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Rumor: Apple to Announce Third-Generation AirPods and HiFi Apple Music Tier on May 18
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i can absolutely hear the difference between aac and mp3. perhaps the easiest to notice and most consistent is that higher frequencies that are low in the mix will tend to almost disappear with aac
as for dvd-audio, that’s a completely different subject altogether. it’s doubtful one would hear much difference there, and, actually impossible if, as i’ve mentioned elsewhere, the music itself was recorded digitally at 44.1 in the first place, in which case the cd is already the highest quality it can be.
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This is a thought that entered my mind. I’m paying for the most expensive Apple One tier so it’ll be interesting to see how this plays into it.
It looks like the rumours are correct
I'm sure. I'm sure. But in what condition? less than $1,000 speakers, ordinary room, comfortable volume level, casual listening?.. I doubt it.
Looks many people have claimed about this. And I didn't say no one at all can't hear the difference but it's one thing you know what is playing it's another thing entirely when blinded test. I saw it with my own eyes. You're not the first claiming this. A few of my friends are audiophile geeks who naturally claiming super ears, and they all fell flat for the tests so until we do the test in front of each others anyone can claim anything.
you can do it yourself. it doesn’t matter what the speakers are unless they are exceptionally bad. find a song that has high hats that are quiet in the mix for which you have both a cd and an aac file (or any lossy format, it’s not about aac specifically) listen to the high hats while you switch back and forth between the two, you will hear the high hats start to drop out
it’s not about super ears, just listening
Oh, tested it a few times already with my audiophile friends. Like I said, they all fell flat.
"It's one thing to know what you're playing it's another thing entirely when blind tested". This needs repeating.
maybe you are misunderstanding what i am saying. i’m not saying that you can just play a song and i can tell you what format it is
i am saying that if you play the same song in a high quality format, like a cd, and a lossy format like aac, and switch back and forth between them, you will often, but not always, hear certain frequencies, especially higher ones, become much quieter or drop out altogether on the lossy version
it has nothing to do with being an audiophile, or having expensive gear (which i think is all that being an audiophile is really.) anyone should be able to hear these differences, even if they may need to be pointed at what to listen to.
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lol, hifi tier yet 90% of the people using the Music app are going to be using Bluetooth headphones/earbuds. What's the point? No bluetooth audio codec is even remotely close to good enough to make a "Hifi" plan or service worth getting if that's your only way to listen to it. airpods pro and airpods max aren't any different either btw.
So 48 kHz, 96 kHz (or higher) 24 bit you don't consider HiFi?
Yes. Pretty useless on airpod family, both because of bluetooth and the internal transmitters. Returned both Airpods and Powerbeats Pro as the sound quality was so poor.
You can get good in-the-ear wired earphones, but they are very expensive. Ultimate Ears custom builds using the ear impressions you send them. Prices start at $500 and go to $2300.
The uproar if they tried to do this could be heard on the moon. Since they have required hihres masters for itunes tracks for years shouldn't be a problem for them.
Used to think the same. At home wanted to hear everything exactly as I heard it in concert. I wanted to be able to place every instrument in space with my eyes closed, to hear the reverberations, etc.
Changed my mind after listening on a current Marantz receiver. They have a stereo surround mode which takes stereo music and plays it on all 5.2 speakers. You can get some weird effects, such as a single instrument for some reason only coming from a surround speaker. But you are enveloped in sound, as if you are sitting on the stage, in the center of the orchestra. You are a participant, not a listener. Love it.
That's great. Most people who post that no one can hear the difference haven't actually done any testing themselves. Sorry that you can't enjoy the glories of hires.
See, I’d be good with the level of fidelity I get now BUT enable composers and producers to place instruments in a 3D space, then give me the option to place myself in 3 dimensions in relation to the sound. If an artist knew that millions upon millions of their listeners would have access to hardware that would be able to play this back almost on the day of introduction, there might be a good amount of interest in mastering this way, especially if you had plugins for the major DAWs that makes it easy.
For all the songs I like that have a Music Video, I’ve been going back to listen to them. Many have been upgraded to support Spatial Audio. Some are just in the 3D box, turn your head left to right and the sound follows the screen. Some have gone quite a bit further to the point of actually placing instruments around/behind. I’m going to have to go back and see if I can pick out a few.
DSD or nothing. But it depends on someones ears. Some peoples cant even hear the difference between mp3 and wave.
No I agree, just not a good look to try and push dedication to music and also blatantly abandoning music for most consumers
I dont expect a windows program ever, seems more likely they push the web app and maybe do a win10 app in the future that just emulates it. Heck, the web app is barely any different than the MacOS app anyway.
Ok so HiFi (High Rez) audio in my books is usually 24bit 192Khz rates at this day and age, does this mean Airplay will support that resolution as afaik it is restricted to much lower sampling rates?
So?
Should audio enthusiasts be ostracized?
I don't see what apple has to lose in providing the service to all users.
They’ll probably launch with iOS 14.6 and the Apple Music update.
Exactly. Qualcomm owns aptx. Apple is equally capable of implementing a similar standard for which they wouldn't need to pay royalties. What I'm curious to know is if there is such an alternative? I know that with Bluetooth 5.1 the datastream capacity quadrupled (approximately), but I had read that would not likely be used by music standards. Though, I don't see why that couldn't be the case. I understand that not all of the increased bandwidth is actually 'available' for streaming data due to overhead, buffering, etc. But even a conservative estimate I'd made of the capacity increase would have allowed for (possibly) lossless compressed or near-lossless music streaming over Bluetooth. And that was just using a variable rate AAC, not a hopefully improved ALAC or something similar.