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AirPods Max Won't Directly Support Lossless Apple Music Over Lightning
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Can AirPods Max owners hear the violin I'm playing?
That's what's so frustrating about lossless audio going mainstream. It's still something that many will not have the right equipment for or even understand, so why is it mainstream? Just because of marketing, I guess, "Hifi/lossless = sounds better" but it's not that simple. You need the right equipment to be able to tell that it sounds better. Apple's audio hardware (AirPods/HomePod) doesn't match up with the lossless audio they're now offering. When they offer a portable DAC or DAP with 4.4mm output and a pair of open-back planar headphones, I'll think they're serious about audiophile quality.
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Glad I bought those wh1000xm4 on sale. I'm curious if my worn out eardrums will even be able to tell the difference in quality, though.
Pretty sure that is the case. You don’t actually gain much from wired APM use for said reason
This is what happens when you run a company with ridiculously paranoid silos, where no division ever is allowed to talk to another. That might have worked in Steve Jobs times when the company was smaller and the overarching founder throned above everyone and was the connective piece. But now?
Nope, its not a cable issue. Its that the AirPod lineup is designed to be digital. Just like every other wireless headphone on the market. Even wireless/NR/Digital headphones that support standard analog connections are still designed for the signal to be processed before sending to the speakers. Bose NR wireless headphones sound like garbage if not "powered."
The point is for people who have audio setups that can actually get benefit out of the lossless signal. People with external docs and amps and speakers or headphones with external amps. AirPlay, for example, is CD quality (16/44) lossless. It's designed to work over Wifi where you have the bandwidth. Their are wireless steamers that can do better than CD quality lossless, but they are all external units and proprietary protocols like Rune, Qobux, Tidal, etc...
Name a pair of non-analog headphones that support true lossless. Ill wait. If you want lossless, you can buy a $2 pair of wired headphones on Amazon. Guess what though, it won't come anywhere close to the AirPod line. And no, LDAC isn't lossless.
"According to Sony, LDAC compresses data streams down to a maximum of 990kbps. That bitrate then drops to 660kbps and again to 330kbps as Bluetooth connection quality diminishes. Even 990kbps is insufficient for the higher bitrates demanded by lossless CD-quality audio carriage: typically anywhere between 600kbps and 1411kbps. A lossless hi-res stream, therefore, would call for kbps in their thousands. LDAC can’t get close. And neither can any other Bluetooth audio codec where maximum bitrates fall below LDAC’s 990kbps: Qualcomm aptX HD (570kbps), AAC (320kbps) or SBC (342kbps)."
Don't count on it unless they build something off of wifi or something else that neither will work with anything but Apple products. I think the best we can expect is a wired headphone that still converts the analog signal to digital for processing, but at a higher bitrate than the current AirPod lineup (or anything else that exists today I would expect.)
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The lossless stuff is mostly stupid, and Apple knows this. I knew they couldn’t announce it without some buried lede that really sells it down the line.
Spatial Audio for actual damn audio is that sell. Sony used to incorporate some really kewl configurable chit like this in their headphones. Alas, XM4 chopping block killed it along with AptX.
Spatial Audio for actual damn audio is that sell. Sony used to incorporate some really kewl configurable chit like this in their headphones. Alas, XM4 chopping block killed it along with AptX.
It’s really just that spatial audio is the only thing that matters from this, even for users here (ABX etc etc). It they ****ed that up or do I’d be concerned.
It's not really frustrating at all. Now that we have the bandwidth, lossless music should simply be the default. Any lossy compression is simply bad for archival purposes or future proofing.
That is exactly the case, and it's not dumb at all. The AD->DA conversation is so it can do DSP... and why the headphones sound so amazing. It's the same reason all wireless headphones sound respectable. I have never heard a digital designed headphone sound good on just an analog signal, because they are designed for wireless or NR. Really good analog headphones need an external amp to sound good. All wireless headphones need an internal amp and that is the main use case they are designed for. To sound good with the internal amp.
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I'm glad to see more lossless music available and streaming services getting better. It's just that the hardware needs to match the quality of the audio (Apple's in a unique position since they also make hardware, unlike Tidal, Spotify, or the others). I think there's some mismatch between the marketing and what this really is.
Are you absolutely sure? I suspect that analog signal is being converted to digital and not maintaining the lossless quality. If you turn off all of the power in the WH1000XM4... so the headphones are only powered by the analog signal... I would bet the sound quality doesn't compare at all to the way they sound with the power enabled.
Absolutely. The baffling bit here is limiting the DAC in the APM to 16/44 in supposedly high end headphones.
The DAC in the APM is the limiting factor here. Not the cable.
I don’t understand people being upset. Were the Airpods Max ever advertised as supporting lossless or did people buying these things months ago have an expectation of it supporting lossless? I have no frame of reference but are headphones that do support lossless available for a similar price?
Maybe someday a wireless headphone manufacturer will build something with an onboard DAC similar to a 24Bit 192KHz Wolfson DAC, but I doubt it. Wireless headphone purchasers generally don't care about all that and audiophiles would likely never buy any speaker/headphone setup that is wireless regardless of how high the bits or KHz are marketed.
But the DAC would still reside at the conversion point and not the headphones, thus they get the signal the same way. No, they won’t sound the same but it’s still ‘lossless’ based on the original post.
“That the $549 AirPods Max do not work with Apple lossless is sure to upset some fans, but there is debate about whether most people can even tell the difference between standard and lossless audio formats.”
I don’t understand including this in the article. Why be apologists, or mock those for not being engineers and really hoping/assuming their headphones with a wire would work as well as other headphones with a wire. Imagine if every story for a tech iteration on a product just says “there is debate whether people can tell the difference from the last version”. Why
I don’t understand including this in the article. Why be apologists, or mock those for not being engineers and really hoping/assuming their headphones with a wire would work as well as other headphones with a wire. Imagine if every story for a tech iteration on a product just says “there is debate whether people can tell the difference from the last version”. Why
I'd also like to see if someone more knowledgeable can confirm. I usually turn on my headphones even when wired for the noise cancelling, but if in a quiet area, I can't tell the difference powered or off.