Apple Music Teaser: 'Get Ready – Music is About to Change Forever'

[axboi87]

If it’s 24-bit, I hope they also let us airplay at that rate. Lossless and 24 are useless with my AirPods or car, but at home on the stereo I can even get friends with “lay” ears to hear the difference between 320 on Spotify and cd quality or vinyl (although I don’t have the same luck with cd/lossless and 24-bit most of the time, and when I do it’s probably a different master altogether).

 

[MauiPa]

If you have nothing that can reproduce audio accurately that would be true, but if you did, then you wouldn't be thinking lossless is meh.

Unless you’re one of the 95% of people who can’t hear the difference

 

[now i see it]

I miss Limewire

 

[fishkorp]

I really hope the announcement has nothing to do with “spatial audio” which is a silly gimmick for music. No different than the dumb 3D trend for movies. Remember 3D TVs a few years ago? LOL. That gimmick fizzled out real quick.

Not related to this thread, but 3D is still a thing outside of the US. And a lot of enthusiasts in the US still hunt for and collect 3D movies. Importing 3D Marvel and Disney movies from Europe is quite popular. I have a handful of friends that have their every day tv and also a 3D tv just for watching their 3D collection. I personally don’t get it. Hate it. But it’s still a thing.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

the vast universe outside of Apple's money-making machine will shrug and march on just fine.

The vast universe outside of apples money making machine… is also apples money making machine.
They are the richest company in the world. It’s not just the dedicated fans that pay for their stuff.
Also, I’m not sure the point you were trying to make there, other than you don’t like apples services, or Spotify services, or Amazon services. Either way, it had nothing to do with my original post

 

[DeepIn2U]

Puke Miani is going to have 100% score on Apple Track if he gets this right

You mean Luke right? Man the typos. Really can change perceptions lol.

Spatial audio sounds great since you can actually hear a difference whereas Apple is likely keenly aware than next to no one can hear the difference between a good MP3 rip and a CD, which is why Napster and iPod happened to begin with!

Honestly I think Napster with iPods and the entire competition then solidified with 16bit audio and MP3’s at 128kbps since a) storage size was very low initially the first 2yrs of digital music and as well internet speeds were still somewhat slow.

BitTorrent helped with downloads for albums or library’s of an artists discography.

1) This is likely to be ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), not FLAC.

2) Neither FLAC nor ALAC dictate the quality of the music. They are simply lossless audio codecs. High quality has to come from a high quality source, which is why you can take any 96 Kibps MP3 you want and re-encode it as any lossless format without making the quality better. You won't make it worse, but it won't be better, but if you just saw that it was a FLAC file you may think it's high quality without knowing any better. The real news will be if Apple is getting access to true masters for this new HiFi service option.

Should we not be getting 24-bit, 96khz and much higher than 256kbps for a source, at minimum, before converting to ALAC OR FLAC codecs. You’ve listed only a small piece to the puzzle.

 

[jcshas]

Higher quality audio is great but I’m more concerned about the quality of music I collect/buy than I am about the quality of the music I stream. Streaming is what I use for causal listening and to discover new music. Apple music and Spotify work just fine for that.

 

[symphony]

You mean Luke right? Man the typos. Really can change perceptions lol.

Honestly I think Napster with iPods and the entire competition then solidified with 16bit audio and MP3’s at 128kbps since a) storage size was very low initially the first 2yrs of digital music and as well internet speeds were still somewhat slow.

BitTorrent helped with downloads for albums or library’s of an artists discography.

Should we not be getting 24-bit, 96khz and much higher than 256kbps for a source, at minimum, before converting to ALAC OR FLAC codecs. You’ve listed only a small piece to the puzzle.

Yes! I meant Luke Miami!

 

[HDFan]

They should save the money on the lawyers and start paying the artists fairly!

True, but Apple does pay more than most of the other streaming services.

Any chance Apple will allow 3rd party like Roon, Network streamers or other use a kind of api to add the services to their own solutions instead of AirPlay?

Roon doesn't easily handle airplay to a HomePod stereo pair. Don't see it happening for Roon or HEOS.

They also use MQA which many truly into HiFi detest because of its ties to DRM

Ties to DRM?

Lossless audio files preserve every detail of the original file. Turning this on will consume significantly more data, Lossless audio files will use significantly more space on your device. 10 GB of space could store approximately: – 3000 songs at high quality – 1000 songs with lossless – 200 songs with hi-res lossless".

As your calculations show a Carpenters' album

48 kHz 24 bit 2 channels runs ~2304 kb/s, tracks ranging from ~50 to ~125 MB. The 21 track album takes 1.34 GB

96 kHz 24 bit 2 channels runs ~4608 kb/s, tracks running from ~90 to ~250 MB. The 21 track album takes 2.6 GB.

A Scott Joplin CD at

44.1 kHz 16 bit 2 channel runs ~1400 kb/s, tracks running from ~33 to 71 MB. The 16 track album takes ~723 MB.

10 GB would store less than 13 44.1/16 21 track albums (290 tracks), 7 48x24 24 track albums (168 tracks), less than 3.8 of the 96x24 kHz 24 track albums (91 tracks),

So the big question is how they define HiRes. My guess is that it will be 44.1 kHz, 16 bit, CD quality which some people do not consider "HiRes".

 

[steve333]

They should have just kept iTunes

 

[matrix07]

Has Apple Music TV always been in the app or is that the new thing? 😱

Since a year ago I believe.

 

[ericwn]

So I stream with CarPlay.... can I change to normal fidelity so I don't get clobbered with overuse data?

I have a guess when you’ll the answer to that question.

 

[Partron22]

So spatial audio is surround sound (4 channels in the 70's), for the 2020's. It's done with software.
I think I'll stick with what's on the CD, rather than what someone thinks the stuff should sound like when I'm e.g. sitting behind a pillar at the stadium.

 

[ericwn]

If they can do it at no extra charge, including special spacial audio features for AirPods users, I think it’s gonna be really really tough on Spotify.
Especially with Spotify increasing their prices.
So of course, I expect Spotify immediately to file an anti-trust lawsuit against Apple within the hour of the announcement, because that’s all these other companies really know how to do anymore

Guess you’ll expect Apple TV+ to give Disney a hard time once they up the bitrate, right?

 

[ericwn]

Of course.
it will be just like the TV app, you can decide what Apple Music is allowed to download, what is allowed to stream on Wi-Fi, and what is allowed to stream on cellular.
so if you wanted to download HD tracks, on Wi-Fi stream HD tracks, but on cellular only stream regular SD tracks, that most likely will be possible

I see no option to regulate the video content quality per networking channel. Where is that located? Turning off cellular data is not the same.

 

[ericwn]

Okay, spatial audio causes everything to make so much more sense. “Why would this new service be incompatible with some AirPods and most other headphones?” Well, HiFi might not depend on hardware as much but spatial audio sure will.

And stereo music benefits from spatial audio?

 

[Vangeli]

And stereo music benefits from spatial audio?

Amazon and Sony (and I’m sure others) have been working on mixing music in 3D audio/Atmos, so there’s already a library of new music for Apple to pull from, in addition to surround sound mixes already available for plenty of older albums that had DVD-audio/SACD releases.

 

[1258186]

Streaming and hopefully downloads are finally catching up with CDs. 20 years too late but better late than never.

 

[Tozovac]

All I can think about is: will any changes make the Music app even worse for organizing and navigating all my personal non-purchased music and music video files. Every major “improvement” has made it worse incrementally.

 

[Biro]

Music isn't going to change forever for me. I already own all of the music Apple wants me to rent.

 

[VicTX]

Spatial audio sounds great since you can actually hear a difference whereas Apple is likely keenly aware than next to no one can hear the difference between a good MP3 rip and a CD, which is why Napster and iPod happened to begin with!

I respectfully disagree that "...next to no one can hear the difference between a good MP3 rip and a CD, which is why Napster and iPod happened..." Plenty of avid music listeners (self included) do appreciate the difference. Also, MP3s and iPods happened as a way to make music portable, and to avoid lugging around CDS, cassettes, and vinyl.

 

[Wanted797]

If they can do it at no extra charge, including special spacial audio features for AirPods users, I think it’s gonna be really really tough on Spotify.
Especially with Spotify increasing their prices.
So of course, I expect Spotify immediately to file an anti-trust lawsuit against Apple within the hour of the announcement, because that’s all these other companies really know how to do anymore

Yep.

Despite the fact nothing is stopping Spotify from developing earbuds themselves that could have had these features.

 

[Techwatcher]

1) This is likely to be ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), not FLAC.

2) Neither FLAC nor ALAC dictate the quality of the music. They are simply lossless audio codecs. High quality has to come from a high quality source, which is why you can take any 96 Kibps MP3 you want and re-encode it as any lossless format without making the quality better. You won't make it worse, but it won't be better, but if you just saw that it was a FLAC file you may think it's high quality without knowing any better. The real news will be if Apple is getting access to true masters for this new HiFi service option.

Tidal got access to true masters so I'm sure Apple won't have an issue.

 

[krspkbl]

Please don’t lock it behind AirPods. Kinda defeats the purpose. Here is high quality audio but you need to listen to it on low quality hardware. Makes no sense.

also, put out a dedicated Music app for Windows? No, i’m not using iTunes and the web player sucks.

if Apple is seriously wanting to compete with Spotify they need to think about people who buy high end headphones, speakers, and the vast majority of people who use Windows.

i’ll see how things go but all i’ll say is i’m on my 3 month Apple Music trial and i’ll not hesitate going back to Spotify.

do you want my money or not Apple?

 

[McTaste]

Higher quality audio should be available at no extra charge, just like video streams are variable quality and fixed price.