Don't Buy Into Apple's Hype About AirPods Max Gaining Lossless Audio

[Applestock]

This sounds like Apple pulled expertise from the division that just completed their new in-house modem. I don’t see how they were able to increase the bandwidth on the H1 chip enough for lossless audio, but eventually there will be an explainer article

 

[Haiku_Oezu]

I don’t care about lossless audio, I just want the audio quality to not go into underwater mode while using the microphone

 

[poofdadz]

…That’s a blatant absence of evidence fallacy framing a very specific one at that.

Especially about something that is diminished returns as one gets older or deteriorates in ear health

So you admit you have no evidence and it’s all in your head then.

 

[AhRiHmAn]

I remember when I first got the APM and Apple launched lossless , I tried and was "wow so this is what pure sound means!" and was sure the difference was huge
Just to discover a couple of days later than bluetooth doesn't work with Lossless and it was AAC 256 anyway 😂

 

[garotemonkey]

This sounds like Apple pulled expertise from the division that just completed their new in-house modem. I don’t see how they were able to increase the bandwidth on the H1 chip enough for lossless audio, but eventually there will be an explainer article

Ah, but they didn't. The headphones now advertise themselves as a USB audio device when a USB-C cable connects them directly to a computer/phone, and the data is sent over the wire. They did not do that before.

Incidentally, all you need for uncompressed cd quality is a consistent 150kB/second. (Kilobytes, not kilobits.)

Bluetooth 4 can only deliver about half that in ideal conditions, and tends to deliver much less given the typical distances involved. The Bluetooth 5 standard can supposedly deliver 2048kB a second, which is actually enough for decent video streaming on a small screen, but again -- ideal conditions, and assuming hardware that fully implements the standard.

There are actually devices that do this, and they've been around for years, but they haven't made waves (see what I did there) because people who are obsessive enough to want lossless audio don't tend to drive the wireless headphone market, and I don't have precise number for this statistic, but I'm just gonna say, 99.5% of all the music on phones worldwide is lossy-encoded.

 

[georgesdimitrov]

MacRumors coverage is usually great, but this article really fell low.

It's like making fun of a company that are releasing a new "ultimate" 8K TV because for their last 4K TV they already marketed "near-indistinguishable-from-reality resolution".

Most people certainly wouldn't be able to blindly A/B/X test different very close shades of red, does that mean that color-calibrated P3 displays are useless?

Whether you can hear it or just feel it, it's objectively better and truer to the source. What's wrong with that?

 

[Timpetus]

You could be right. But maybe wait until you listen to it? I can tell the difference between lossy and lossless easily.
I think there is hype here - but the other way - that AAC is 256 is a good as a lossless file.
AAC works well for most people and for many use cases indistinguishable. But it's like RAW versus JPG - it's vastly superior for some people.

Minor nitpick from a photographer: you've never seen a RAW photo. You've only seen converted RAW photos, usually into JPG.

 

[ksec]

Except for when you select 'Lossless" in Music.app, right?

No, Lossless they use another codec called ALAC which is really lossless.

 

[caughtbythefuzz]

“Personalized Spatial Audio” is awful. It is a gigantic distraction in the best of times; and when paired with any album that predated its creation, it is an obvious bastardizing of the artist’s original work.

 

[novagamer]

“Personalized Spatial Audio” is awful. It is a gigantic distraction in the best of times; and when paired with any album that predated its creation, it is an obvious bastardizing of the artist’s original work.

Head tracking is silly (and you can turn it off without losing Atmos) but for newer Albums Spatial Audio provides more headroom and often a better experience.

Classical and many modern albums are better for it.

The personalized aspect applies a HRTF (google this to read about it) which just makes the DSP tuned to your ear’s shape better and works very well.

If you’re listening to some remixed spatial album, especially from 2019/2020 where many labels sent their old catalog through a jackass “make spatial audio” mill then yeah, that stuff is mostly terrible and gimmicky. Good engineers have Atmos studios now so the more expensive productions have very nice mixes, even in fold down stereo the headroom is better.

 

[entropi]

Do the AirPods Max still need battery or charged power to use with the 3.5mm cord or can they be used as passive analog cans?

Its the only reason I haven’t gotten a pair...

they still need to be charged... (this why I prefer real headphones too)

 

[entropi]

Get the Sony WH-1000XM5 headset

Sennheiser Momentum 4 has great 60h battery life, and can still be used as normal corded headphones without being charged.

 

[mcled53]

For Apple, giving back the 3.5mm audio jack on iPhones and iPad would be the "ultimate audio upgrade". Also the difference between AAC and ALAC is like JPG and JPEG.

Actually: JPG vs PNG.

 

[Big_D]

They need to start telling the truth, they sound like iJustine

Apple or the AirPods Max? 🤣

 

[WeinendSichAusDiesemBund]

I think a lot of people can’t tell the difference because they’re listening on poor quality speakers or headphones. Personally I find it very easy to tell the difference.

Or they’re listening to poor quality recordings/masters.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I both agree and disagree.
But I'm happy to see so much debate on this topic


I'm exactly in the same situation. I even convinced myself that even if I can't hear it, it will provide better support for EQ, or even that I would feel less ear fatigue and less brain processing when listening over long period of time.

But honestly, moving to lossless is just a best way to close this debate once for all.
It's a good thing and a good signal for music and audio quality.

PS: If needed there's a good test to reevaluate your personal position on that topic
> https://abx.digitalfeed.net/

I keep my local library as all lossless (as available) but also listen to those same songs converted down to 320 & 256 on various iPod devices.

It all just sounds the same with how I use them and with my aging ears ... but I do ensure to procure ALACs just so I can always have the best version to work off of at least.

 

[Big_D]

You could be right. But maybe wait until you listen to it? I can tell the difference between lossy and lossless easily.
I think there is hype here - but the other way - that AAC is 256 is a good as a lossless file.
AAC works well for most people and for many use cases indistinguishable. But it's like RAW versus JPG - it's vastly superior for some people.

I agree, I went from cheap wired buds to Samsung Buds + to AirPods Pro to AirPods Pro 2. Each was a gobsmacking upgrade. I thought the Pros were excellent, compared to the Samsung Buds. They started causing feedback when using ANC and I switched to Pro 2s, I thought the difference would be minimal, I was very surprised how much better the quality was.

I also have a relatively good pair of Sony over ears and they are really good when listening to The Charismatic Voice. YouTube quality isn’t the best, but I am hearing so much more, when I sit there and listen to her analysis of the songs I grew up with than I did with my boom box or Walkman from the 80s.

And that is just the improved quality of the headphones over the years (and moving up the quality ladder).

I have reripped my CD collection several times over the years, from low quality MP3, to high quality MP3 and FLAC. Each time a marked improvement in quality, even on average speakers and headphones.

My ears aren’t that good, but I can believe that someone with more sensitive ears will get even more out of high end headphones with lossless.

The other thing is obviously where you listen to it. A wired connection with the Max on the subway isn’t going to do the source material justice, sitting in a quiet room and really listening to the music and concentrating on the music is another story entirely.

 

[lusty]

Ah, but they didn't. The headphones now advertise themselves as a USB audio device when a USB-C cable connects them directly to a computer/phone, and the data is sent over the wire. They did not do that before.

But crucially, this method still uses the DAC and amps in device so cannot take advantage of better quality ones in good audio equipment as a phono plug setup does. It also severely limits what you can plug into (as does Bluetooth, obvs).

 

[novagamer]

But crucially, this method still uses the DAC and amps in device so cannot take advantage of better quality ones in good audio equipment as a phono plug setup does. It also severely limits what you can plug into (as does Bluetooth, obvs).

Apple’s $9 DAC is better than you’d expect.

Apple Audio Adapter Review - The One To Beat • Music For The Masses

A thorough review of the Apple audio adapter (both Lightning and USB-C versions) by Jürgen Kraus.

www.audioreviews.org

There is some measured comparison I can’t find but it beat some that cost well over 10-20x more. Whatever is going on inside the AirPods Max given their size and the maturation of Apple’s audio hardware design since then probably removes it as a major factor.

I’m not saying DACs don’t matter at all but for these purposes on this device it’s a negligible, probably generally positive difference and the headphones couldn’t work the way the hardware is designed without operating this way.

All USB-C audio devices will work this way as well, there has to be conversion somewhere and I’d wager Apple’s is probably better than most.

What would be interesting is using usb-c to usb-c and testing against usb-c to 3.5mm on a high end DAC with high res content. I doubt there would be nearly any difference except coloration but it may reveal some bias. The lighting version sounds quite good with the adapter imo.

One benefit of the AirPods Max working the way they do with the ADC cable is that you get volume control if your source doesn’t have it, which isn’t that common but it came in handy for me using them with eurorack.

 

[Big_D]

But crucially, this method still uses the DAC and amps in device so cannot take advantage of better quality ones in good audio equipment as a phono plug setup does. It also severely limits what you can plug into (as does Bluetooth, obvs).

Even when you use the phono to USB cable?

 

[mutablecopy]

just signed up to say that this announcement made me HAPPY,

because I bought APM and a PS5 last year and felt somewhat STUMPED when I found out that these devices cannot be used together. The PS5 does only render its Spatial Audio over the headphone jack on the controller, and the APM had no way to plug into that.

Thank you Tim Profit.

 

[novagamer]

just signed up to say that this announcement made me HAPPY,

because I bought APM and a PS5 last year and felt somewhat STUMPED when I found out that these devices cannot be used together. The PS5 does only render its Spatial Audio over the headphone jack on the controller, and the APM had no way to plug into that.

Thank you Tim Profit.

They work great with the PS5. Make sure you use the PS5 3d audio settings panel to test the HRTF low/medium/high presets because they will sound different depending on your ear shape.

Not all games implement it well, Returnal is mind blowing though.

It’s also the case having independent audio volume on the AirPods Max is nice because you can easily adjust when switching games.

 

[lusty]

Even when you use the phono to USB cable?

Depends what they’re doing with the analogue signal. If there’s a direct wire connection to the output then why the special cable?

 

[lusty]

Apple’s $9 DAC is better than you’d expect.

To people who never had experience of real HiFi a Sonos looks pretty good. I’m sure Apple compete with their peers just fine but I’m also confident that those peers are inferior to anything the 1980s delivered, even the cheap stuff (from a purely sound quality perspective)

 

[novagamer]

To people who never had experience of real HiFi a Sonos looks pretty good. I’m sure Apple compete with their peers just fine but I’m also confident that those peers are inferior to anything the 1980s delivered, even the cheap stuff (from a purely sound quality perspective)

DSP does a lot of good since the vast majority of people don’t have acoustically measured and treated spaces.

I have a very high-end hi-fi and Stereo HomePods worked better in one case due to the terrible acoustics in that room, but it was admittedly a corner case.

I post all the time in these threads because there are a lot of old notions people have that aren’t necessarily applicable these days, and Apple keeps dropping the ball explaining in plain english how this stuff works. Taste is subjective but I do have a lot of experience with very high quality audio, work with pro equipment, and regularly visit an audiologist to make sure I’m still on point physically.

I’m not going to claim the $9 dongle is as good as my apogee symphony but it is still surprisingly good and Apple has larger margins, larger space, and more modern technology to work with on the AirPods Max so I do think it’s a non-issue, and you get a different experience having Atmos natively supported. This is a nice upgrade.

I disagree that middle-of-the-road 1980s hi-fi was that good. The solid state power amps distorted more harshly than their tube progenitors, speaker acoustics hadn’t really improved much over older designs, and preamps were, subjectively, a little worse too. Plus tape decks were common and that medium was real bad.

I do have a power amp originally designed in the 1960s so I get the notion that quality was lost, but there have been a ton of advancements over the last 10-15 years in particular.