Nice! I was considering adding a Tidal subscription since I recently purchased a Hifi setup but now I'll wait and see if this manifests.
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Rumor: Apple to Announce Third-Generation AirPods and HiFi Apple Music Tier in 'Coming Weeks'
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I applaud Apple for streaming lossless, but it isn't going to come close to Qobuz's 24/96 (and higher). I'm sticking with Qobuz.
Qobuz is fine if I ever need to listen to an album before purchasing the physical media.
100%
It's unbelievable that somehow being able to discern a difference between 128/256kbps and a CD means you have some type of magical ears or audio equipment. I guess those guys citing their studies and so-called science will insist on not getting a free upgrade to lossless...
Being able to discern a difference between 128 and 256 on good equipment doesn't mean you have magical ears, that's possible even for "normal" ears. Discern a difference between 256 and lossless? Yeah, rest assured you would fail in a real blind test. The "so called science" is your "hifi" placebo imagination – and I am telling this as a guy who owns a so called audiophile stereo equipment and always tries to achieve perfect sound.
That said, if the AM hifi upgrade is free, I take it, or course. Surely won't pay five or even ten dollars more for it though.
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Thank you, I appreciate this explicit reference to it. I often forget to bookmark things like this.
Agree RE: Mastering. I came to this conclusion as well.
I will say I'm still curious to see how much bluetooth can change things insomuch as the "AAC 256KBPS" stream may be compromised by poor remixing (forget bit rate drops for a moment). Again really not 100% sure there, as it may well be all in the inaudible range, but it does at least pose a distinct scenario from plain 326 vs FLAC on a desktop with USB C/Aux-out. For Apple devices, less of an issue if any, but there are other manufacturers with poorly implemented AAC spec, so.
lol dude, using 128kbps and 256kbps interchangeably as though the discrepancy in bit rate is a linear function that outputs musical hedons - such that lossless is some Turkish Delight **** - entirely misses the point.
People can hardly discern 256kbps MP3 vs FLAC on ABX tests. And AAC is the successor to MP3 - it uses psychoacoustic modeling to pave over the deficits. The ceiling is fairly clear and it ain't linear.
Here's LC3, the new Bluetooth LE standard to succeed SBC. See for yourself:
LE Audio | Bluetooth® Technology Website
Building on 20 years of innovation, LE Audio will enhance the performance of Bluetooth audio, add support for hearing aids, and introduce Audio Sharing, an innovative new Bluetooth use case with the…
www.bluetooth.com
Exactly. Man I can discern 128 and 256 all the time, srs - whenever I **** around with my Casting and Deezer I notice it ****s up the quality on bluetooth later/ the next time I listen, and usually takes me two songs tops of even modest volume to realize the quality was shafted. Or when doing iOS restores etc
128 vs 256 is huge! after that imma need to see the ABX independent verification or a really ****** audio chain/remixer proof
I'm betting Apple will be pulling a Tidal and soliciting some new remastered tracks to slip in as HiFi exclusive - and thus we'll never hear the end of how great lossless is.
Oh man the 24-bit stuff kills me lol. Really there's something about that one part of this entire machination that is just over the top
To be clear though: I am all for lossless at no cost if only because it ensures any degradation in the chain - which, is at least theoretically plausible certainly outside of Apple products - is less likely to noticeably degrade the sound. But again I'm not 100% on all that and it's certainly nothing like people want to believe lol
Those of us outside the USA do not receive such stellar service, unfortunately.
I've had a similar thing happen in the USA with an iPhone 6 at the time, they just swapped it for a new one even though it was 3 months out of warranty. But in Europe or Asia, tough luck, no they won't.
With AirPods it's really the epitome of consumerism to have a product with an obsoletion date of 1 year + a few months. My AirPods now last about 1 hour on battery. Bit of a joke of a product. The other issue being it fries my brain, so actually having it die is not the worst thing, it may save me from brain cancer....
Wonder if Itunes Match will allow me to stream my 70k music collection in HIFI? Id pay $35 per year rather than $25 for that service!
The best you can get from the iTunes music store today is 256kbit/s AAC encoded with a high-quality encoder from 192 kHz/ 24 bit sources. When I started ripping my music, I tried various quality levels and I couldn’t hear a difference between 160 kbit and 192kbit mp3 using good headphones.
So most people, including so-called “audiophiles” won’t hear a difference.
However, I _can_ hear the difference between 128 kbit and 256 kbit AAC. I _cannot_ tell you what the difference is, but I can hear that the 128 kbit just doesn’t have the same effect on me. It is less enjoyable. I can’t say what is missing, but something is.
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Apple doesn’t have to come up with their own format. ALAC has been there for many years.
Go listen to the Foo Fighters then tell me there's no difference, I'll grant you for some music genres, the difference can appear slight on others it's huge, that said, I can normally tell the difference between Hi-Res & CD, YMMV.
Two different things.
ALAC is an offline lossless codec designed for archival.
Aptx and LDAC are high res audio streaming codec for wireless bluetooth transmission.
So far, Apple only supports SBC (the lowest common denominator) and AAC on all their bluetooth devices. There's probably a reason for that, ie. Apple doesn't want to pay licensing fees to Qualcomm or Sony.
Not sure about the Apple Music app, but iTunes had a conversion utility that enabled you to convert "up" a song in your iTunes library to create a version in AIFF 16-bit / 48kHz / 1536kbps. AIFF is an uncompressed lossless file format. It would retain the original copy and create a 2nd version with the higher bit rate. The downside is that AIFF files are HUGE, but the upside is that it provided you with a CD-quality music file that could play through iTunes or on an iPod/iPhone, which you couldn't do with a FLAC file, so it was basically the highest resolution available for play though the Apple environment.
I did this for the 4000 songs in my iTunes, and was able to get about 3200 songs on a 160GB iPod. I think iTunes also let you set that bit rate as the default for Import of new songs.
I did this for the 4000 songs in my iTunes, and was able to get about 3200 songs on a 160GB iPod. I think iTunes also let you set that bit rate as the default for Import of new songs.
I now wonder if the H2 chip that will likely be in the new AirPods was designed to handle higher-bandwidth audio, such as the potential use of Apple Lossless in Apple Music for this new "hifi" format.
Every leak and rumor suggests third gen Airpods won't have rubber tips. I'm confused why websites keep reporting they'll have a 'similar design' to Airpods Pro?
No, I called it. Read up on this, they are actually doing this. Just like Audio Sharing and Spacial Audio.
Also, AriPods are the mainstream wireless headphones. The hardcore ones are niche products.