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

Hate to give an "I told you so" but this is exactly why I was so against them getting rid of the headphone jack on iPhones. Most musicians and audiophiles I know were livid when the iPhone 7 came out because we knew then that Bluetooth wouldn't cut it for 24 bit truly lossless audio even though it's "more convenient". We lost the ability to use our higher spec headphones with our iPhones without a dongle, but more importantly, the iPhone lost its ability to do onboard A/D conversion via the built in sound card, which at least could've handled hi-res Apple Music bitrates. It wouldn't be the best way to listen, but at least you would've had the audio in 24 bit/192 delivered to your ears without the need for extra equipment.

Looking ahead, now we're in a situation where the hardware on a device Apple released over 5 years ago (iPhone 6s) is more capable of delivering a service Apple is releasing in 2021, than the flagship iPhone in this current release cycle. It's nuts.
 
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DotCom2 said:
Excuse my total ignorance on all this stuff. I'm happy just listening to music from my iPhone to my AirPods. But you mentioned "Sonos". I do have Sonos speakers all over my house and Apple Music subscription. My ignorant question is, will this new music feature benefit the sound coming out of my Sonos speakers? 🥴
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Sonos supports up to 192Kbps audio I believe, so provided Apple exposes hifi audio to Sonos then yes. Qobuz provides high quality lossless audio to Spotify.
 
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Maybe Apple is about to announce new AirPods that can support lossless? I just can't imagine Apple would introduce lossless when its trend-setting and highly popular AirPods can't support lossless. That does not add up and if new AirPods are not on the way, Apple Music subscribers will be dumping AirPods for a competitor. Now does that sounds like Apple? Nope, it doesn't.
 
Sorry, there’s 9 pages of comments already after only about 1½ hours and I haven’t gone thru it all, but if Lossless Audio needs a physical DAC to work, does that mean Apple Music connected via CarPlay would work?
 
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This is very un-Apple-like. They must have known about the lossless feature coming when designing AirPods Max.

Get a lossless upgrade to an existing $9.95/month service for free, but spend another $500 for new pair of Max 2 headphones? I hope they wouldn't be so stupid. Nor getting people to wire up again when first teaching the customers to go wireless for years.

Also, Apple already supports wireless HD lossless audio with CarPlay, using Wifi.
 
thesimpledrummer said:
Hate to give an "I told you so" but this is exactly why I was so against them getting rid of the headphone jack on iPhones. Most musicians and audiophiles I know were livid when the iPhone 7 came out because we knew then that Bluetooth wouldn't cut it for 24 bit truly lossless audio even though it's "more convenient". We lost the ability to use our higher spec headphones with our iPhones without a dongle, but more importantly, the iPhone lost its ability to do onboard A/D conversion via the built in sound card, which at least could've handled hi-res Apple Music bitrates. It wouldn't be the best way to listen, but at least you would've had the audio in 24 bit/192 delivered to your ears without the need for extra equipment.

Looking ahead, now we're in a situation where the hardware on a device Apple released over 5 years ago (iPhone 6s) is more capable of delivering a service Apple is releasing in 2021, than the flagship iPhone in this current release cycle. It's nuts.
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I don't see the problem with the apple dongle. It's tiny, $10, and has a perfectly serviceable 24bit/192khz DAC with enough amplifier output for most headphones. If you have high impedance headphones you already have a beefy headphone amplifier anyway.
 
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So owning AirPods max and pros I kinda saw this coming, wish it weren’t the case but Bluetooth is to blame (although apple should let us plug in the AirPod max)

at least this should work on my HomePods though…

but it does say AirPods support the spatial (of course) and Dolby - what exactly would Dolby do? I’m assuming it’s better in some way to the regular compressed version we listen to now?
 
Unregistered 4U said:
Would this be the same Steven Jobs that included a recessed headphone jack on the first iPhone because he didn’t like how a flat connector would have looked with the curved back? Even though that meant that many headphones couldn’t be used without… a headphone to headphone dongle? AND, notably moved the headphone jack from the top of the devices to the bottom? THAT Steven Jobs?
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moving it to the bottom makes perfect sense tho since it keeps it more out of the way when holding. also if you go from natural use position to your pocket, the phone ends up upside down, making the bottom jack more useful for a cable sticking out of your pocket.
 
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vagos said:
People....

All wireless headphones DO NOT support loseless. All of them. By nature. It's science.
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Exactly, wireless is a choice of convenience over audio quality. I don't understand why someone interested in lossless would buy APM in the first place... Much better options for $550 if you care about lossless.
 
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Hi-res audio is snake oil. I'm a classical musician with a 25 year career and I took the ABX test and could not hear any difference. Yes, of course there are people who can, but they are highly specialized audio and media pros at the top of their careers; 0.00001% of the general population. Apples knows this, but will sell increased bitrates and new equipment to people who need the best of everything and who think they can hear the difference.
 
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topdrawer said:
moving it to the bottom makes perfect sense tho since it keeps it more out of the way when holding. also if you go from natural use position to your pocket, the phone ends up upside down, making the bottom jack more useful for a cable sticking out of your pocket.
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As a side benefit, yes, BUT, unsurprisingly, it simplified the layout of the internals to have all external connections on one side. The changes were for functionality, not for any “love” of the headphone jack.
 
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They’d do well to bring that 3.5mm diameter worth of “courage” back to their i-devices and also consider why their costliest headphones cannot be used to listen to their best audio output. This is becoming beyond funny, but I am sure they are making a DAC-enabled dongle to sell to us.
 
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I'm confused why the Airpod's Max wouldn't support lossless over the lighting to 3.5 cable. at that point you're basically taking any processing out of the equation on the headphone side, and AirPods max would be the same as a 10 dollar cheap pair of headphones in terms of source-destination. I'm sure we'll get better clarification on this in the future. My big take away is that dolby atmos will be supported wirelessly over all headphones, not just airpod's. it's arguably the bigger takeaway for many (although i myself will LOVE listening to lossless over my wired Shure SE-535's and apparently the HomePod too?).
 
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JosephAW said:
Yea! Return of wired headsets. :p
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They shot themselves in the foot on this, I have Shure Aonic 5 that came wired, everyone was laughing at me for still using it wired but you can change it to Bluetooth with an adapter, I use the AirPods pro whenever I don’t want to carry the Aonics or use them for spatial audio while watching tv and stuff but I for one probably benefit from the lightning to 3.5mm and usb-c to 3.5mm wired adapters.

I use high res audio apps on my devices but it doesn’t benefit from the fact that it can’t connect to Apple Music.

I feel that Apple will be forced to release upgrades of their earphones and headphones BUT i always felt that paying 550 for a headphone device that only benefits from the Apple ecosystem was A huge no from no and this announcement just validated what I suspected in the first place.
 
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