling.

 

[ebernet]

So even if you have camera adapter and audioquest dragonfly you cannot get hi Rez audio from apple Music through lightning, correct?? Color me confused since you can get complete lossless using tidal, Qobuz etc using iphone or iPad through lightning.

Of course you can. I don't know why there is so much confusion here. The camera connection kit gives you the USB port, into which you connect the Dragonfly.

People are conflating two things. Bluetooth will never give you lossless or hi res. Any wired headphones plugged into a DAC connected via a camera connection kit will achieve whatever the DAC supports. The AirPods Max ARE NOT normal wired headphones, however any other brand, and all the beats that support real 1/8 analog cables will. The AirPods Max achieve their sound chops using on board intelligence and sound shaping, you are better off connecting them over Bluetooth and just enjoying their high quality sound than using the lightning to 1/8 inch cable and a DAC. The Apple Lightning to 1/8 cable adapter (NOT the cable for the Max headphones, the $9 adapter) is a DAC, it is a 24x48 lossless DAC at its maximum. It will work nicely with all those wired headphones as well, but you should NOT use ANY cable with the AirPods Max. As Apple states VERY clearly:

Can I listen to lossless audio using the AirPods Max Lightning to 3.5mm Audio Cable?​

The Lightning to 3.5 mm Audio Cable was designed to allow AirPods Max to connect to analog sources for listening to movies and music. AirPods Max can be connected to devices playing Lossless and Hi-Res Lossless recordings with exceptional audio quality. However, given the analog-to-digital conversion in the cable, the playback will not be completely lossless.

 

[ebernet]

If you have the lightning camera adaptor you CAN stream Hi Def Lossless to analogue headphones.

However, you cannot stream full HD lossless to AirPods Max without them downsampling.

The DAC in the AirPod Max will downsample it to 16/44 yes

I am not sure Apple Robert is asking about the AirPods Max. We need to split these different topics apart:

1. NO Bluetooth Headphones can do Lossless NOR Hi Res audio.

2. The AirPods Max, while there is a lightning to 1/8 cable for them, are NOT analog wired headphones, so they will never achieve lossless. The cable basically converts an analog signal into the same AAC BT CODEC that the AirPods Max use. I am unsure where you are getting this "downsample to 16/44". There is a DAC in the headphones that converts the Digital AAC CODEC to Analog to drive the speakers, and there is a DAC in the cable that converts analog signals coming out of a headphone jack into the digital BT CODEC that the headphones get. You are basically going Analog > Digital > Analog, with the digital stage being a conversion to AAC, which is NOT lossless.

3. ANY true analog headphones can be plugged into a 3rd party USB DAC using the Camera Connection kit to achieve Hi Res audio (if the DAC supports > 24x48). The $9 Apple lightning to 1/8 adapter will supply ANY real analog headphones (again, read as NOT AirPods Max) with lossless audio up to 24x48.


You will most likely not notice any difference connecting your AirPods Max to the cable to a high end DAC. You are going through multiple conversions and reductions. You'll probably get GREAT sound playing hi res files in your music app and connecting the AirPods Max using BT, but it is not lossless nor hi res. But since the source in the music app is hi res, the conversion (dither, Sample Rate Convert, compress to AAC) on the fly from hi res audio to the Bluetooth AAC CODEC will give you remarkably good sound.

 

[ebernet]

The point I'm making is that cable, the one for the AirPods Max, was made for those situations where the device you are monitoring does NOT have Bluetooth. It is not for any other purpose, If your device (what you are listening to) has Bluetooth you are better off using Bluetooth. There are rare situations where this is not the case (you are listening to Apple Music from a cheap Android phone with poor Bluetooth CODEC support, like no AAC BT), but now we are really getting in the weeds....

 

[deevey]

You will most likely not notice any difference connecting your AirPods Max to the cable to a high end DAC. You are going through multiple conversions and reductions. You'll probably get GREAT sound playing hi res files in your music app and connecting the AirPods Max using BT, but it is not lossless nor hi res. But since the source in the music app is hi res, the conversion (dither, Sample Rate Convert, compress to AAC) on the fly from hi res audio to the Bluetooth AAC CODEC will give you remarkably good sound.

Do we know for a fact that Apple converts a perfectly good digital signal to AAC or are we speculating? Honestly I've been looking and haven't found an absolute definitive answer (link if you have one).

I would have thought it would be far easier to upsample the AAC output rather than add AAC encoding to perfectly good digital source:

Bluetooth AAC > 24/48 DAC > DSP > AMP

And in wired mode to simply to skip the bluetooth step and replace with the ACD that the cable has.

24/48 ACD > 24/48 DAC > DSP > AMP

I don't understand why would they bother with another conversion step when I would have guessed that most of the signal chain is already 24/48 capable ?

 

[Ansath]

Do we know for a fact that Apple converts a perfectly good digital signal to AAC or are we speculating? Honestly I've been looking and haven't found an absolute definitive answer (link if you have one).

I would have thought it would be far easier to upsample the AAC output rather than add AAC encoding to perfectly good digital source:

Bluetooth AAC > 24/48 DAC > DSP > AMP

And in wired mode to simply to skip the bluetooth step and replace with the ACD that the cable has.

24/48 ACD > 24/48 DAC > DSP > AMP

I don't understand why would they bother with another conversion step when I would have guessed that most of the signal chain is already 24/48 capable ?

There’s a lot of information on Apple’s support page, previously linked. See if that answers your question.

About lossless audio in Apple Music - Apple Support

Learn about lossless audio in Apple Music and how to turn it on or off for your device.

support.apple.com

 

[AppleRobert]

Well I used tidal for awhile and now Qobuz, the goal is to dump that membership since Apple is giving lossless for free with Apple Music. Just got to dump the downloaded music and download it again. I don’t care about the AirPods max, I have other good headphones anyway. Guess I should have said that in my post.

Thanks for the clarification folks. Oh and I better see nice shiny colors on the dragonfly light up when I use this Apple lossless music.

 

[deevey]

There’s a lot of information on Apple’s support page, previously linked. See if that answers your question.

About lossless audio in Apple Music - Apple Support

Learn about lossless audio in Apple Music and how to turn it on or off for your device.

support.apple.com

From Apples Support page:

"However, given the analog-to-digital conversion in the cable, the playback will not be completely lossless."

Clear as mud. The information does not say anything about being converted to AAC ... it could just as easily be 16/44.1 which would be actual CD quality.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[maxsquared]

From Apples Support page:

"However, given the analog-to-digital conversion in the cable, the playback will not be completely lossless."

Clear as mud. The information does not say anything about being converted to AAC ... it could just as easily be 16/44.1 which would be actual CD quality.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

It would have been converted to AAC, or doubtfully other kind of codec, how else can a headphone output digital signal?

 

[deevey]

It would have been converted to AAC, or doubtfully other kind of codec, how else can a headphone output digital signal?

The AAC conversion, appears to be done on the source device. e.g. a Spotify Ogg is converted to AAC 255Kbps prior to bluetooth transmission rather than the conversion done in the headphones.

Why would the headphones DAC not just take a digital signal directly from the cables built in ADC

I'm just guessing that alot of the chips are off the shelf apple parts. Re-using the DAC/ADC from, lets say an iPhone which is capable of 24/48 and bypassing the Bluetooth aspect entirely when a lightning cable is used.

It just seems to me that a further realtime conversion to Lossy AAC within the headphones makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

*edit as writing*

"Apple tells The Verge that when you play a 24-bit / 48 kHz Apple Music lossless track from an iPhone into the AirPods Max using both the cable and Lightning dongle, the audio is converted to analog and then re-digitized to 24-bit / 48 kHz. That re-digitization step is the reason that Apple can't say you're hearing pure lossless audio; it's not an identical match to the source."

Again, maybe I'm completely wrong

 

[ebernet]

Do we know for a fact that Apple converts a perfectly good digital signal to AAC or are we speculating? Honestly I've been looking and haven't found an absolute definitive answer (link if you have one).

I would have thought it would be far easier to upsample the AAC output rather than add AAC encoding to perfectly good digital source:

Bluetooth AAC > 24/48 DAC > DSP > AMP

And in wired mode to simply to skip the bluetooth step and replace with the ACD that the cable has.

24/48 ACD > 24/48 DAC > DSP > AMP

I don't understand why would they bother with another conversion step when I would have guessed that most of the signal chain is already 24/48 capable ?

I made a presumption about the analog to lightning cable for the Max based on the existing chain and their continued insistence that the BT connection provides the best audio possible with the Max

UPDATE: Based on the verge information of the ADC in the Max headphone cables I would gather the headphones have a 24x48 DAC. So what deevey says is spot on

 

[ebernet]

From Apples Support page:

"However, given the analog-to-digital conversion in the cable, the playback will not be completely lossless."

Clear as mud. The information does not say anything about being converted to AAC ... it could just as easily be 16/44.1 which would be actual CD quality.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

It could be, that is true, but that is not lossless, and Apple has never (In so far as I know) released information about the DAC in the Max themselves. All we know for sure is the final destination (the speakers) is analog, the input with the cable is analog, and there is an analog to digital conversion happening in the cable, and then a digital to analog conversion happening in the phones.

Personally I'd rather have a quality DAC attached to my iPhone, and a quality pair of NON Max headphones attached to that DAC lol. Or if I am using the Max, use them with BT...

UPDATE: Based on the verge information of the ADC in the Max headphone cables I would gather the headphones have a 24x48 DAC

 

[ebernet]

"Apple tells The Verge that when you play a 24-bit / 48 kHz Apple Music lossless track from an iPhone into the AirPods Max using both the cable and Lightning dongle, the audio is converted to analog and then re-digitized to 24-bit / 48 kHz. That re-digitization step is the reason that Apple can't say you're hearing pure lossless audio; it's not an identical match to the source."

Again, maybe I'm completely wrong

Cool. No you are not wrong. Some new information there. So the analog to Max cable is a 24x48 ADC. Not BT AAC, NOT 16/44.1. So yes, a better DAC plugged into your iPhone to create the analog for the cable would provide a better source for the 24x48 ADC in the Max headphone cable. The headphones themselves then have a 24x48 DAC to get the audio back to the speakers...

 

[deevey]

Cool. No you are not wrong. Some new information there. So the analog to Max cable is a 24x48 ADC. Not BT AAC, NOT 16/44.1. So yes, a better DAC plugged into your iPhone to create the analog for the cable would provide a better source for the 24x48 ADC in the Max headphone cable. The headphones themselves then have a 24x48 DAC to get the audio back to the speakers...

I think Apple have completely miscommunicated when trying to explain things.

They have been too vague in details and overly cautious in their explanations to appease the audiophiles, and too technical to appease everyone else who now think they might be getting shortchanged.

 

[AppleRobert]

Good thread, thanks folks. Just let us less versed with this stuff know when this is all sorted what the best way is to take advantage of hi Rez within Apple Music. And if the AirPods max are indeed a viable way as well to do so.

 

[ebernet]

Now if we can only get some answers on the ~80k tracks I have in iTunes/Music app that are 24x48-24x96 ALAC files that I recorded myself or bought from LivePhish/Nugs/etc and whether those will be re-uploaded as ALAC24 instead of the 256 AACs they were converted to before uploads....

 

[ebernet]

I think Apple have completely miscommunicated when trying to explain things.

They have been too vague in details and overly cautious in their explanations to appease the audiophiles, and too technical to appease everyone else who now think they might be getting shortchanged.

Yeah if Apple would have just published initially what the AirPods Max do (24x48 DAC) and what the AirPods Max cable does (24x48 ADC) and what the lightning > female 1/8 does (24x48 DAC) we could have avoided all this confusion...


BTW for those less technically inclined, 24x48 is the sweet spot between CD quality and Hi-Res. Suitable for most live music tapers and still efficient on space. Does not require an SRC (Sample rate Convert) step when going to other audio devices (most are multiples of 48, NOT 44.1 - as in 48, 96, 192 - all the formats on DVDs and BlueRays and DATs, only CDs have the weird 44.1). 24 bit gives you the Dynamic range you require (16 million possible values per sample rather than the measly 65k of 16 bit).

Now that all the information is out I will probably be just fine outputting from my iPhone with the cheap $9 24x48 lightning > headphone jack adapter. I will go for the better DAC I already have with my Mac, where the 24x96-24x192 can feed my stereo in a better listening environment