Hi-"res"???
How does music have high resolution? How many pixels are we talking here?
How does music have high resolution? How many pixels are we talking here?
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Apple Music Teaser References 'Hi-Res Lossless' and 'Dolby Atmos'
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Resolution has nothing to do with "pixels"
I love Qobuz and Roon. As a jazz/classical listener Qobuz has a great catalog, and at $15 the price is reasonable. Personally, I don't see the point of streaming hires to Apple devices (except maybe a AppleTV connected to a high end HT system). I'm not sure it will make difference for iPhones, iPads, HomePods, AirPods. These are all low-fi, mid-fi devices.
Time for you to buy the new AirPods and AirPods Max. That’s the Apple way. 😁 I expect Apple to bake in the support using their proprietary ways with their new H2 chip, coming to take money from your pocket soon.
That´s quite a trip, man. Every music in this planet is recorded with more than one microphone, and they mix them, and they can remix them in atmos, like they mix films. Binaurual mikes would be horrible because they would pick all of the reverberation of the room (studio) where the instrument is being recorded. Better use something like spatial audio to mimic a proper surround setup. Binaural has very specific uses…
Audio resolution is determined by bandwidth.
Take the bit-rate, multiply it by the sampling rate, and multiply that by two for each channel. That's the resolution (bandwidth):
MP3 (for reference) = 256k (e.g. or even less)
CD = 16 x 44.1 x 2 = 1411k
24/48 = 24 x 48 x 2 = 2304k
24/96 = 24 x 96 x 2 = 4608k
24/192 = 24 x 192 x 2 = 9216k
By definition, 24-bit audio (i.e. anything higher res than Redbook CD) is high-resolution audio; e.g. 24/48 and up.
I greatly welcome lossless streaming (and hopefully lossless iTunes purchases) but I don’t see how this “changes things”. Presumably the sound quality will be on a par with CDs which have been around for decades. If they can offer better than CD quality I would be interested to know how this is technically possible.
Most music is now recorded at higher resolutions than what you get on CDs, and has been for some time. Ever heard of SACD? The source for those is 24-bit or DSD audio. I've been listening to 24/96 and 24/192 lossless audio for years.
Listening to them how? Very few albums are available on SACD despite the fact the technology has been around for over 20 years.
Not likely. A 16 bit/44.1 KHz stereo (CD quality) stream uses 1411 kbps. The maximum bitrate of the Bluetooth A2DP profile is 768 kbps. While lossless compression like FLAC or ALAC can often cut that in half *on average* for an entire song, the peak bitrate can go much higher. So unless Apple somehow goes well beyond the Bluetooth specs, it's not going to be lossless via Airpods.
I stream high-res audio from Qobuz via Roon to several Naim Audio network streamers (NDX2/XPSDR in my main hifi system, Uniti Atom in a smaller hifi system, or a Mu-so Qb2). Nothing in Qobuz is lower resolution than CD but many titles I play are 24/96 or 24/192 FLAC. Before I had Qobuz, I bought titles online in FLAC 24/96 or 24/192 format. DSD audio is also available for download but my previous streamers didn't support it so I didn't buy any. My current Naim streamers all support DSD as well as lossless audio up to 32/384 resolution. I don't buy downloadable hires audio anymore. I just stream from Qobuz now.
I gave SACD as one example of hires source. I've never had a player.
Perfect date and time to release the new AirPods 3.
yet none have the library of music catalog to match Apples. Therein is the key.
should Apple’s Lossless coded and music library not be available on AirPods Pro, Max or high end Beats … and only on the AirPods 3’s there will be a lot of backlash occurring. If nothing comes to the previous mentioned headphones in 30 days after launch then I’ll see what the upcoming Sony WF’4’s support and I’d iOS and Apple Music lossless works with those.
I would be interested to know how many of those tracks are available natively in 24bit against 16bit?
Again you mentioned buying music in 24bit format. I’ve used the website HD Tracks to buy lossless music but even they have a limited collection of 24 bit tracks to download and most of those are classical music.
If Apple start selling 24bit tracks to download that could hopefully make the technology more widely available.
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Absolute nonsense.
Apple may try to market it that way, but anyone that actually knows how digital audio works can tell you anything above 20/48 on the playback side is utterly pointless and that most albums aren't even actually using 12-bit resolution on the masters.
24/48 is great for recording headroom, but if anyone starts talking about stair-steps and digital and how more bits = less jaggies on the steps, RUN away because they're certifiably IGNORANT about how digital audio works.
Bits=Dynamic Range
Sampling Frequency = Bandwidth
No human can hear above 20kHz.
Oversampling solved "brick wall" filtering issues around 1983. 48kHz is more than sufficient for any recording needs. Most signals are nothing but noise much above 20kHz and you can't hear them regardless.
Vinyl LP records that many audiophiles rave about have "effective" equivalent dynamic range of 11-12bits maximum. Sadly, the "loudness wars" mean many CDs "used" even less than that, some far less than 8-bits even.
The best made recordings in the world rarely contain more than 18-bits dynamic range.
Mist people would not like 18-bits of dynamic range even if they could get it because dynamic range is the difference between the quietest sounds and the loudest. You would go from barely audible to horn honking loud in an instant. Think real cannons going off in the 1812 Overture and you standing right next to them loud. Most people don't like that at all!
In fact, the compression methods that lead to the so-called loudness wars are due to people not being able to hear the quieter passages of music without turning up the volume to the point where the loud parts are blasting their ears and/or causing hearing damage.
Dolby movie standards are 105dB peaks for regular channels and 115dB for the subwoofer. Most people don't play movies (let alone music that peaks louder longer) anywhere NEAR that at home! Yet people think they need more bits (out of sheer ignorance what they're used for).
I know many won't believe me here either, but it's the truth. They chose CD standards for a good reason back in the early 1980s. Few recordings ever came near the limits of what the CD is capable, but people ignorantly believe poor sound quality is due to hardware limits rather than poor recording and more likely poor mastering issues.
Most SACDs sound better than the CD version because they remastered them for better sound quality, nit because they need greater than CD standards to achieve it, but marketing loves a good lie. Sony's dual market discs have a CD side and a SACD side. The players are set to play the SACD signals slightly louder than the CD so any direct comparisons will think the SACD sounds better (You tend to always choose louder as increased fidelity).
Now going to multi-channel like Atmos is a whole different story. But selling music as "hires" based on bits alone is utterly deceptive marketing.
Well that’s why there’s two H1 chips in the AirPods Max, it doubles the bite rate. I would know, I’m smart
