I remember my first experience with 96 kHz sound. I was convinced that it sounded so much better than boring old 44.1. Then later I found that my computer was downsampling it to 44.1 during playback.
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Don't Buy Into Apple's Hype About AirPods Max Gaining Lossless Audio
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Ok... I've got a fairly good sized music collection encoded in MP3 in various bitrates, and I have to admit there's probably no one answer for what sounds "good enough".
MP3s can be encoded with a dynamic bitrate or with a fixed one, which further complicates matters. (Dynamic bitrate encoding always seemed to me like a bit of a "can of worms" too, because I'd imagine the quality of playback on those depends more on the software decoding them. EG. Are there artifacts or even stutters getting introduced to the playback because it can't smoothly transition up and down between wildly different bitrates as it plays through the song?)
But all in all, I find anything encoded in only 128kbps to sound "muddy". It lacks clarity. At 160kbps, it's much better. But if I encode the same content at 192kbps and compare them head-to-head? 192kbps is audibly better, but only with the right speakers and the right sounds happening in the music. It's usually your details like fading cymbal crashes where you're more likely to hear the difference between the two.
Where I'd say I can't really hear a difference is when I go to 256kbps encoding from 192kbps. At that point, discerning listeners MIGHT be able to pick out some very slight places where something sounded a bit different to them, but I'd say they'd never hear anything detrimental to enjoyment of the music from the 192kbps encoded version.
Heck, I’m still stuck back on “Wait - are they really calling headphones ‘AirPods’? Srsly?”.
“Ultimate” = “The best achievable”
With regard to fidelity to the recorded material, Lossless is the best that can be achieved, technically making it the “Ultimate upgrade”.
The fact that it is virtually indistinguishable from AAC is irrelevant.
Reminds me of this story from back in 2012 …
Ladies and Gentlemen … may I present you … the $485 wooden volume knob.
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Gotta plug it in….. Just like you have to plug in a CDROM or floppy drive, or wait for it: Like a headphone jack! Roaring in laughter at the absurdity.
Yes, precisely. "Ultimate" doesn't imply a particular amount of improvement – moving from the second-best to the best of 1000 things could be fairly described as moving to the "ultimate" one.
(Meanwhile, yes: probably nothing to get too hyped about, unless you just love knowing that it's lossless…?)
Watch this thread get hundreds of comments. Mission accomplished, I guess.
Shame the app crashes every five minutes. No point in having great sound quality if your software is garbage.
But the heaphones, those are five fiddy and they got yo money. 🤣
I wouldn't give them 5.50 for them tbh. I am off back to my spotify comfort blanket when my sub runs out
Most people don’t know what it is. Of those who do, most lie about being able to tell the difference. Put ten self-professed audiophiles in a blind test with AirPods Max in ideal listening conditions and 8 or 9 of them will fail in telling a difference.
So in your mind the only way someone can possibly be a fan of something is if they are paid to do it? Wow, it must be sad to go through life with that mindset.
But but but…it wasn’t GOLD covered ice cream!
Those are not the headphones that I would choose for critical listening. Folks wouldn't know “what” to listen for, and it isn’t highs and lows”
I just don't get this PARTICULAR critique - for unlocking a feature we didn't even know about and that some people DO appreciate. Feels like clickbait.
Apple has always hyped their products, it’s just now that people are starting to see through their tactics.
It is too bad we had to lose the headphone jack only for apple to reintroduce us to plugging in headphones years later for folks to figure it out. Delicious.
Bitch about not having it, get it and now bitch again can’t tell a difference. You people are seriously a trip and miserable. Go touch grass. 👎
Anything lowering Mac audio latency is quite welcome. That’s the main feature here, not lossless.