Is this really lossless ?- Some real time data

[Amarendra]

Hi,
Last one week have been listening to both Apple Music and Amazon Music. I had discarded Amazon after the advent of Apple Music with "High-res Lossless". However had the feeling that Amazon was producing better quality than Apple. I had dismissed this thought since Amazon does not offer HD in India. Yesterday I accidentally stumbled on the Wiim Pro Home screen when the music was playing through Apple Music (airplay to Wiim Pro) and was quite surprised:


Then I switched to a song which shows Hires loss less in Apple Music as follows:



Same song info at same time through Wiim Pro:


Another song on Apple Music


Same song via Amazon Music through Wiim pro:



That means Amazon is offering better quality than Apple ??

Another song on Amazon:

 

[dvraghavan]

I believe if you play via AirPLay it is no longer LossLess. There are several threads here on how to get HiRes to play from Apple Music. The short one is you have to connect a supported Apple DeviceIiphone, Mac, iPad, etc.) directly via USB to a DAC and connect that to Amp etc,

 

[sachinchavan 15865]

I believe if you play via AirPLay it is no longer LossLess. There are several threads here on how to get HiRes to play from Apple Music. The short one is you have to connect a supported Apple DeviceIiphone, Mac, iPad, etc.) directly via USB to a DAC and connect that to Amp etc,

And the other two options to play AM lossless are:
1. Universal Airplay from a Mac computer
2. Airplay to AirPort Express which can connect to your DAC via optic cable.

 

[Amarendra]

I believe if you play via AirPLay it is no longer LossLess. There are several threads here on how to get HiRes to play from Apple Music. The short one is you have to connect a supported Apple DeviceIiphone, Mac, iPad, etc.) directly via USB to a DAC and connect that to Amp etc,

Airplay is supposed to do atleast 24/48 ideally. Also surprising to see Amazon offer higher resolution compared to Apple

 

[sachinchavan 15865]

Airplay is supposed to do atleast 24/48 ideally. Also surprising to see Amazon offer higher resolution compared to Apple

You can read here why AirPlay 2 (current version) doesn’t transmit lossless.

Apple AirPlay isn’t always lossless. Sometimes it’s lossy — but why? | Darko.Audio

According to the diligent work of Darko.Audio Patron Brother Thomas.

darko.audio

The reasons listed are to do with weak signals when the phone goes out of wifi range and drainage of battery. Apple doesn’t want to compromise reliability for speed/resolution. AirPlay1 however didn’t have these limitations (perhaps because back then there were no lossless streaming apps therefore the above didn’t matter) and hence you can stream lossless from a mobile to AirPort Express which his a discontinued product. I use it to stream AM lossless to my DAC to good effect.

What Apple really needs to do is work on making AM available to be player natively from streamers.

 

[Phani24]

I believe if you play via AirPLay it is no longer LossLess. There are several threads here on how to get HiRes to play from Apple Music. The short one is you have to connect a supported Apple DeviceIiphone, Mac, iPad, etc.) directly via USB to a DAC and connect that to Amp etc,

Iam connecting appletv 4k directly to maranz cinema50.

 

[Amarendra]

I believe if you play via AirPLay it is no longer LossLess. There are several threads here on how to get HiRes to play from Apple Music. The short one is you have to connect a supported Apple DeviceIiphone, Mac, iPad, etc.) directly via USB to a DAC and connect that to Amp etc,

Airplay is supposed to do atleast 24/48 ideally.

Iam connecting appletv 4k directly to maranz cinema50.

I think an Apple Tv clubbed with something like a Wiim Amp or the new Wiim Ultra could be useful for music

 

[CKumar]

@Amarendra , Your wiim pro output setting is 16bit/48Khz, but if you set it to 16/44.1Khz, the kbps will drop even lesser than that of apple music.
Try it.

 

[mbhangui]

Iam connecting appletv 4k directly to maranz cinema50.

appletv resamples all music to 48kHz. It can never be bit-perfect unless someone creates music using 48 kHz sampling rate.

 

[mbhangui]

Airplay is supposed to do atleast 24/48 ideally. Also surprising to see Amazon offer higher resolution compared to Apple

airplay is 16/44.1. airplay2 is 24/48. But not all devices support airplay2. So your wiim is doing airplay1.

 

[Amarendra]

airplay is 16/44.1. airplay2 is 24/48. But not all devices support airplay2. So your wiim is doing airplay1.

View attachment 86601

Wow and all this while I was proud of myself that i was listening to hires loss-less audio. Nothing explains placebo effect better LOL

 

[mbhangui]

Wow and all this while I was proud of myself that i was listening to hires loss-less audio. Nothing explains placebo effect better LOL

Indeed. Forget about apple music. People went haywire with credit cards trying to get Tidal subscription from Argentina and god knows how many different countries. And now that you know that MQA is lossy and worse than flac. This was first exposed by golden sound after which Tidal banned him. After many other people having carried out measurements it is well known that MQA is a lossy format.

Testing MQA: Is it worse than FLAC?

TLDR: MQA isn't lossless, is arguably worse than normal flac, and is seemingly nothing more than a (quite effective) scheme to generate licensing fees. With the frustrating addition that if you are a Tidal user, even if you have no MQA dac, and use the "Hifi" streaming quality setting, MQA encode...

audiophilestyle.com

Now Tidal is going to abandon MQA

Tidal is revamping its lossless and immersive audio formats

RIP MQA.

www.theverge.com

 

[Amarendra]

Indeed. Forget about apple music. People went haywire with credit cards trying to get Tidal subscription from Argentina and god knows how many different countries. And now that you know that MQA is lossy and worse than flac. This was first exposed by golden sound after which Tidal banned him. After many other people having carried out measurements it is well known that MQA is a lossy format.

Testing MQA: Is it worse than FLAC?

TLDR: MQA isn't lossless, is arguably worse than normal flac, and is seemingly nothing more than a (quite effective) scheme to generate licensing fees. With the frustrating addition that if you are a Tidal user, even if you have no MQA dac, and use the "Hifi" streaming quality setting, MQA encode...

audiophilestyle.com

Now Tidal is going to abandon MQA

Tidal is revamping its lossless and immersive audio formats

RIP MQA.

www.theverge.com

Haha ignorance was very blissful

 

[mbhangui]

In reality I can't make any difference between spotify and apple music. It is possible that I can't hear few frequencies. but what stumps is that I can hear upto 18 kHz. So i think, people who hear differences in power cables, do they have ability to hear ultrasonic frequencies like dogs?

For a long time apple held the belief that people don't need anything more than 320 kpbs AAC. What I read somewhere is that was the reason behind ipods unable to play bit-perfect and songs in itunes AAC or mp3. Now that streaming has overtaken digital downloads it has forced apple to come with lossless to regain the market where they were once the king. Fcuk, apple calls even 48 kHz as HiRes

 

[sachinchavan 15865]

appletv resamples all music to 48kHz. It can never be bit-perfect unless someone creates music using 48 kHz sampling rate.

Perhaps because the primary usage of Apple TV is for video. I use it only to view music videos in Apple Music. Even if one didn’t mind the resampling, using a TV screen (needed to play Apple TV) simply for streaming music seems an overkill.

 

[mbhangui]

Perhaps because the primary usage of Apple TV is for video. I use it only to view music videos in Apple Music. Even if one didn’t mind the resampling, using a TV screen (needed to play Apple TV) simply for streaming music seems an overkill.

Indeed. 48 kHz is the standard for video broadcasting. It is also optimal if you want multiple channels. Like I said before, one really cannot make difference between 44.1, 48, 96, 192, 284, 512, etc. As per my experience the most important thing is the quality of the recording.

 

[Amarendra]

Indeed. 48 kHz is the standard for video broadcasting. It is also optimal if you want multiple channels. Like I said before, one really cannot make difference between 44.1, 48, 96, 192, 284, 512, etc. As per my experience the most important thing is the quality of the recording.

Connected my phone physically to the Audioquest dragonfly and the Color’s of the dragonfly changed faithfully to magenta, blue and green depending on the recording. I “felt” there was a difference between Airplay and this lossless connection but I doubt I can make out the difference in a blind test.

 

[sachinchavan 15865]

I “felt” there was a difference between Airplay and this lossless connection but I doubt I can make out the difference in a blind test.

I too cannot pinpoint the exact differences in the sound. But if I listen an entire song lossy and then lossless on AM, I can see that I enjoy the latter better. Anyway, I seldom listen analytically, so it’s mostly about whether I enjoy, whether it makes me nod my head, tap my foot and better still, sing along. We all listen differently.

 

[mbhangui]

Most of the difference we hear is imagined based on the price of the product and the recall value the product has and the marketing BS that is out there on the internet and stereophile publications. Here is an extremely short video recording with an ordinary phone. In real also there is no difference between this Rs 9000 Class D amp (left) and > 10x price class A tube amp (right) below the video. The sampling rate is 2.82 MHz. I keep on switching between the two amps and you will hear the clicking sound on my remote when I switch the amps. In a sighted tests people find the valve amp better. In a blind test, the results are inconsistent. However, speakers make a big huge impact. I can switch speakers too with my remote controlled switcher. Everyone can consistentently make out the difference between my Polk RtiA9 floorstanders and the cadence electrostatic speakers. Maybe one day I will put out a video showing difference between speakers. So my learning gained in the last 12 years is that - Don't bother about your equipment. Just enjoy the music and spend money where it matters - source material and speakers. AMPS and DACS are a solved problem in today's age. Speakers are electromechanical devices and I doubt it will get solved easily

NOTE: Pardon for the low light. Today is Fri and I enjoy few pegs with light out. BTW the remote controled amp/speaker switcher has two large VU meters which enhances the quality of the pegs and that my friends, roman and countrymen is more valuable than all my cables, amps and equipment

 

[Nitin K]

Very interesting write up Sir. But the most intriguing part was the last paragraph which also boils down to the liquid smooth source to enjoy good sound