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Audio Testing Confirms iPhone 6 Not Yet Capable of Direct HD Audio Playback
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Nothing. Some people are thinking that Apple will begin offering HD audio as a way to entice more iTunes purchases. I think that would be very wasteful because most people don't care, or can tell the difference.
I would like to announce the availability of a quick 10 minute modification to add this capability to your iPhone. Act now and I will throw in 16 oz of snake oil absolutely FREE! Get your paypal accounts ready! </sarcasm>
This is so stupid. Most articles posted this week just berate apple. I'm sick of it so let me list the things that you want but don't NEED (in no particular order just based on arguments with co-workers):
* apple's bluetooth - why do we need to transfer all file types via bluetooth when we have air drop?
* bluetooth vs APTX - you don't need it cause we got airplay. So what if your headphones can use APTX, apple's bluetooth is still superior sounding
* camera slow motion modes: i've heard samsuck devices can do 1/2,1/4,1/8 slow motion and/or time lapse, 4K high mbps recording, super zoom (using 16MP sensor) on the S5 when recording video, blah blah blah; you know what? that doesn't matter cause apple still trumps samsuck features cause apple does it right
* build quality vs plastic - no thank you samsuck
* LED notifications on android devices: why? I can flash my rear camera any way I want and it's much brighter and works better than any tiny LED
* notifications on apple iPhone is way better than android
* i prefer to copy stuff fromitunes into my iPhone rather than using any file manager any day
* sure google may have the same google music gives you free 20,000 track upload and matches everything like apple FOR FREE while I pay $25/year BUT do you trust google?
* I prefer no widgets, thank you. And big deal about home screen i love apple's home screen cause it's easy
* wireless AC on apple devices are superior.
* download booster on S5: now this is interesting but useless. Can combine both LTE and WIFI as one significantly boosting transfer speeds. Useless feature to be honest
* UPSM (ultra power saving mode) - why? My i6+ last me two days easy
* VOOC/fast charging/wireless charging: sure apple doesn't have that but I can still charge my iPhone in no time with my iPad charger. I've heard about S5 and note 3 anreven the oppo find 7 can charge 0 to 75% in 30 minutes - whatever because that's gonna wear your battery out faster than ever. Who needs wireless charging such a gimmick
* equalizer apps - now I do miss having these on apple. Honestly, these are helpful but you know apple will open up the API to support these features as well.
* expandable memory: i don't need that I have 64GB plenty of space.
* NFC tags: useless again. Apple iOS does everything right anyway. Don't need to tap no tag to do tasks. Silly gimmick
* 8MP camera vs XXmp - you can argue all you want 8MP is superior. That's all you need the camera on my i6+ surpasses most canon and nikon DSLR costing thousands!
* Speakers - have you heard the i6+ speakers? Phenomenal. Easily the best speakers even surpassing front speakers like on those junk HTC phones.
* We got dual mics vs triple mics on those samsuck devices: seriously, dual mics are superior because they work great rather than having gimmicky 3 microphones like on those note and samsung s5 devices. So gimmicky
* Siri vs. other - honestly, I don't use siri much but I do know when I do use it it is much superior than that of google and even microsoft's version
* QHD resolution - pointless because my 1080p panel is not the same as the samsucks apple implements their own technology and it's much superior.
* quadcore vs dual core - what a joke, my dual core rocks higher benchmarks than any doo-doo android device.
* google's unlimited photo stream vs apple's 1000 image limitation: I don't know about you but what's the point of unlimited when you have no friends and can't share anything while I have tons of buddies to share my photo streams with. 1000 images is a lot and it's enough.
* apple's 5GB vs 15GB google vs 30GB microsoft: 5GB is enough for my personal use. Don't need more. Apple's system is much more secure than that of google and microsoft.
* chromecast vs apple TV - $25 dollar junk vs $99 perfection. Nuff said.
* last but not least, my i6+ demands elite status because it's a premium device that no competitor can match. You guys are just silly to berate apple when you know they are so good in engineering. I've not had one bending issue, no problems with iOS 8.0.2 everything just works great.
I wouldn't think of owning anything but apple because they give me the best high end value vs android. Sick of these comparison when the truth is apple may be expensive but you know you are getting your money's worth!
* apple's bluetooth - why do we need to transfer all file types via bluetooth when we have air drop?
* bluetooth vs APTX - you don't need it cause we got airplay. So what if your headphones can use APTX, apple's bluetooth is still superior sounding
* camera slow motion modes: i've heard samsuck devices can do 1/2,1/4,1/8 slow motion and/or time lapse, 4K high mbps recording, super zoom (using 16MP sensor) on the S5 when recording video, blah blah blah; you know what? that doesn't matter cause apple still trumps samsuck features cause apple does it right
* build quality vs plastic - no thank you samsuck
* LED notifications on android devices: why? I can flash my rear camera any way I want and it's much brighter and works better than any tiny LED
* notifications on apple iPhone is way better than android
* i prefer to copy stuff fromitunes into my iPhone rather than using any file manager any day
* sure google may have the same google music gives you free 20,000 track upload and matches everything like apple FOR FREE while I pay $25/year BUT do you trust google?
* I prefer no widgets, thank you. And big deal about home screen i love apple's home screen cause it's easy
* wireless AC on apple devices are superior.
* download booster on S5: now this is interesting but useless. Can combine both LTE and WIFI as one significantly boosting transfer speeds. Useless feature to be honest
* UPSM (ultra power saving mode) - why? My i6+ last me two days easy
* VOOC/fast charging/wireless charging: sure apple doesn't have that but I can still charge my iPhone in no time with my iPad charger. I've heard about S5 and note 3 anreven the oppo find 7 can charge 0 to 75% in 30 minutes - whatever because that's gonna wear your battery out faster than ever. Who needs wireless charging such a gimmick
* equalizer apps - now I do miss having these on apple. Honestly, these are helpful but you know apple will open up the API to support these features as well.
* expandable memory: i don't need that I have 64GB plenty of space.
* NFC tags: useless again. Apple iOS does everything right anyway. Don't need to tap no tag to do tasks. Silly gimmick
* 8MP camera vs XXmp - you can argue all you want 8MP is superior. That's all you need the camera on my i6+ surpasses most canon and nikon DSLR costing thousands!
* Speakers - have you heard the i6+ speakers? Phenomenal. Easily the best speakers even surpassing front speakers like on those junk HTC phones.
* We got dual mics vs triple mics on those samsuck devices: seriously, dual mics are superior because they work great rather than having gimmicky 3 microphones like on those note and samsung s5 devices. So gimmicky
* Siri vs. other - honestly, I don't use siri much but I do know when I do use it it is much superior than that of google and even microsoft's version
* QHD resolution - pointless because my 1080p panel is not the same as the samsucks apple implements their own technology and it's much superior.
* quadcore vs dual core - what a joke, my dual core rocks higher benchmarks than any doo-doo android device.
* google's unlimited photo stream vs apple's 1000 image limitation: I don't know about you but what's the point of unlimited when you have no friends and can't share anything while I have tons of buddies to share my photo streams with. 1000 images is a lot and it's enough.
* apple's 5GB vs 15GB google vs 30GB microsoft: 5GB is enough for my personal use. Don't need more. Apple's system is much more secure than that of google and microsoft.
* chromecast vs apple TV - $25 dollar junk vs $99 perfection. Nuff said.
* last but not least, my i6+ demands elite status because it's a premium device that no competitor can match. You guys are just silly to berate apple when you know they are so good in engineering. I've not had one bending issue, no problems with iOS 8.0.2 everything just works great.
I wouldn't think of owning anything but apple because they give me the best high end value vs android. Sick of these comparison when the truth is apple may be expensive but you know you are getting your money's worth!
You have no idea what you're talking about. A 20kHz sine wave can be reproduced 100% perfectly, without any loss whatsoever, when sampled at 40kHz, assuming your signal is limited with a low-pass anti-aliasing filter. There's no such thing as a stairstep. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIQ9IXSUzuM
The iPhone 6 is Capable
The iPhone 6 is completely capable of HD audio playback. It's just the OS that is limiting it currently. But that is a matter of a software update.
that is all.
The iPhone 6 is completely capable of HD audio playback. It's just the OS that is limiting it currently. But that is a matter of a software update.
that is all.
Go read it again, that's exactly what it says. The crucial thing is that it is reproducing a band limited signal, you filter the input to remove the higher frequencies it can't sample, after that it does reproduce the signal exactly.
"Characteristics"? If it's a 20k signal, 20k will be reproduced. "Characteristics" would be other frequencies, and any frequencies higher than that are filtered out. You're just talking about sampling higher frequencies, not sampling frequencies in the range better somehow.
If it's a sine wave, it's only 20k by itself. If it's sawtooth or square or anything else besides sine, it's 20k plus higher frequencies. Again, it's not about sampling that signal more accurately, it's just deciding whether you want to sample higher frequencies or not.
Not to mention, 20k is on the fringe of human hearing anyway. If you play someone a 20k sine versus square or sawtooth, those latter signals are 20k plus higher overtones which are too high for anyone to hear. So nobody can hear a difference between sine and square at 20k, if they can even hear them at all they sound exactly the same.
Information is always lost with any recording, digital or otherwise. In the case of sample rate, a maximum frequency is chosen and everything above that is intentionally filtered out. Which is perfectly fine since the frequencies taken out are inaudible anyway.
It's really simple. Higher sample rate allows recording higher frequencies. It's a misconception that higher sample rate somehow adds more detail or whatever to frequencies under 20k, that "more detail" would just be higher inaudible frequencies that are filtered out.
Utter nonsense. CDs definitely have frequencies over 16k, since the sample rate is 44.1 the maximum frequency is 22 which gives some headroom above 20k for filtering. The only problem with frequencies close to half the sampling rate is that it's a challenge to create good filters so it's not like you can filter everything at 22.050 but pass 22.000. There simply isn't any "destruction of the characteristics of the signal around Shannon frequencies", period.
CDs absolutely have improved since the first ones but for many other reasons. Better clocking, reduced jitter, better dither, more accuracy at the low bits, the ability to record at 24 bit for masters (which does make for better 16 bit releases), and a number of other things. But it certainly wasn't filtering everything under 16k.
My goodness, where did you get this? Dynamic range of 16 bit CD is 96dB, 24 bit is 144dB. Even the 16 bit is a big dynamic range for playback, especially dithering properly. Obviously bigger dynamic range is better but 96dB didn't "kill" anything particularly compared to earlier recording formats. The problem with early CD was not using dither (or bad dither) which caused low level signal to have audible quantization errors, with proper dither the noise floor fades into noise just like earlier analog formats. There's a limit to how quiet a signal can be recorded and played back, just like any other recording format. But those quietest signals are exactly that, quiet. Unless you're listening to recordings at a damagingly loud level or have a dead quiet listening environment, even things like air conditioning or the ambient noise of a room that isn't soundproofed is going to render the very lowest signals inaudible. Even with 16 bit.
And the loudness war had nothing to do with the quiet end of CD dynamic range, it only happened because people wanted their mixes to sound louder than everyone else's on the radio. If CD and digital recording contributed to that it's because it made it possible to create masters that were way over compressed and limited. Not because it made that necessary, there are tons of great digital recordings that use the full dynamic range available.
24 bit does have advantages, no question about it. But even with that I would argue the advantages are more on the recording side, generally overkill on the distribution side.
You have to share with us what you listen to your music on, and what music you listen to.
You could have a great studio make 16bit/44.1k sound incredible, and a poor studio take 24bit/96k audio and make it sound like trash. Everyone's ears are capable of hearing the difference in blind tests, but everyone's tastes are different, and how and what they listen to, differs as well. Take a bright punchy MP3 of a modern dance tune, compared to a vinyl jazz record on a direct drive Techniques turntable, with a Grado stylus cartridge, MacIntosh tube amp, through Boston acoustics tower columns, and I'd bet most people would say the tiny MP3 sounded better.
A huge part of why Apple is successful was taking the AAC/MP3 and offering a chance to buy a single song, or entire album and download to a portable format at great convenience. The entire music production industry absolutely had no choice but to adopt/support AAC/MP3 mastering, taking dozens of years of incredible Analog and Digital audio equipment recording techniques, and smashing that file down into something that could be uploaded and downloaded and played on a portable player. In a way that was healthy, because big expensive studios had to turn their capabilities into both high quality, and decent conversion down to AAC/MP3s. That was good enough. I hope this changes.
Now people have broadband connections and iPhones capable of holding larger files. There are many earbud companies that make dual-driver earbuds, capable of 15-22khz. And studios would love not to have to master to AAC/MP3, and leave their work in the 24bit/96k AIF/WAV formats.
Why would anyone buy Filet Mignon when a McDonalds hamburger satisfies hunger?
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not sure if trolling or serious
most of what he said is true even if he does sound like a fanboy.
I can see the accessory makers come up with a device that spins our iPhones at 78rpm
Delta/Sigma oversampling A/D conquered the LP filter issue years ago.
Gradual filter way above the listing badwidth then use decimation filters to get it back in range.
You then end up with something that performs all the way out to almost 22.05kHz without a lot of phase delay and distortion.
96K/24Bit has been hype for decades for anyone but "twekheads" and they fail in critical double blind listening tests.
These are the same people that claim LP sounds more natural and somehow has infinite resolution. They ignore the non-linear RIAA curves that LPs use just to keep the needle in that tiny groove while trying to replicate an 808.
This story is really a non story.
The iPhone or any other small device for that matter doesn't have enough room to isolate the analog and digital power supplies sufficiently for audiophile playback. They also don't have the room for the headphone driver circuitry to top quality.
And it is front page news all Friday morning.
In other news the new iPhone 6 cannot auto-pilot your car when connected to CarPlay.
Thank you for existing.
Only thing I would add is that the 96dB range limit is itself even a bit of a misnomer, since in practice a shaped dither will yield dynamic ranges of ~120dB on 16-bit audio. And a reminder for those that forgot physics 101- dB is logarithmic, so this is more than 15 times the 96dB figure!
TL;DR: Encoding above 16 bit/44.1khz does nothing for playback beyond wasting precious space on your iPhone.
Exactly. The majority of people can't tell the difference between a CD and an MP3. This is just spec jumping.
Really all you need to know about HD Audio is that special testing equipment was required to determine it isn't supported by the iPhone 6.
Special equipment was not needed to distinguish a Retina and non-Retina display when the iPhone 4 came out.
Special equipment was not needed to distinguish a Retina and non-Retina display when the iPhone 4 came out.
When the PONO Kickstarter campaign was in the news here, hi resolution music was mocked and anything better than CD quality was a gimmick. I'm guessing that will change when Apple supports it.
I remember reading back in the day that most engineers could not tell the difference between cd audio and an mp3.
Not saying that applies to all people, all the time, but it must still be out there on the google?
I think he should have said "relative flop." Or at least left out the "basically."
The phone is a flop relative to other Apple releases. Besides its great sales, there was huge drop in Apple shares this week because of the phone's tendency to bend in people's front pockets, plus iOS8's probs.
Not at all a complete failure, but Apple must be slapping their foreheads over this.