I spent too much time listening to Led Zeppelin, and others like them, with the volume at max, in the 70s for me to be able to tell the difference between normal and hifi streaming music. For those that can hear the difference, this is a good option to have. Analog music rocks!
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Amazon Rumored to Launch High-Fidelity Music Streaming Platform By End of 2019
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That is a dubious finding that streamers and smartphone manufacturers hope casual listeners will accept at face value. It suggests that hi-fi audio is indistinguishable from lower res audio regardless of hardware. It lowers consumers expectations. For practical reasons, the finding is true. Uncompressed audio would be pointless on modest hardware. Similarly, if you tried to watch a 4K video on a lower res screen, you would be deprived of HD video's wow factor.
Hi-fi has a niche following because quality stereo equipment is expensive and complex—not because its aficionados have special hearing abilities. Visit an audio speciality retailer's listening room and feel hi-fi firsthand. Music with feel 3D compared to the audio from most small speaker devices and affordable headphones.
I hope they also include surround sound albums in the same upgrade. There's some outstanding conversions of albums in 5.1 that have absolutely no digital streaming platform.
Prepare to be disappointed - WWDC is for developers and things related to software development. Extraordinarily unlikely they'd unveil new music streaming options there.
I tried to find some info months back, and I was unable to get an answer to whether airplay is a genuinely lossless transmission method. That said, even if airplay version 1 wasn’t, I’d be surprised if airplay 2 is not completely lossless. Now up to what bitrate and sampling rate, who knows (like can it support up to 192k/24bit?). I even watched an official Apple presentation video from one of their recent WWDCs where they went over the nitty gritty of airplay 2 for app developers, and they still didn’t make it clear.
I rip CDs in Apple lossless format, and sound quality is a big deal to me, so I got the most recent airport express (airplay 2 capable) used on eBay (since it was discontinued), and I have it hooked via optical digital cable to an Onkyo TX-8140 stereo amplifier. My 128gb iPhone XR is loaded up with my ALAC files, and it sounds great to me. Best thing is it’s a super convenient setup. When I select airplay on my phone, the Onkyo amp has a feature other amps don’t have where it detects an optical signal coming in and automatically turns the amp on, so I don’t have to do anything and can just relax with the phone as my remote. The amp also has a green/energy saver ability where it turns the amp off automatically after about 20 minutes of non use, so I don’t even have to worry about turning it off. It’s a really great setup for no-compromise high fidelity listening that’s also super convenient thanks to airplay partnered with the amp’s capabilities.
Apple used to own digital music. Through mismanagement, they allowed other services like Spotify and Tidal to take giant chunks of market share. They also used to be the music lovers destination. And again, they’ve lost that title to Spotify and Tidal through their disproportionate focus on hip-hop and rap. If you can’t see how they went from Way out in front first to a distant second, especially culturally, you’re not paying attention.
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I’m aware of what WWDC is, thanks. They typically announce changes to the OS and this would definitely qualify as that. With opportunities for developers to tie into any changes in the Music app. So it could be announced there. Or with a product launch in the fall.
They already have a good lossy format (AAC) that can be driven at different bit rates, and a lossless format (ALAC) that can be driven up to 384kHz/32bit. I wouldn't expect they'd be adding anything special to the OS for this, it'd simply be a matter of announcing that Apple Music now supports "super high quality sound" or some such.
Apple Music started way after Spotify and Apple took a lot of Spotify‘s share.
Whether they want and need a bigger share is a business decision. They are big enough to be relevant.
Apple current approach to music is at "good enough" level". "Best available option" seems utopia with current management. Can't understand why some people here don't like others having more options.
Meh. Hi-fi music remains a niche market. People are so used to 256-320 MP3/AAC and have traded quality for convenience. I don’t see most people paying $6/month more for CD quality sound.
The people who truly care about sound quality don’t touch anything lower than 16-bit/44.1 kHz. They want DSD or 24-bit/192 KHz when possible.
The people who truly care about sound quality don’t touch anything lower than 16-bit/44.1 kHz. They want DSD or 24-bit/192 KHz when possible.
IMO apple sells good enough at a premium. With that, I think apple exhaust serious resources on calculating what’s good enough.
Many have accepted it and see no reason for better.
One of the things I miss about moving out of my house is spending hours listening to music in stereo or watching music video especially female vocalists.
I have been meaning to try Tidal.
It's too soon for them to announce. Apple will "watch and follow" the reaction to Amazon's move. If Amazon's service gets great reviews and attracts an overnight cult following… then Apple might very well follow suit. But that won't be decided for the WWDC which is in a few short weeks.
If you listen to AAC music with Bluetooth 4, it shouldn't add any extra compression because it just streams the files. Airplay will stream the files if playing an AAC file. For any other audio, it will use lossless compression (that is part of the reason I generally prefer Airplay). If you are mirroring an iPad screen for example (so video/audio using airplay), the audio will be re-compressed using lossy compression to make sure it plays in realtime (as doing the lossless audio compression adds a small delay).
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Sure, but that won't stop people from listening over AirPods and claiming they can tell the difference.
I can't wait until we have this discussion about video streaming services.
"You can't see 4K unless you have it beamed via laser directly into your retinas through the original movie camera lens."
Also, I trust Amazon to give me a lossless streaming selection of tracks even the bands forgot about 40 years ago, then try to upsell me to "popular" lossless music for more than audio CDs cost.
And finally, all the resolution in the world won't matter if that resolution was squandered in downmix in the name of the Loudness War.
"You can't see 4K unless you have it beamed via laser directly into your retinas through the original movie camera lens."
Also, I trust Amazon to give me a lossless streaming selection of tracks even the bands forgot about 40 years ago, then try to upsell me to "popular" lossless music for more than audio CDs cost.
And finally, all the resolution in the world won't matter if that resolution was squandered in downmix in the name of the Loudness War.
Well, it would depend on the codec and bitrate used with the Airpods for on-the-fly encoding.
If they used AAC with a (much) better bitrate than than the AAC music files would come in, Hifi streaming would still have a benefit.
Also if you deliver MP3 (if there’s no repackaging recoder) or other compressed formats or the already compressed stream data would have to be re-encoded for any reason (at least i hope and assume that the streamed AAC is just forwarded and not recoded) this will result in a much worse quality than the already compressed music was delivered in.
Unfortunately I did not find any numbers on codec bitrates used for transferring uncompressed streams to Airpods in the case of an optimal wireless connection, so the first assumption is just of theoretical use.
Still, recoding from a compressed stream would be worse than from an uncompressed stream and high bit rate AAC encoding would be closer to Hifi than a standard AAC file.
Would be interesting to know how Apple actually does the realtime encoding of arbitrary audio signals coming from an app/audio channel.
Edit: Found this though, bit lengthy, but interesting when comes to AAC passthrough and realtime encoding quality.
https://www.soundguys.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-bluetooth-headphones-aac-20296/
So having Hifi as the input does not seem to be that bad of an option. Unless the offline encoder is much better when it has more time and data available.
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In the last 30 years I've heard such discussions again and again and always smiled politely.
It's the eagerly sincere ones or the snobs who think they hear better than everyone else.
But most of the time they are just pompous people. That's humankind.
The game started "Tube amplifiers" : "transistor", cassettes "Sony" : "TDK" (80'), "Vinyl" : "CD" (90'), "DAT" : "Multitrack-Tape-Recorders", "193 kbps" : "nnn kbps" and during the past decades "MP3" vs. "Lossless".
Always playing in same teams and running the similiar scene.
I believe that Amazon only wants to create artificial new growth markets again, which, however, only seem interesting for certain audience.
Those audiophiles who have invested all their money in high-end equipment and DSD-HDtracks or seeking native 5.1-Sourround I have my respect. But they are very few und often talking less about. And... they are hardly gathered in this forum.
Others are funny, but not original.
Airplay and Apple: I use Airplay on 4 HomePods (cross arrangement) and it's exciting (breathtaking) how Apple's DSP connects them with each other.
There are seldom real sourround audio tracks, but in this configuration there is a much more interesting and fundamental discussion, away from bitrate and bit depth to something in detail. What is DigitalSoundProcessing allowed to do in the amplifier chain anyway? What does which manufacturer do anyway? Nobody reveals that.
postscript: Amazon defocuses a main important topic: Usability, how can the consumer most easily get his or her drug. With its radio stations and curated playlists (e.g. Beats1 etc.) Apple sets the world standard. All my life I haven't been able to open up new worlds of music so easily. Everything is fantastically easy to discover. That's new in world history.
Bitrate? Meh. Yesterday.
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I don't know why, but I hate Amazon. I don't like its culture. They are desperately trying to be better at something for the sake of just doing it. What they end up is mediocre or average products for the rich. Amazon video, echo, etc. Just another service/hardware out there. Not really game changing - or if you say: not useful, the samsung of services.
No, the future won't be full of drones out there delivering pizza to you, sorry. They sum up to be a super exclusive service that never fully envolves to everyone.
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Who remembers Kindle? The first version had keyboard. When iPad launched, they just started copying the "ideia/design". Today you basically have an iPad Mini, but much less capable. I think e-readers will soon go extinct as tablet screens get better for reading.
No, the future won't be full of drones out there delivering pizza to you, sorry. They sum up to be a super exclusive service that never fully envolves to everyone.
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Who remembers Kindle? The first version had keyboard. When iPad launched, they just started copying the "ideia/design". Today you basically have an iPad Mini, but much less capable. I think e-readers will soon go extinct as tablet screens get better for reading.
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Was it 2001 that the iTunes Store opened? Here we are, 18 years later, and still no CD quality music, let alone SACD. So pathetic.
That “dubious finding” has been confirmed over and over in listening tests. Almost anyone who believes they can tell quality differences beyond 256 kbit/s AAC is mistaken.
Uncompressed (or losslessly compressed) is useful for production. For playback, it is largely a waste.
Do a test. http://abx.digitalfeed.net/list.html
Amazon is reportedly readying a high-fidelity music streaming service that's set to launch by the end of the year. According to Music Business Worldwide, Amazon is in discussions with various large music rights-holders regarding the upcoming launch of the new streaming platform, which is likely to cost $15 per month.
Probably the best known hi-def music streaming service currently is Tidal's HiFi plan, which costs $19.99 per month and offers CD-quality lossless streams at 44.1 kHz / 16 bit. Subscribers to the plan also benefit from Tidal's partnership with MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) to deliver guaranteed master-quality recordings directly from the master source, which is billed as "an audio experience that the artist intended."
The rationale behind this is that while HiFi audio is a superior sound, it's still limited to 44.1 kHz / 16 bit resolution, whereas MQA audio is the highest possible resolution (typically 96 kHz / 24 bit). MBW understands that Amazon has not partnered with MQA for its own HD tier, suggesting it will use a different audio technology. It's not clear though whether the hi-fi service will be a standalone platform or a new tier option to be offered as part of Amazon's Music Unlimited service.
Apple Music streams 256kbps AAC files across the board and doesn't offer users a higher sound quality price plan, while Spotify uses the Ogg Vorbis format and lets Premium subscribers choose the bitrate depending on how they're listening. On mobile you can elect to stream in Low (24 kbit/s), Normal (96 kbit/s), High (160 kbit/s) or Very High (320 kbit/s) quality, which is handy if you're worried about using up your cellular data, but none of these options could be called "hi-fidelity" streaming.
[*]Apple Music vs. Amazon Music Unlimited
News of Amazon's plans for a hi-fi audio streaming service comes a week after Amazon launched a free, ad-supported music streaming service for owners of devices that support Alexa, but who are otherwise not Prime or Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers.
Article Link: Amazon Rumored to Launch High-Fidelity Music Streaming Platform By End of 2019
Only Apple doesn't see the use-case of hi-def audio, for many-many years now. If they are supposed to become the one-stop music service, they need to seriously add hi-def, because there are more and more audiophiles around the world with hi-def music gaining traction every year...
That is delusional. Apple getting into digital subscriptions way too late was a horrible long term business strategy, and they lost a ton of customers and revenue. They were caught flat footed and anyone who was loyal to apple digital music ecosystem suffered.
And please, show proof that’s Apple took share from Spotify, and not simply from their own dying iTunes business.
Shameful? 99.9% of the listening public is perfectly happy with how their music sounds and couldn’t care less. Calling i shameful is a bit of a stretch.
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https://www.investopedia.com/news/apple-music-snags-us-market-share-spotify/