I can tell the difference and others can too. Not everyone can and if you're one of those people then this lossless format will not be of any benefit to you. The real obnoxious thing going around these threads lately is this statement that keeps popping up. I absolutely love music. And I love high quality music. You can tell when albums have been very poorly recorded when you get into these lossless formats. And if you play music loudly, it becomes even more noticeable, as lossy formats tend to break down at high volumes while lossless remains crystal clear, regardless of the volume.
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AirPods Max Won't Directly Support Lossless Apple Music Over Lightning
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Uh. 3.5mm is how most people listen to lossless audio. There are no digital limitations to an analogue output.
I don’t think this is sarcasm. The fact is most people cannot tell the difference, and those who can have to listen very closely to notice a very subtle difference. If you’re curious, do this test ans share the results with us: http://abx.digitalfeed.net/
All the AirPods are old anyway. You need to get the newest models if you want the newest features. This is like all those mid year MacBook pros that are not compatible with the newest operating system. They release two models in one year, one that is compatible, and one that is not. By selling that half at the beginning of the year that cut off, they ensure more people are likely to upgrade earlier. It's a terrible practice but it happens every few years regardless.
Those are terrible examples.
4G and 5G cell radios were added only when the modems could achieve reasonable performance and power consumption: Phones with 4G or 5G from just a year before Apple got on board had terrible battery life when enabled. Even now Apple could have waited another year because the 5G cell service roll-out is far behind and the modems are still power hungry.
Display tech is the same. Apple hasn’t done 120 Hz yet. Other manufacturers have but until this year they had compromises like forcing you to lower the resolution to get the Hz, or being bad on power draw. When Apple gets there you will get a mature implementation that works well with no compromises. You might see it as late, but I will see it as right on time.
Anyone buying a phone just to have a new generation of cell radio or just to have a single display spec is a fool. Most people buy phones every few years, very few are buying a new phone annually; the YoY improvements stack for more than one year for the average buyer.
If only there was some kind of wire-free technology that offers more bandwith than Bluetooth, that could have been used to drop the audio data over air - at least know we know that the AirPods Pro Max will offer.
The AirPods Max had probably been in a warehouse for a long time before they decided to release them.
The AirPods Max had probably been in a warehouse for a long time before they decided to release them.
Well they haven’t been inside their building for a year.
You verbalized exactly how I felt when I read this. What a slap in the face from Apple.
AirPodsMax are only fashion items for russian hookers...if youre in the market for HiRes audio, then go for Fiio HiRes Player plus Beyerdynamic, Shure or Focal Overears...
Hey, remember that 3.5mm headphone jack that Apple dropped in 2017? The future was wireless, right? Hmm.
But, y'know, courage.
But, y'know, courage.
If the rumors and recent history are anything to go by, Apple is slowly "undoing" their mistakes:
- redesigned 14-inch/16-inch MacBook Pro will include more ports, including HDMI and MagSafe
- The butterfly keyboard has been removed from all MacBooks
I think they were pushed to release the lossless much earlier than intended to keep Spotify from stalling AM growth altogether.
As I understand it, if the source is music from iTunes or Apple Music, which are AAC, the audio won't get transcoded when you use airpods. It's just straight AAC.
I of course realise this. I'm just baffled that they didn't at least consider this for the Max (i.e. proprietary wifi connection for Apple devices, fallback to BT for other devices) where there's more energy headroom. Perhaps in a future iteration.
(Also it's not just Airplay over Wifi to stream to Homepods. They have magic real time sauce sprinkled on top)
Apple won't admit it publicly but if they were ever forced to testify for Anti-Trust reasons, I'm sure we will see the emails that admit this...
Agreed. If I were in your position I'd be pissed. That's part of the reason I wouldn't buy them. Their price is outrageous for what are ultimately BT wireless headphones. Hopefully this is a temporary thing and there will be a firmware update the bring support for the format when they are wired.
This just hasn't been what I've heard though, nor what you see in some of the more audiophile written reviews of AirPods Max, etc.
I don't think I have that good of ears, but still subbed to two services to get the lossless.
You just really notice the difference with Amazon Music HD or Tidal over Apple Music (before this coming change) even with AirPods Pro or whatever. Some speakers I don't notice it, but with AirPods when it's getting the double compression, I do.I honestly think it's the other way around. Given this announcement, I think the APM were pushed out earlier than they should have been.
I believed the same for a while, but that's not the case. The iPhone has to mix in your other audio, alerts, etc. so you are not getting the original audio file playing in your ears. Furthermore, it's more like 250 AAC that is sent to AirPods, not 256.
For real! Are any of the teams at apple actually talking to each other?
So to listen to the lossless audio on an iOS device, wired headphones are needed. iPhones have no headphone Jack.
Here's a more detailed statement that Apple gave to The Verge when using the APM with the Lightening to 3.5mm adapter;
"So the natural question becomes... well, what are you hearing in that scenario? 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."
"Is it still going to sound very good? Almost certainly. The AirPods Max sound exceptional — even with AAC over Bluetooth, and plugging in can make the experience richer. But if you’re a stickler for the technical details, this is why the AirPods Max can’t pull off lossless audio in the truest sense. It also leaves Apple in an awkward spot where other high-end headphones that do support digital audio when hard wired — over USB-C, for example — could deliver the full lossless audio that the AirPods Max can’t."
www.theverge.com
"So the natural question becomes... well, what are you hearing in that scenario? 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."
"Is it still going to sound very good? Almost certainly. The AirPods Max sound exceptional — even with AAC over Bluetooth, and plugging in can make the experience richer. But if you’re a stickler for the technical details, this is why the AirPods Max can’t pull off lossless audio in the truest sense. It also leaves Apple in an awkward spot where other high-end headphones that do support digital audio when hard wired — over USB-C, for example — could deliver the full lossless audio that the AirPods Max can’t."
Apple’s $549 AirPods Max can’t play lossless Apple Music — even when plugged in
But spatial audio might prove more important anyway.
www.theverge.com
This irks me. My pair of Maxes should not have this hardware limitation, especially not wired