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

[SanderEvers]

LDAC has its flaws – **** battery life, a lot of unnecessary stuff and poor range – often times pretty bad. Snazzy Labs has a video on it in his review of the APM

I've done my own testing and with the same song on the same headphones (Sony WH-1000XM3, which supports LDAC) and an Sony Walkman with BT and LDAC and compared to the iPhone (AAC). Using the headphones wired on high res audio sounds exactly the same as wireless over BT with LDAC, on the iPhone (AAC) sounded noticeably worse. And with a high-end audio player on iPhone and wired over lightning did sound a little bit better than Bluetooth (AAC).

 

[DotCom2]

So basically, to the average Joe, this means nothing.

 

[azmscle]

waiting apple to drop a lossless cable for airpods max at $99 🤪

The current cable for them should work just fine to play lossless.

 

[deevey]

Actually LDAC is a thing, and it supports up to 32bit. On bluetooth.

It's very good, but it's not sending uncompressed 32bit audio and even @ 16bit it cant replicate CD quality 100%.

And transmission @ 990kbps is sketchy except for ideal environments.

 

[1258186]

Use them wired and you can get lossless audio quality.

Forgive my ignorance but can you plug these things into your iPhone using a dongle?

 

[Lemon Olive]

Self explanatory really lossless…as in no quality loss high bit rate, nothing missing…… I think the major concern is Apple pre planning to pull everyone’s pants down giving them a slap, then selling you an entire new product to support it a few months later!

Given Apple's push towards wireless it is strange for them to even bother with lossless audio so many years later. What are they going to do, come out with wired Lightning AirPods that have an onboard DAC?

Unless they are planning on making WiFi headphones, nothing is going to change here.

 

[tonie walker]

The current cable for them should work just fine to play lossless.

…i believe so, but apple should update the product description

 

[Lemon Olive]

Forgive my ignorance but can you plug these things into your iPhone using a dongle?

Part of the problem here is the word "dongle". Lossless is by definition a difficult thing to preserve from start to finish and the more you put in the way the great chance you have of creating a bottleneck.

I can't tell you how many people I've assisted who thought they had lossless home theaters and a single wire or wrong connection choice broke the entire signal.

 

[brofkand]

So I am confused now. What is the point of this new feature now? Can someone breakdown this a little better?

It's mostly for people who use high-end speakers or headphones via cable or WiFi (like Sonos). At present no Bluetooth codec can support CD quality or better audio.

 

[aknabi]

Blame Bluetooth, Not Apple.

Nope, blame Apple… given the release date of the Max they knew their lossless offering was a few months away… either they should have planned to have a path to support or delay until they could support it. Apple has historically never been in a rush to intro a product until it’s done right.

 

[SpringKid]

A lot of comments not understanding the issue here. This is simply BT not providing the bandwidth needed.

 

[jonnyb098]

What's embarrassing are the amount of people pretending to care about lossless audio today, who have no idea what it is.

Exactly, the same people who use the built in speakers on their $3000 4K TV all of the sudden care about audio quality, LMAO

 

[decypher44]

So needs to be digital to analog? So, won’t work with CarPlay (lightning to USB)?

 

[Lemon Olive]

The current cable for them should work just fine to play lossless.

Nope. Lossless wasn't invented today. This has already been reviewed and discarded months ago. The 3.5mm jack can NEVER be used for lossless. Period.

 

[deevey]

…i believe so, but apple should update the product description

So far as I remember the DAC's Apple use is only capable of 16bit/44.1k

 

[MauiPa]

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

did you even read the article? It says it can support it via wired mode. Big faceplant!

 

[steevn]

Good luck finding a regular lossless consumer then, Apple! No wonder this crap is free of charge.

You would be surprised the amount of lossless consumers there are. This release wasn’t to attract AirPods users at all, it’s to attract those with high end audio equipment that don’t use Apple Music or even consider it an option.

Fwiw I have nicer upper middle range audio equipment but nowhere near high end audio equipment with no plan to ever join that high end audio community, but this announcement is no surprise to me. The spatial audio and Dolby atmos will be a nice addition though.

 

[dba415]

Pathetic as heck. Shameful Apple

 

[TheAustrianGuy]

A disaster.

 

[G46&Fbnth5]

So I am confused now. What is the point of this new feature now? Can someone breakdown this a little better?

The real new feature is Dolby Atmos / Spatial Audio content.
Lossless audio is something that will be appreciated only by few people who have appropriate equipment, while the vast majority of listeners will forget its existence very soon.

 

[Maconplasma]

Nope, blame Apple…

Nope. Blame the consumer. It's always the consumer's choice to make a purchase. Nobody forced them. This is the world of tech where things change very often. You just wanna blame Apple because it's popular to do so here even when there's no good reason to.

given the release date of the Max they knew their lossless offering was a few months away… either they should have planned to have a path to support or delay until they could support it.

Or maybe consumers don't have to be so quick to buy the latest technology just to be first on the block or on YouTube with bragging rights when they could've waited a bit.

Apple has historically never been in a rush to intro a product until it’s done right.

LMAO. Oh you were just kidding. Sorry I thought you were being serious.

 

[krspkbl]

I posted saying this would happen but it wasn’t what people wanted to here.

You need wired headset. Maybe in the future Apple will release new airpods with support over bluetooth but even then…you’re still listening wirelessly which defeats the purpose.

 

[Richrootes]

Homepods should fare better in all this confusion, being wifi based and all. At least I hope so……

 

[contacos]

No wonder it’s free when practically no one can even hear it 😅

 

[1258186]

They going to launch a replacement for bluetooth? Lol.

They don’t need to. Use a dongle and connect wired headphones.