As an audiophile and a musician I congratulate to everyone who could be able to appreciate lossless or even hi-res audio on AirPods of any kind.
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New AirPods Pro Do Not Support Lossless Apple Music
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I don't complain. I solve my problems by finding other tech to support what I want.
That said, your post points directly to what Apple has in front of them. They could own this market by taking it more seriously. Other streaming services are eating their lunch when it comes to audiophile content, and other manufacturers are filling the gap that Apple left behind when they not only stopped making the iPod, but stopped any further development into a device for those of us who wanted more.
Apple seems to have settled into the "Let's give the kids watching YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok what they want", ignoring that there is a substantial audience out there who thirst for next-tier audio. As I mentioned, they really could own this market. They have the name, the catalog, and the technical wherewithal (I sometimes find myself wondering over their lack of adventurous spirit since Jobs went up the escalator).
Packing audio chipsets into the iPhone would be difficult with current technology. There's a reason devices like my Fiio are so big and chunky. What I do think Apple should entertain is bringing back the iPod in a high-level form, complete with headphone jacks. Wireless is fine for riding the subway or walking a busy street, but it just doesn't have the bitrate to support what audiophiles desire. Maybe someday, but it's a ways off for now.
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Not everyone that likes to enjoy lossy music is a "kid" or tiktok dolt.
Also, One of the best DACs you can get is the lightning to headphone adapter. It has an excellent Signal to Noise ratio, and if you plug that into an iPad or iPhone, and then into headphones or an amp, you can have high res lossless audio. I believe you can also use the camera adapter and go from USB to your own DAC and do the same.
"One of the best DACs you can get is the lightning to headphone adapter."
It won't sufficiently drive some of my higher impedance headphones, unfortunately.
It won't sufficiently drive some of my higher impedance headphones, unfortunately.
This is a great example of why I hate the way Apple talks anymore. They couldn't just come out and say this. We have to read between the lines.
Still loving my first gen AirPods Pro and though all the other upgrades are fantastic, I think I'll hold out for the inevitable refresh that adds USB-C and lossless. Those two alone are enough to justify a mid-stream refresh like Apple loves to do.
I mean they did a mid-stream refresh that essentially added an existing feature for f*ck sake (magsafe vs existing qi charging).
Still loving my first gen AirPods Pro and though all the other upgrades are fantastic, I think I'll hold out for the inevitable refresh that adds USB-C and lossless. Those two alone are enough to justify a mid-stream refresh like Apple loves to do.
I mean they did a mid-stream refresh that essentially added an existing feature for f*ck sake (magsafe vs existing qi charging).
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Ability to summon the Apple Car by squeezing the stem. or different colours
I’m not really surprised that they don’t support lossless audio yet.
😂 I just got a YouTube suggested video yesterday about doing that. I don’t know how that even entered my playlist. I was going to watch it for the hell of it, but haven’t yet.
Thank you for replying for me to Mr Right. As I said in another thread: "Simple A/B testing done on my Sennheiser HD450BT in wired and wireless modes using .WAV and AAC256 files demonstrate the resolution differences" with the source material that I have been using to calibrate systems for 20 years internationally. Whether Mr Right or anybody else believes me or not is irrelevant and unimportant..
*edit typo
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“Think differently” - putting your pants on your head = lossless is overrated for a premium headphone.
After many years I have to conclude that Apple is not for technology enthusiasts but for people buying into brand recognition. This is backward as hell. But why am I writing this?
I am not going to buy it, never had any intention to- looking for relevancy perhaps?
meh, it’s Apple doing Apple things- printing money because they can’t fail.
After many years I have to conclude that Apple is not for technology enthusiasts but for people buying into brand recognition. This is backward as hell. But why am I writing this?
I am not going to buy it, never had any intention to- looking for relevancy perhaps?
meh, it’s Apple doing Apple things- printing money because they can’t fail.
Should they just spend ten or twenty minutes reading a list of all the things that the AirPods don’t do? Like, “AirPods cannot be used in the vacuum of space”, “AirPods will not make hotel reservations for you”, “AirPods cannot be used as a floatation device”, “AirPods…”. Should they do that? The list might get get quite long, and they might miss your desired question.
Or would it be better if they contact you personally, ahead of time, to ask for your list of features they never mentioned or advertised that you want them to say yea or nay on?
Yes and no.
With apples 3.5 MM to lightning cable, the AirPods Max can play back up to 24bit, 48khz files.
And the file you will hear in the headphones will be 24-bit, 48 kHz.
However, Apple is very very careful about not using the word “lossless” in any marketing materials, because technically the 24-bit, 48 kHz file is being converted from analog to digital, then from digital back to analog again, when going from the phone to the lightning cable, to the headphone cable, to the AirPods Max.
So because it goes through two different conversions, it would be false marketing to truly call it a Lossless file, because there was inevitably a small amount of data lost between the two transfers.
However, for 99% of purposes, it’s basically lossless.
It’s still higher than CD quality, and much much higher than Bluetooth.
The majority of Apple Music content is 24 bit 48 kHz, so if you’re just wondering if you can use AirPods max to take advantage of the higher quality options, absolutely.
Yeah that would be great actually.
Or they could directly address lack of support for directly relevant and expected features they have been touting the sh*t out of for the last year or so, either way.
A lot less in my opinion. I'm an audio engineer and musician with years of experience. I cannot tell the difference in a blind test.
If they are developing their own lossless codec and RF connection it would not be a surprise if any device with an H2 chip could be updated to use it. I have zero interest but you know that Apple wants to push lossless because it is still a differentiator for their music service.
Have you looked at the Euro
ollar exchange rate recently? They are currently even. That is a significant drop for the Euro.Sorry but you can't just say that, no one will listen to you. You need to at least provide references to the data you are supporting this with.
You're seem pretty smug to me, but studies like this are very subjective, and do not necessarily cover a wide range of situations. For example, if the sample used was only a voice, it may not be possible to differentiate. The same if the equipment used in the study was of poor quality, or worse, only one system rather than a range of combinations.
A good study will take into account many audio sample types, different equipment, and different people. The more the better. And the numbers need to be large enough that _any_ kind of improvement, even slight, can be identified or ruled out of the data. There are many biases that need to be avoided. If your reference is with a group of 10 people with one sample on one set of hardware, don't even bother - it is YOU who can consider, no ifs, not buts, you're wrong.
Comparisons with the CD scraper is irrelevant here also. Whilst a known scam, it is easy to disprove because if you can reliably rip the data, you can directly compare the outputs of the CD's binary data stream before and after, and know it is not legitimate. This is not so when comparing lossless to a known lossy codec.
But all this is moot. I want lossless on these headphones...not because having lossless will magically make it sound better, but because it will remove one of the sources of quality degradation out of the audio transmission process. Quality losses are cumulative, so the closer you can get end to end with your lossless, the less variation exists from the entire process, and the more confidence you can have that what you are hearing is what was intended by the artist. You seem to be completely oblivious to this point.
Keep in mind that at the moment, all audio is travelling over a Bluetooth connection, via a second codec (decompress then recompress) to get it to the headphones. The bandwidth on Bluetooth is much lower, reducing quality substantially, and this is what I want to get around. Saying that they are just earbuds is rubbish, they can and will be able to make this much more clear in the future. And earbuds tend to excel at frequencies in the high range because the driver is small, bass is quite easy to compress but hard to reproduce. So the bandwidth is very important.
Take a look at what happens when you apply JPEG compression to an image over and over again, and you will understand what I am getting at with regard to recompressing a data source with a lossy codec. Search YouTube for the video "Generation loss: comparison of FLIF, WebP, BPG and JPEG" and you will get a visual understanding of what I am saying.
So, that is todays lesson. Please stop mis-informing people that lossless doesn't matter just because you don't understand why it does.
I would say it is the people who are arguing AGAINST lossless that are resistant to facts. They don't seem to understand the problem, then create biased, poor quality hypothesis which they then prove to be correct, despite it not being representative of the true outcome.
People who want lossless audio just won’t be able to appreciate the difference using consumer grade mainstream wireless earbuds.
Sure if your using for $300-3000+ IEMs or Headphones with proper amplification you can probably appreciate the increased bit rate in certain tracks but definitely not using wireless earbuds (supported or not).
Sure if your using for $300-3000+ IEMs or Headphones with proper amplification you can probably appreciate the increased bit rate in certain tracks but definitely not using wireless earbuds (supported or not).