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LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Airpods Max and Airpods *Pro* will not support it???

What a joke. This is Samsung-level ridiculousness.

Why?. It was to be expected, since no Apple bluetooth headphones support a "lossless" or high resolution audio codec for bluetooth. Its literally impossible to playback ALAC as is on Airpods via Bluetooth (standard, pro, or Max). They only support the AAC codec, and the AAC codec is lossy.

What they will do over bluetooth is play Dolby Atmos (in its lossy flavor).

Two different things.
 
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I hope they're paving the way for a new wireless protocol that's maybe WiFi based. Doing the LDAC conversion on the units themselves would be a big competitive advantage, but bluetooth just isn't broad enough yet.
 
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You obviously know nothing about lossless audio, so you've obviously never cared about it in your life. So why is this suddenly "super frustrating"?

People have been listening to lossless audio via iPhone for many years, by:

- Using special apps that can play back FLAC files, of the user's own collection.
- Using Lightning headphones that also have an onboard DAC.

Nothing has changed here, except part 1. With Apple providing lossless tracks via Apple
I didn’t say you couldn’t listen to lossless over iPhone. I just said it’s frustrating a 550 buck pair of headphones can’t do lossless over a wired connection
 
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So Apple currently sells no hardware on which you can play lossless audio 100% through Apple devices. That’s nuts. I really don’t understand Apple’s decisions sometimes.
 
Wondering about Airplay, and this... I swear I read fifteen years ago that Airplay could play lossless audio with the Airport Express. Hopefully a nice addition to Sonos speakers since they can tie in to Apple Music.

In terms of bluetooth, and limited bandwidth, no surprise. As is today, if I'm jogging on a treadmill, playing a song, and using a bluetooth sugar sensor, chances have it that there isn't enough bandwidth for all five devices... treadmill, watch, airpods, sensor, phone.
 
What's embarrassing are the amount of people pretending to care about lossless audio today, who have no idea what it is.
I never said I care about lossless audio, because I don't. I just think it's a joke that a $600 pair of headphones can't make use of that same company's high-fidelity audio service. It's not like they didn't know this was coming.
 
See this was my very question when the rumors started, and I was right.
 
I just want to point out the irony here that Apple has now come full circle on the headphone jack.

the new features they're adding will now require a physically plugged in Analogue headphones, which you will likely require now an adapter to return the 3.5mm jack back to our iOS devices just to take advantage of the new features.

and people thought I was nuts when I still call out the stupidity of removing the analogue audio port.
 
$20 says that many of the people here complaining about Apple’s $550 headphones “not playing lossless” (which they do, specifically wired though) wouldn’t be able to tell the difference anyway.

My boy’s mother says can’t tell the difference between her wireless gaming headset and my HD6xx’s. To me the wireless headset is disgusting. Hell, the working one used to be mine before I got my Sennies.

Most people are happy with dirtybuds or basic AirPods.
 
Uhm, LDAC/AptX LL seems to support lossless over BT. Perhaps it is apple here who is really behind the technical curve. But the point is can one even hear the difference that is the most important question of all.

LDAC only supports lossless in very specific scenarios and it cannot combine the use of additional bit depth and higher sampling rate and lossless transmission.

You can get 16-bit, 44.1kHz lossless in ideal conditions.


When the codec is set to 16 bits/44.1kHz at 909 kbps (or 16 bits/48kHz at 990 kbps) LDAC can stream lossless audio that is identical in quality to (or slightly higher than) Audio CD or standard resolution uncompressed audio.

303/606/909 kbps at 88.2/44.1 kHz with depth of 32, 24 or 16 bits. So it will vary between 303-909 kbps depending on the connection. You will only be able to get lossless transmission using the higher bitrate which will only be achieved in ideal scenarios close to the device.


Soundguys did a test of LDAC:


Actually using LDAC’s highest quality settings can be tough depending on your setup and listening environment. Most smartphones I tested default to 660kbps or lower in good conditions, but that’s not a guarantee. The only way for consumers to change this is to dive into Android’s Developer Settings, hidden away in the operating system’s menus. Furthermore, the codec pushes Bluetooth’s data speeds to such limits that reliable connections for “Hi-Res” are far from guaranteed. Even 660kbps will struggle in less than ideal environments.

Ultimately, LDAC users are likely to spend a fair bit of time listening to the 330kbps version. Unfortunately, the available resolution and 18kHz cut-off frequency are objectively inferior to CD quality, Qualcomm’s aptX, and SBC.


They actually concluded that it was inferior to aptX and even SBC in real-world use.



aptX LL does not support lossless. LL is their low-latency codec. Focusing on lowering latency so it's usable when combined with video. It only provides 352 kbps.

aptX HD is the high-quality one but does not support lossless either:

This involves the dynamic application of "near lossless" coding for those sections of audio where completely lossless coding is impossible due to bandwidth constraints. "Near lossless" coding maintains a high-definition audio quality, retaining audio frequencies up to 20 kHz and a dynamic range of at least 120 dB.
 
So Apple currently sells no hardware on which you can play lossless audio 100% through Apple devices. That’s nuts. I really don’t understand Apple’s decisions sometimes.
But this is nothing new or anything that comes with this announcement. That has always been the case.

I'm just baffled by the comments in this thread.

I'll happily enjoy this on my iMac with my external audio device and wired headphones.
 
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$20 says that many of the people here complaining about Apple’s $550 headphones “not playing lossless” (which they do, specifically wired though) wouldn’t be able to tell the difference anyway.

My boy’s mother says can’t tell the difference between her wireless gaming headset and my HD6xx’s. To me the wireless headset is disgusting. Hell, the working one used to be mine before I got my Sennies.

Most people are happy with dirtybuds or basic AirPods.


i guess your boy's mother represents most of us?
 
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