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Music streaming - Apple goes lossless & hi-res
Posted on 6/15/21 at 2:29 pm
Posted on 6/15/21 at 2:29 pm
For the music nuts who care about quality too, this is a pretty big deal. Apple not only added lossless but high res - and didn't do it for a premium price. That forced Amazon to fold their Music HD option into the regular $10 ($8 for Prime members) plan. Spotify is expected to follow soon though it's not clear if they'll have a hi-res option. Apple is doing Dolby Atmos, calling it "Spatial Audio", for some immersive music. That definitely piques my interest since I have a full (7.2.4) Atmos setup in my HT but it looks like Apple may be only doing a 2 channel version of this. Their buds/phones with H1/W1 chips, like AirPods & Beats, are all supposed to support Spatial.
Since I have several Apple devices - phones, AppleTV 4K, a Mac Mini that I use as the digital front end for my 2 channel rig - that pushes me pretty strongly toward Apple over Amazon. I do have Prime, but while Amazon gives a $2 discount on the individual plan it doesn't discount the family rate. Inconsequential to me but just seems a little odd.
I've been a Tidal subscriber for several years because of their support for higher quality streaming, and I also liked that they at least advertised giving a better % to musicians as I do care about that. Very curious to see if and how they respond. I'll be starting a trial of Apple Music soon and among other things my wife has told me I better be able to port her playlists over, lol. Of course that's a requirement and should be easily doable from what I see.
Since I have several Apple devices - phones, AppleTV 4K, a Mac Mini that I use as the digital front end for my 2 channel rig - that pushes me pretty strongly toward Apple over Amazon. I do have Prime, but while Amazon gives a $2 discount on the individual plan it doesn't discount the family rate. Inconsequential to me but just seems a little odd.
I've been a Tidal subscriber for several years because of their support for higher quality streaming, and I also liked that they at least advertised giving a better % to musicians as I do care about that. Very curious to see if and how they respond. I'll be starting a trial of Apple Music soon and among other things my wife has told me I better be able to port her playlists over, lol. Of course that's a requirement and should be easily doable from what I see.
3
Posted on 6/15/21 at 2:38 pm to pheroy
Thanks for posting this. I’ve had Tidal for years for the same reason. I’ve had issues with their family plan, so I’m glad to hear this. I’ll be doing a trial for Apple Music.
Posted on 6/15/21 at 3:25 pm to pheroy
quote:
Apple goes lossless
Thanks for posting that.
*Makes adjustments on all devices*
Posted on 6/15/21 at 5:53 pm to Larry Lobster
As a music engineer in Nashville - atmos and lossless is going to change everything. High Fidelity music is back
Posted on 6/16/21 at 9:14 pm to pheroy
People need to do their homework on this and understand it's not as straight forward as one would hope.
Airpods are bluetooth and doesn't support lossless, nor does airplay.
I've been toying with it trying to figure out how to get hi res from my phone to my receiver. I tried the USB port on my receiver and found that the Apple lightening cable doesn't support lossless either.
Supposedly, if you use the headphone adapter it will then send out full hi res audio. So I'll have to use the adapter to plug a 3.5mm cable into the phone that converts to RCA.
I have one on the way to test and see if it will actually work the way I'm hoping. Obviously, I'd prefer to do this wirelessly but my receiver doesn't support it.
If I find that I like the quality from Apple Music, I may add an Apple TV to run my music from it.
Airpods are bluetooth and doesn't support lossless, nor does airplay.
I've been toying with it trying to figure out how to get hi res from my phone to my receiver. I tried the USB port on my receiver and found that the Apple lightening cable doesn't support lossless either.
Supposedly, if you use the headphone adapter it will then send out full hi res audio. So I'll have to use the adapter to plug a 3.5mm cable into the phone that converts to RCA.
I have one on the way to test and see if it will actually work the way I'm hoping. Obviously, I'd prefer to do this wirelessly but my receiver doesn't support it.
If I find that I like the quality from Apple Music, I may add an Apple TV to run my music from it.
Posted on 6/16/21 at 10:02 pm to pickle311
Yep, it's unfortunate that Apple KNEW this was coming yet they have not done much to have the most common playback hardware ready for it with their own gear.
I went ahead and signed up for Apple Music tonight to start checking it out. I queued up some Spatial Audio tracks, on my Apple TV playing back over my Atmos setup because I wanted to know if it would be limited to 2 channel or make full use of the surround & height speakers. It definitely did use the surrounds. I haven't checked out any hi-res yet.
I don't listen to music via headphones a lot so Airpods and iPhones not having good support for better codecs than AAC isn't a big issue for me yet. When I do use headphones for music it's a wired set, though the convenience of wireless is tempting. I do have a couple of pairs of BT headsets for phone calls.
But most of my music listening will be via a Mac Mini that I currently use with the Tidal app in my 2 channel system, or via the Apple TV 4K in my HT setup.
I went ahead and signed up for Apple Music tonight to start checking it out. I queued up some Spatial Audio tracks, on my Apple TV playing back over my Atmos setup because I wanted to know if it would be limited to 2 channel or make full use of the surround & height speakers. It definitely did use the surrounds. I haven't checked out any hi-res yet.
I don't listen to music via headphones a lot so Airpods and iPhones not having good support for better codecs than AAC isn't a big issue for me yet. When I do use headphones for music it's a wired set, though the convenience of wireless is tempting. I do have a couple of pairs of BT headsets for phone calls.
But most of my music listening will be via a Mac Mini that I currently use with the Tidal app in my 2 channel system, or via the Apple TV 4K in my HT setup.
This post was edited on 6/16/21 at 10:03 pm
Posted on 6/16/21 at 10:31 pm to pheroy
Basically if you want to get lossless out of an iPhone or iPad you need a wired connection. If you want hi-res you need to connect an external DAC. At least there are reasonably priced options there starting at around $100, like an Audioquest Dragonfly.
Posted on 9/16/21 at 4:27 pm to pheroy
Replying to myself lol... but update.
I canceled Apple Music on my last day of the free trial. The TLDR version is, I kept getting frustrated with the interface and going back to Tidal.
I even chatted with Apple support to ask about some things and while nice, the rep wasn't able to tell me one thing helpful that I hadn't already tried. This is disappointing to me - I expected better and was looking forward to saving a few $ and having the Dolby Atmos experience in my HT setup more. I hate all the over long surveys that companies send out these days but I actually hope Apple sends me one asking why I canceled b/c I'd like to give feedback.
Here's a more detailed set of notes - note that this applies mainly to the MacOS app as that's where I do most of my listening via my 2 channel system.
* Navigation problems:
- Keeps going back to main page, not what artist/album I was looking at.
- "Back" arrow keeps disappearing.
- Clicking on artist name in Now Playing does nothing.
* Playlists issues:
- Can't add track from History to playlist.
- Can't add track from Album view to playlist.
* 3 dots / options issues:
- Inconsistent track options in different context. I.e. Now Playing vs History.
- Can add album to playlist, but not individual track except for the one currently playing.
* Search feature - "Recently Searched" doesn't show actual recent searches, gets stuck at several searches back.
* Clicking "Dislike" on a track doesn't stop it playing.
* No favorite artists, no mechanism to alert to new release for favorites.
I canceled Apple Music on my last day of the free trial. The TLDR version is, I kept getting frustrated with the interface and going back to Tidal.
I even chatted with Apple support to ask about some things and while nice, the rep wasn't able to tell me one thing helpful that I hadn't already tried. This is disappointing to me - I expected better and was looking forward to saving a few $ and having the Dolby Atmos experience in my HT setup more. I hate all the over long surveys that companies send out these days but I actually hope Apple sends me one asking why I canceled b/c I'd like to give feedback.
Here's a more detailed set of notes - note that this applies mainly to the MacOS app as that's where I do most of my listening via my 2 channel system.
* Navigation problems:
- Keeps going back to main page, not what artist/album I was looking at.
- "Back" arrow keeps disappearing.
- Clicking on artist name in Now Playing does nothing.
* Playlists issues:
- Can't add track from History to playlist.
- Can't add track from Album view to playlist.
* 3 dots / options issues:
- Inconsistent track options in different context. I.e. Now Playing vs History.
- Can add album to playlist, but not individual track except for the one currently playing.
* Search feature - "Recently Searched" doesn't show actual recent searches, gets stuck at several searches back.
* Clicking "Dislike" on a track doesn't stop it playing.
* No favorite artists, no mechanism to alert to new release for favorites.
Posted on 9/16/21 at 4:48 pm to pheroy
Apple Music is just about the one streaming service I haven’t messed with. I guess the good thing is that these companies finally starting to offer hires, or at least cd quality files, forces the others to do the same.
Unfortunately it sounds like implementation for Apple is an afterthought, and my Lumin dac doesn’t even have implementation available for Apple Music. I’ve gone back and forth between tidal, Qobuz and Spotify. I’m currently using Qobuz, but eagerly awaiting Spotify’s hires release at some point during 2021. If the rumors are to be believed, and they will be keeping the same pricing, but adding 44.1 cd quality to their platform I imagine I’ll make the switch permanently, even without the true hires files that tidal & Qobuz offer. Spotify’s library is still too hard to beat.
Unfortunately it sounds like implementation for Apple is an afterthought, and my Lumin dac doesn’t even have implementation available for Apple Music. I’ve gone back and forth between tidal, Qobuz and Spotify. I’m currently using Qobuz, but eagerly awaiting Spotify’s hires release at some point during 2021. If the rumors are to be believed, and they will be keeping the same pricing, but adding 44.1 cd quality to their platform I imagine I’ll make the switch permanently, even without the true hires files that tidal & Qobuz offer. Spotify’s library is still too hard to beat.
Posted on 9/16/21 at 5:31 pm to PhilipMarlowe
Yeah everything I've seen on Apple Music from people who want to integrate with Roon and the like, is "don't hold your breath". Apple famously likes to keep a pretty controlled and closed system so they aren't allowing APIs and access to external apps.
Spotify obviously doesn't feel a huge motivation to add even lossless much less hi-res in order to compete. Their library and interface from the little I've tried it are way ahead of Apple, and maybe a little better than Tidal so it will be pretty interesting to see what happens with them. I did a trial last year with Spotify for my car but didn't keep it due the lack of lossless for use at home.
Spotify obviously doesn't feel a huge motivation to add even lossless much less hi-res in order to compete. Their library and interface from the little I've tried it are way ahead of Apple, and maybe a little better than Tidal so it will be pretty interesting to see what happens with them. I did a trial last year with Spotify for my car but didn't keep it due the lack of lossless for use at home.
Posted on 9/16/21 at 9:33 pm to pickle311
I still buy CDs and rip them to iTunes as Apple Lossless file (m4a) on my PC. I use this to manage my digital music. I then stream to my Yamaha receiver from the PC using Airplay. I was under the impression that this was a way of doing lossless streaming over Airplay because the source file is lossless. Is this not correct?
This post was edited on 9/16/21 at 9:34 pm
Posted on 9/16/21 at 10:30 pm to The Balinese Club
quote:
I still buy CDs and rip them to iTunes as Apple Lossless file (m4a) on my PC. I use this to manage my digital music. I then stream to my Yamaha receiver from the PC using Airplay. I was under the impression that this was a way of doing lossless streaming over Airplay because the source file is lossless. Is this not correct?
Airplay streams in 44.1/16 (CD) quality, per specs I read. So for CD rips it's fine. But if you bought any hi-res downloads they'd be down-sampled to CD quality via Airplay. I would think your Yamaha receiver might have a way to display the resolution of a digital input but I don't know.
I still buy CDs occasionally but with a CD library that literally covers a 7' x 11' section of office wall (and there are books & movies taking up other wall real estate!) I'm nearly out of space so streaming helps.
Posted on 9/17/21 at 6:45 am to pheroy
Got it! I have a few High-Res rips that I created. All my vinyl I’ve ripped to High-Res, and I ripped some Blu-Ray audio to High Res.
I’ll check my receiver and see if it can display that.
Thanks!
I’ll check my receiver and see if it can display that.
Thanks!
This post was edited on 9/17/21 at 6:47 am
Posted on 9/19/21 at 1:20 am to pheroy
No RoonReady/compatibility is a deal breaker for me.
Thanks for all the details and review.
Thanks for all the details and review.
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