Of course there is in the context of the quote. Apple Music (as in the whole catalogue) will feature a mixture of lossy, lossless & hi-res, nothing confusing about that as it was already mentioned.
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Apple TV Won't Support Hi-Res Lossless at Launch, AirPods Max Wired Playback 'Will Not Be Completely Lossless'
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But a blind test in that sense that you don't get to compare two audio sources, but just get to hear either hi-res or not, is like being asked which rock out of two is heavier by just lifting one.
semantics. Truly analog music really can’t be recorded digitally without loss. You can only approach it asymptotically.
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20 millions of songs will be available in lossless next month, the entire catalogue will be in lossless by the end of this year.
Why is it so hard to even read the title? It says "Hi-Res Lossless" not "Lossless" for Apple TV support. Two completely different things, no wonder people have a hard time grasping this feature when simple things like this seems hard.
That's not how ABX test work though. In ABX test you first listen to sample A, then sample B, then sample X. Sample X is again either A or B and you have to tell which it is.
I am not sure it is all about the frequencies though (note: the last I had audio classes was in college 25 years ago). Anyway, there was an album that I had on Apple Music that I also bought from HD tracks (Steve Martin and Edie Bickel) at one point some of the higher end notes sounded “warbley”. So much that I asked for a refund. They mentioned that they get their tracks from the publisher and that they do not have control over that (they gave me the refund-only time they will though). Turns out I went back to my Apple version and sure enough it was there… really muddy so I didn’t notice it. The higher but rate version has the artifact crispy so I could hear it. So…. I think it’s Scott those types of artifacts that you will or will not hear and the range. I do believe high res sounds better but I can’t have it on my phone because of Apple Music (no way to currently load it with Apple Music turned on). As usual, however, YMMV.
Edit: After reading this, I feel there might be some confusion (either by me or others). By frequency, I was referring to frequency of a tone as referred to in the original post I was responding to in my context. I do believe it is about the frequency as in sample rate frequency, which would explain the "muddiness" that I was hearing - it would smooth out the "warble" with less rates of polling the waveform.
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For probably 70% or more of their users it totally is, I dont think they are making a big deal about hi res, more so spacial audio. We wont really know how big they Wil push all of this till WWDC, end of the day it just comes down to the tech and the tech isn’t capable in 2021 to deliver across their lineup And this is coming from someone who owns Max’s and works in studios and wants the best quality. Hi res audio isn’t really an on-the-go thing tbh, you really want to do this on your home system. I also wouldnt want them to hold off on this to wait for the tech to catch up, people like us have been waiting on this since the birth of the MP3 and we already have had multiple ways to listen properly.
The Apple Music catalog not being completely lossless is one thing. Now "AirPods Max Wired Playback 'Will Not Be Completely Lossless'" is another thing.
Why is that the case? I have Apple music and can definitely import my own audio files in my Library from the Mac as long as the format is supported. Then the files sync on my mobile devices. Not sure if something similar is possible without a Mac though, never tried to import files directly on iOS/iPadOS.
In that case analog music can’t really record true audio, it can only approach it asymptotically. Microphones and analog storage mediums always have physical limitations as to the highest frequencies they can detect. They are limited by the frequency response of the circuits used to record them and to process them. Because of this, analog recordings themselves are almost always capped at the same rate as digital recordings
Of course. Though analog recordings will generally color the audio differently than digital limitations, those who insist analog is some kind of purity are romanticizing more than anything (same with "lossless", which only deals with compression loss rather than fidelity loss of other limitations).
The acoustics and directional audio are also difficult to implement in any kind of recording (most notable for orchestral music). Nothing beats the real deal.
That is, lossless audio will be available to my headphones over the wire, did I understand your answer correctly?
It tells me I can only download my library and that it is controlled through Apple Music when I try to sync. Interesting. I will have to see if I have something set up wrong. And if I do, thank you for alerting me to this.
**Edit: It worked. I just had to manually delete my library on my phone to make the setting be recognized. Simply changing the setting wasn't enough for MacOS to recognize what I wanted to do. Thank you again.
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To me, is pretty sure Apple with lossless is in some reaction mode-maybe knee jerk is to strong, but with the new 4K Apple TV having the discontented HomePod pic on the box and their newest high-end headphones not supporting it fully even wired —something is really off.
Completely agree, that's why I'm saying one shouldn't expect someone to easily pick which is a 256 AAC vs 24 Bit 192 KHz track without hearing both.
Sure, if it's music you usually listenen to you would most likely be able to do that too, if you have a somewhat trained ear and already know what to listen for. I've been producing music for more than 20 years, and analysing music and especially the mix of a song is something I'm used to and also tend to do even if I'm not actively trying to.
I just did a very unscientific test using Michael Jackson's Billie Jean, AAC from Apple Music vs 24 bit 96 KHz from HDtracks, played back at the same level, and I can easily tell which version I'm listening to even without switching between them.
This is certainly not about having "golden ears" or anything like that, it's about picking up nuances that most people don't care enough about to "hear" (technically they do, though). I'm 45 and my hearing is definitely not 100 %, but again, experience with audio of course helps.
So, you didn’t understand my point. It does matter, when you add these “small” (actually not necessarily small) differences up.
I will not suggest a test. I will suggest that it is not necessary to have a scientific test. Show me a scientific test that proves which red wine is better, or which car is most fun to drive. Everything in life doesn’t need to be scientifically proven.
Lossless up to 48 khz is supported by airplay2. Hires above 48 khz is not.
I did not say blind tests are not scientific!! They certainly can be (if done right). I am saying that they are being misused. As any proper scientist will tell you, also in medical, a test cannot provide proof that there is no difference. It can either provide proof of a difference, or be inconclusive (my wording may be scientifically inaccurate here, I’m not native English).
I fundamentally disagree with your last statement. An example: I am hyper sensitive to nickel. I get rashes from several products that are officially “nickel free”, because there is a limit below which the amount of nickel is officially “not meaningful”, to the extent that the manufcturer can market the product as nickel free. Yet I get rashes that turn bloody if I keep wearing the item. I know it’s not directly comparable, but the point is that when there undeniably IS a difference, we cannot set a fixed limit on when the difference matters.
That only makes them different if they don’t digitize the input. If it can do noise cancelling on the analog input, that’s a pretty good sign that they are, and then it’s essentially the same.
The correct (although stupid) analogy here would be that somebody gets two wines with the exact same red color for what the human eye is anatomically capable to see – he's claiming though that he can see which one is redder. The test shows that he can't. Alternatively: the 100% identical same taste for the human tongue, yet still claiming that he can taste a difference.
It definitely is NOT about two different wines or cars and personal taste/preference.
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Which mine is. My receiver alone was $3500 when new. My home theater is somewhere between $10 and $15k