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PHILIP1193

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 1, 2007
174
27
I have read many reviews that say the only way you'll get high-res audio on these headphone is with Apple Music. Is all apple music high resolution?

I like Tidal HiFi but again if i don't' get the benefit via the headphones there is no point.
 
I think what they mean, I read that the AirPod Max doesn't actually stream the music via bluetooth, they actual stream the file then decode on the fly in the headphone.
If that is the case, iTune files would probably sound the best.
 
I think what they mean, I read that the AirPod Max doesn't actually stream the music via bluetooth, they actual stream the file then decode on the fly in the headphone.
If that is the case, iTune files would probably sound the best.
Is this like a LPCM soundtrack on Blu-ray Disc sent to a receiver to then be decoded on the fly by the AVR?

So it’s essentially a zip file wirelessly transmitted & then unpacked by the AirPods Max?
 
I use Qobuz and have compared extensively against Tidal and find Qobuz to be consistently better than Tidal. They stream it all in lossless FLAC so is the highest resolution possible.

Even if the APM’s don’t support high res codecs etc, Qobuz still sounds quite a lot better than Apple Music, but Apple have been sneaking some stuff out in “Super High Quality” (whatever that means) which is improved on their normal offering.

However, the higher res services do still sound better on the Max’s

Jason
 
I have read many reviews that say the only way you'll get high-res audio on these headphone is with Apple Music. Is all apple music high resolution?

I like Tidal HiFi but again if i don't' get the benefit via the headphones there is no point.

AAC BT does not support true lossless hi-res (24/44.1 and up). The reason Apple Music is preferred is that it supports AAC natively while Spotify, Tidal HiFi, Qobuz etc. had to re-encode the playback to AAC before it's sent to Airpods via BT.

I think what they mean, I read that the AirPod Max doesn't actually stream the music via bluetooth, they actual stream the file then decode on the fly in the headphone.
If that is the case, iTune files would probably sound the best.

I don't think so unless they figure out that it's operating via Airdrop and not by BT.
 
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