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EightyTwenty

macrumors 6502a
Mar 11, 2015
809
1,667
Nonsensical. Protools HD and studio masters all rendered out at 24 bit 96 or 24 bit 192. Except film where 24bit48khz is the standard. AVID recommend working internally at 32 bit for plugin rounding errors.

24 bit 96khz masters or better are often kept to ensure hardware downcoversion to anything can be achieved later.

Again, it depends on the material, how it's been handled, quality of encoding, hardware, engineer....blah blah

High sample rates can be useful when recording, to deal with aliasing and high frequency filters. It's utterly useless (and possibly harmful) for playback, as far as we can tell.

You can't hear anything above 20 kHz, and CD 44.1 covers everything up to 22.05 kHz (above the maximum limit of human hearing).

48 kHz would just give an extra bit of breathing room to deal with dithering and clipping. The CD standard was originally going to be higher than 44.1 for that very reason.
 

SirErdrick

macrumors newbie
Aug 22, 2017
2
1



Apple has quietly included support for playback of FLAC audio files on the 4K Apple TV, iPhone 8, and iPhone X, with compatibility also added retroactively to the iPhone 7 when iOS 11 gets its public release.

Support for the lossless compression codec now appears in the technical specifications on Apple's website for all of the above devices. However, as it stands, Apple's Music app does not currently support the format, so device owners who want to listen to the higher quality audio files will have to use the native Files app or a third-party app specifically made for FLAC playback, such as VLC or Plex.

Screen-Shot-6-800x128.jpg

Apple's support for the FLAC codec doesn't officially extend to the iPhone 6s or iPhone SE, which may be because an A10 processor is a minimum requirement for hardware decoding and Apple is not satisfied with the power consumption tradeoffs of FLAC software decoding.

That said, Apple's latest iPad Pro range should also be capable of FLAC playback thanks to their high performance A10X Fusion chips, yet Apple hasn't updated its iPad Pro tech specs to indicate they will also support the standard.

It's possible that Apple is still testing FLAC support for its range of mobile devices, and may even have plans to offer the lossless compression standard as a download option in iTunes and playback in the Music app further down the line. However, it's worth noting that mobile users would only get the full benefits of FLAC by listening using Lightning-connected wired headphones, since a Bluetooth audio connection doesn't offer enough bandwidth to make the experience worthwhile.

Article Link: Apple Lists FLAC Audio Playback Support for 4K Apple TV, iPhone 7, iPhone 8, iPhone X


This is a huge step for Apple.
I'm quite happy with it.
Others have brought up many issues left unresolved / unconfirmed, but I'm just happy to see FLAC finally supported.

If BT 5.0 & Apt-X are added ( or a W2 chip that does what Apt-X does ) are added to the mix, we may finally have HD level audio on iOS devices.

I can't wait to be driven in my Model 3 while listening to perfect reproduction audio via my high end wireless headphones.
 
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meboy

macrumors 6502
Apr 12, 2012
389
312
Insane to me that it wasn't supported before.
My mind is blown again.
How can people use such a limited device. I certainly can't.
 
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dmylrea

macrumors 601
Sep 27, 2005
4,783
6,820
What are people using for hi-res listening (BT headphones or in-ear) that support apt-x??
 

cube

Suspended
May 10, 2004
17,011
4,972
48kHz would just give an extra bit of breathing room to deal with dithering and clipping. The CD standard was originally going to be higher than 44.1 for that very reason.
The CD sampling rate is almost as annoying as the NTSC refresh rate.
 
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AppleZombie

macrumors 6502a
Oct 27, 2012
698
749
SoCal
I have an iphone 6 with the Onkyo HF Player App. I ripped my CD's into ALAC format and downloaded an ALBUM in FLAC Format. 1More lightning headphones with DAC is what I use on the phone. What I don't understand is why didn't they include the 6 and 6s in this update if we can play HiFi now.
 

Defthand

macrumors 65816
Sep 1, 2010
1,351
1,712
iOS only uses AAC over Bluetooth for content that is already encoded in AAC: Apple Music and songs bought on iTunes. Any other codec (Spotify's OGG, Deezer or Amazon's MP3, Anghami's Dolby Pulse, Qobuz's ALAC, Tidal's MQA...) is re-compressed using the inferior SBC codec, which is more battery-efficient but more lossy. As a result, you get double the compression artifacts and the soundstage is reduced to nothing.

I have no faith in wireless audio. I'm no audiophile, but it's apparent to even me how sh*tty the fidelity is. I thought it was the quality of the DACs in PC products, but apparently it's a combination of that and undisclosed software conversions mentioned in this thread. My father was passionate about music and owned expensive audio equipment that contributed to his divorce! I was accustom to hearing awesome sound and cringe when I hear a portable Bluetooth speaker.

Any advice on how to achieve the best listening experience in a car?
 
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dabotsonline

macrumors member
Apr 14, 2014
44
8
If you are using the USB DSP with a Hi-Res compatible app (Qobuz, 7Digital...) then Bob's your uncle. You are not limited at all to what the iPhone can and cannot output.
Interestingly, the cheapest DSP you can find is Apple's own Lightning-to-headphone jack adaptor, which decodes 24-192:
http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/info/hi-res-guide/bancs-d-essai/we-ve-tried-it-the-apple-lightning178666
otherwise there's a good overview of what does and doesn't work in Hi-Res on iOS here
http://www.qobuz.com/FR-fr/info/Hi-Fi/Les-cingles-de-la-Hi-Fi/Choisissez-votre-DAC-ou-votre179124

You will however need to resort to using the camera kit for USB DACs:
http://blogsv2.qobuz.com/qobuz-blog...-your-iphone-or-ipad-well-it-is-now-possible/

PS: love the Qobuz website (I am not affiliated to them!)

DSP = Digital Signal Processing, DAC = Digital to Analogue Converter.
 

Delgibbons

macrumors 6502a
Dec 14, 2016
745
1,600
London
Probably get the other half a 4k apple tv anyway as she has loads of movies from itunes.

Fair play to apple upgrading all the hd content purchased to 4k....nice move that.
 

zorinlynx

macrumors G3
May 31, 2007
8,144
17,477
Florida, USA
Lack of FLAC support has never been much of a big deal for me because both FLAC and ALAC are lossless and you can convert between them.

Any FLAC content I acquire gets transcoded to ALAC and I delete the FLAC files. Should I want FLAC in the future I can just transcode it back. That's what's great about lossless formats.

Just convert FLAC to ALAC, folks. It works natively on iTunes, plays back on hardware ranging all the way back to the first iPods, and the compression ratio is very similar. There's also plenty of free tools to do it, including ones that'll parallelize the conversion of many files to do it quickly on multi-core CPUs.
 

kukhuvud

macrumors newbie
Jun 15, 2017
27
72
Los Angeles, CA
At last! FLAC support! I can finally cut my music library in half and delete all the ALAC that I had to remux from FLAC just to put it on my phone. I don't own 256gb devices just to fill them up with mp3's.
 

scott911

macrumors 6502a
Aug 24, 2009
758
456
It's really encouraging that there are so many intelligent people on here - as it's related to higher end audio. I hope some of this passion catches on at Apple!

Even the bean counters could have been convinced that the value of having headlines around the world stated - "Apple did finally crack TV" - if they had only not crippled the thing in terms of formats, and especially for me, the lack of a second HDMI out
 

McScooby

macrumors 65816
Oct 15, 2005
1,238
777
The Paps of Glenn Close, Scotland.
If you are using the USB DSP with a Hi-Res compatible app (Qobuz, 7Digital...) then Bob's your uncle. You are not limited at all to what the iPhone can and cannot output.
Interestingly, the cheapest DSP you can find is Apple's own Lightning-to-headphone jack adaptor, which decodes 24-192:
http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/info/hi-res-guide/bancs-d-essai/we-ve-tried-it-the-apple-lightning178666
otherwise there's a good overview of what does and doesn't work in Hi-Res on iOS here
http://www.qobuz.com/FR-fr/info/Hi-Fi/Les-cingles-de-la-Hi-Fi/Choisissez-votre-DAC-ou-votre179124

You will however need to resort to using the camera kit for USB DACs:
http://blogsv2.qobuz.com/qobuz-blog...-your-iphone-or-ipad-well-it-is-now-possible/

PS: love the Qobuz website (I am not affiliated to them!)
Think you missed the part in the article that says whilst the lightning adaptor is capable of hi-res audio, :apple: would still have to unlock that feature which they haven't done.
 
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xpxp2002

macrumors 65816
May 3, 2016
1,127
2,684
What about FLAC on Apple TV 4th generation? Even though it has the A8, it doesn't have to be concerned with battery life.
 

jukeboxaddict

macrumors member
Mar 2, 2014
85
80
So how are you supposed to get them on the device if iTunes on the desktop doesn't support FLAC? Cloud services? Dropbox? Not quite getting this
 
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