Suggestion for Apple Lossless

[uncle_lazy_at]

Respected folks,

This was discussed multiple times in the forum, yet again i want to discuss but more focused over my requirement.

Before jumping into the topic, below are my stuffs

1. LG 55inc tv - No apple Music
2. ACT Smart TV - No apple Music, Connected to AVR
3. Denon X1700H

Though I knew apple lossless is superior quality (only among Indian providers), i wanted to test it and experience it.

I started listening from Amazon Music for some days. Then took Spotify Premium - Ditched Amazon Music, felt Spotify sounds almost same or better comparing to Amazon, also, found more my favourites in Spotify. I was listening to Spotify until few days back.

Did not read/know about lossless limitations, I started listening songs via Apple Music from my iPhone.

I started liking Apple music, i felt Apple Music sounds better (Pure mode) than Spotify. (So far I was in an assumption that I am listening to "Lossless audio".) Now I know how lossless audio sounds (me stupid here), i started exploring on how to play hi-res lossless, because i know there are some limitations or requirement to play hi-res, only then I realised so far I am listening in AAC(AirPlay) which is not superior to Spotify premium as per papers. Now questions,

1. Is AAC really sounds better than Spotify premium? or I felt its better because I started listening with an assumption in my brain its lossless?
2. Do we really find difference between Lossless and Hi-res lossless.? I understand it depends on individuals but would love to hear from you folks.

Next,

I have 2 option to proceed further.

1. Purchase Apple TV 4K. (Approx 20K)
My pros - I can watch better quality OTT content. For downloaded contents - i have to stick to ACT, which connects to my KODI in rpi. Cons: I will miss hi-res audio.

2. Start buying required stuffs to play songs from iPhone. If it costs more than Apple TV, i dont mind going for Apple tv and ditch hi-res. Problem is I need help in finding devices. So far I know i have to buy - Apple Camera kit (OR "USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter" - I already own 2 of these, not sure whether it will work from my mac to play Hi-rest ) - USB DAC - 3.5 mm cables to connect to my denon. Can i make it happen within 10k? or is it worth spending time if the difference between hi-res and lossless if very less.
My pros - I can get hi-res with little less cost. Cons - stick to phone or my mac to play songs. Which i actually hate.

Finally sorry for the long post. I would have make it short but felt i should give more backgroud for better suggestion.

 

[adityasrivastava26]

I have actually AB tested apple music extensively. I have a decent resolving setup. Apple music is definitely better than youtube and spotify. Actually pretty close to tidal cd quality. Couldn't separate between apple music lossless vs hi res lossles

 

[uncle_lazy_at]

I have actually AB tested apple music extensively. I have a decent resolving setup. Apple music is definitely better than youtube and spotify. Actually pretty close to tidal cd quality. Couldn't separate between apple music lossless vs hi res lossles

Even AAC format sounds better than spotify.

 

[sachinchavan 15865]

Many of us in the forum feel Apple (even lossless) doesn’t sound right. Incidentally the same bunch generally finds Tidal also slightly off. Both seem to have a kind of added bloat/smearing in the lower range. Qobuz is considered more ‘correct sounding’ by many. Spotify Premium, even though it lacks in resolution, like Qobuz it sounds tonally correct and balanced.

However, this matters only if one is intent upon the sound being closer to the original. A lot of us love some coloration (many go for tubes for the warmth), so if you find Apple Music’s sound to your liking, stick to it.

As someone who is otherwise completely into the Apple ecosystem, I gave Apple Music a long try, even after they launched lossless. One of the major limitations of AM is it doesn’t support native streaming from capable streamers. That means you have to introduce an additional stage - either Airplay or the kinds you mentioned in option 2. Airplay, except when universally selected from MacBook, doesn’t play lossless (so Airplay from iPhone to your streamer/DAC isn’t lossless, even if the file accessed from the Apple server is lossless). And the more stages you add (camera kit/USB adaptor etc) there will be commensurate drop in SQ. The best case to use AM would be to play it lossless on MacBook and connect through USB to a DAC. That suits a desktop system more than a living room system.

Interestingly you say you don’t hear much of a difference between Spotify Premium and Amazon Music, then probably your system isn’t resolving enough as there’s perceivable difference in quality between them. Or, with time we learn to discern the sound quality differences more acutely.

Finally on hi-res. I’d say it depends on your musical preferences. If you listen to a lot of modern day music, it’s worth investing in services and gear that play hi-res. But if your music is mostly from 80s or before, it doesn’t matter and lossless is good enough. In fact, for older Indian music, even 320 kbps is usually sufficient and I’d go for a more correct sounding 320 kbps option than an off-sounding lossless option. But YMMV.

Finally, I don’t see much advantage of playing music through Apple TV unless you are into music videos. I am, so I find myself playing a lot of YouTube videos (taken a Premium subscription - totally worth it) through my Apple TV to watch the old Hindi songs on the TV screen while listening to the audio through my 2.0 system. Also the best way to enjoy if you are into concerts (suggest Qello subscription on Amazon Prime platform if you are into live western concerts and YT Premium if you are into Indian concerts and orchestras).

In the long run, if one is into streamed music, it pays to consider buying a decent streamer. The connectivity options, user interface, and sound quality (especially with native play) that streamers offer make them valuable, almost indispensable in a modern digital living room stereo system.

 

[uncle_lazy_at]

@sachinchavan 15865 Thank you so much for your time to write this up. Appreciate a lot.

Few questions or clarification needed:

Spotify Premium, even though it lacks in resolution, like Qobuz it sounds tonally correct and balanced.

I will consider Qobuz or play around that later after sometime. Currently, I wanted to play around with this apple music which is easily available for me. How to access Qobuz? Should we side load the app and use VPN ?

Airplay, except when universally selected from MacBook, doesn’t play lossless

Are you referring to "Screen Mirror" ? OR Instead of selecting the AVR from Apple Music, should select the AVR from Sounds? When we do this do we get the true lossless?

The best case to use AM would be to play it lossless on MacBook and connect through USB to a DAC.

Do you have some recommendation for a DAC which is not so expensive but serve my purpose (lossless and HI-Res or least lossless)? Im trying to achieve with some less cost. Im currently in "cool down" period from my whole HT purchase.

Finally on hi-res. I’d say it depends on your musical preferences. If you listen to a lot of modern day music, it’s worth investing in services and gear that play hi-res. But if your music is mostly from 80s or before, it doesn’t matter and lossless is good enough. In fact, for older Indian music, even 320 kbps is usually sufficient and I’d go for a more correct sounding 320 kbps option than an off-sounding lossless option

Exactly what I need, hi-res. I listen mostly starting from mid 90s till latest. "Cool Down" period is blocking me doing further big purchase. I am checking if there are any cheaper option. it started itching already tbh.

Finally, I don’t see much advantage of playing music through Apple TV unless you are into music videos. I am, so I find myself playing a lot of YouTube videos (taken a Premium subscription - totally worth it) through my Apple TV to watch the old Hindi songs on the TV screen while listening to the audio through my 2.0 system. Also the best way to enjoy if you are into concerts (suggest Qello subscription on Amazon Prime platform if you are into live western concerts and YT Premium if you are into Indian concerts and orchestras).

Reasons for considering ATV: 1. Upgrade act smart so that I can get Atmos audio (have plans to add couple of more speakers next year) 2. This also help me to achieve lossless. If "Airplay" support least lossless, I would have consider upgrading act tv next year or while purchaisng atmos speakers.

 

[manek]

Never use any music sstreaming service with any wireless connection/transport. Avoid like the plague.

The CCK that fits on a ipad or iphone brings out a digital signal, goes straight into the dac via usb and should/will not result in degradation in sound quality compared to a laptop or pc.

Lossless vs High-res lossless on apple music, you will find a difference between them for the same album. As a matter of fact warner music has quite a few high-res lossless issues on apple music and also labels that have recorded their masters on analogue tape where you will find two releases(the cd release and the high-res release) and the high-res release is better.

There is lots of music from last decade also on high-rez lossless.

Its a tough fight between AM and Qobuz, and AM with its deep deep deep pocketsq will give you the most varied choice with good quality. Qobuz will always remain niche with sound quality thats a bit better until one of the biggies buy it out. Its ripe for a buyout anyways.

 

[uncle_lazy_at]

Never use any music sstreaming service with any wireless connection/transport. Avoid like the plague.

The CCK that fits on a ipad or iphone brings out a digital signal, goes straight into the dac via usb and should/will not result in degradation in sound quality compared to a laptop or pc.

Lossless vs High-res lossless on apple music, you will find a difference between them for the same album. As a matter of fact warner music has quite a few high-res lossless issues on apple music and also labels that have recorded their masters on analogue tape where you will find two releases(the cd release and the high-res release) and the high-res release is better.

There is lots of music from last decade also on high-rez lossless.

Its a tough fight between AM and Qobuz, and AM with its deep deep deep pocketsq will give you the most varied choice with good quality. Qobuz will always remain niche with sound quality thats a bit better until one of the biggies buy it out. Its ripe for a buyout anyways.

I hate connecting my mobile or ipad or mac to a system to play songs I hope future ATV supports hi-res.

 

[uncle_lazy_at]

BTW, does Airplay 1 supports lossless ? I read some mixed feedback on that. Some says ALAC but few mentioned sometimes its AAC and sometime ALAC.

When I check "Information" in AVR - it says 44.1 khz while playing via Airplay 1. Will it say something else while playing via Airplay 2?

 

[sachinchavan 15865]

Should we side load the app and use VPN ?

There are some Qobuz users on the forum who can guide you on this. I played it through the native play through CXN’s Stream Magic app when one of the members was kind enough to give me trial for a few days. I found the SQ the best of all popular streaming services I’ve tried, but decided to wait for it to launch officially in India.

OR Instead of selecting the AVR from Apple Music, should select the AVR from Sounds?

Yes, that. It’s in the toolbar top right in Mac OS.

Do you have some recommendation for a DAC which is not so expensive but serve my purpose (lossless and HI-Res or least lossless)

Hopefully other FMs can provide you concrete suggestions that meet the criteria. Look up the threads on Raspberry based streamer-DACs. May be some of them support lossless.

Exactly what I need, hi-res. I listen mostly starting from mid 90s till latest.

Then you should be interested in hi-res. It’s quite the converse for me.

If "Airplay" support least lossless

It’s been a year since AM launched lossless. And they haven’t upgraded Airplay to support it (from the mobile/Apple TV). Makes me wonder if they even have it in their plans.

It’s quite confounding why Apple wouldn’t support lossless on all Airplay or why it wouldn’t provide native play feature for Apple Music on streamers.

 

[mbhangui]

BTW, does Airplay 1 supports lossless ? I read some mixed feedback on that. Some says ALAC but few mentioned sometimes its AAC and sometime ALAC.

When I check "Information" in AVR - it says 44.1 khz while playing via Airplay 1. Will it say something else while playing via Airplay 2?

airplay supports lossless with ALAC only when the source has sampling rate of 44.1 kHz. So Hi-Res will not be lossless. If you have the age old Airport express, then they support losless as long as your source has sampling rate of 44.1 kHz.

ATV resamples everything to 48 kHz. So it is not bit-perfect. It has been made for watching movies and the movie industry uses 48 kHz for audio. So forget about ATV ever supporting sampling rate other than 48 kHz.

macbooks can play bit-perfect if you use the earphone out (ha ha). Who does that?
macbooks can play bit-perfect to a connected usb dac if you change the sampling rate using 'Audio Midi Setup' app to match the source every time the source changes. The macOS is so dumb that it cannot change sampling rate automatically. I use mac mini and macbook pro and am terribly upset that my < Rs 40k linux laptop can play music better than my 2 lac+ macbook pro.

The only option you have is to use ipad or iphone (the one with IOS that support Apple Music) and connect to your DAC using the camera connection kit. Only the later IOS version have the ability to automatically adjust the sampling rate as per the source (which Windows and Linux had it for ages). But I think I have OCD. I can never imagine myself using a mobile device to connect to my rig in order to play music.

For a long long time, apple decided that what the users need is mp3 at 320 kpbs and anything more than that users cannot hear. That was the age of the IPODS. Now with streaming services overtaking digital sales, the giant has woken up. But it will take time for them to catch up. I have both apple music and spotify premium and I don't think I will renew my apple subscription next year unless they fix their lossless mess.

Part 1

Apple Music's Lossless and Hi-Res Mess

This morning I've been testing Apple Music's new lossless and Hi-Res offerings on both my iPhone 12 Pro running iOS 14.6 and my Mac Mini (M1) running macOS 11.4. In my tests, I'm only concerned with playing the music bit perfectly, in other words without making any changes to the audio. If Apple ...

audiophilestyle.com

Part 2

Apple Music Lossless Mess Part 2: AirPlay

Earlier this month I dug into Apple Music's Lossless and Hi-Res offerings, running several bit perfect rests on the audio output of my Macs and iOS devices. The results were less than stellar (link). This week I dug into Apple Music lossless over AirPlay. One would think that the results would be...

audiophilestyle.com

Apple Music’s hi-res streaming is a bit of a mess | Darko.Audio

The promise of Apple's hi-res audio supply is strong but the reality unearths gotcha after gotcha.

darko.audio

 

[uncle_lazy_at]

@sachinchavan 15865 @mbhangui - Thank you so much both of you for taking time to share your experience.

Indeed, Apple making life harder just for listening music. I am loosing(or lost already) interest Feeling like i should stick to what I have now and slowly add more rigs after sometime. Apple Music (Airplay) sounds better than my Spotify Premium to my ears, i will stick to it for sometime. Hoping that AM improves or Spotify Hifi and Amazon Music HD come into play.

I hate connecting phone to play music - its like a stone age for me, they should come up with some good option.

 

[sachinchavan 15865]

Apple Music (Airplay) sounds better than my Spotify Premium to my ears,

Spotify through AirPlay to streamer sounds significantly poorer than Spotify cast to play natively on the streamer. Surprisingly, the degradation in Spotify while using AirPlay is worse than for other apps such as YouTube/Ragya et al for me. Playing natively through streamer (using the mobile app only for control) gets you the best results that Spotify Premium gives.

I hate connecting phone to play music - its like a stone age for me, they should come up with some good option.

I am like you. I don’t like to physically connect phone/computer to my system - it’s too shackling. Your best next investment post your cool-off period has to be a streamer therefore. Go through the numerous threads on various streamers on the forum. I guess there are options from 20k onwards (the sweet spot being 50k-1 lac for a streamer DAC).

 

[manek]

I hate connecting my mobile or ipad or mac to a system to play songs I hope future ATV supports hi-res.

You can Buy the cheapest apple phone or ipad you can(old ones also that run lossless compatible IOS version and above) and dedicate it for music. Nothing better for AM for the moment.

I currently use my old iphone SE. couldnt be happier.

 

[uncle_lazy_at]

Spotify through AirPlay to streamer sounds significantly poorer than Spotify cast to play natively on the streamer. Surprisingly, the degradation in Spotify while using AirPlay is worse than for other apps such as YouTube/Ragya et al for me. Playing natively through streamer (using the mobile app only for control) gets you the best results that Spotify Premium gives.

Spotify I play via ACT TV, which directly connect via HDMI. Acttv doesn't have AM app so i have to use Airplay. I kind of feel AM plays ALAC(Airplay 1, my assumption). I have been listening to 320kbps for years and AM sounds far better than 320kbps, i thought its because AAC is better compression but now i started thinking its due to Airplay 1. I also don't see "Airplay 2" but just Airplay while playing. I have locally downloaded ALAC, i am planning to compare AM and locally downloaded ALAC. I don't think my comparison is going to stop anytime soon though i decided to settle down with AM and Airplay for now.

I am like you. I don’t like to physically connect phone/computer to my system - it’s too shackling. Your best next investment post your cool-off period has to be a streamer therefore. Go through the numerous threads on various streamers on the forum. I guess there are options from 20k onwards (the sweet spot being 50k-1 lac for a streamer DAC).
[\QUOTE]
For sure . I started my journey assuming 70-30 movie music and not its 50-50 now.

 

[uncle_lazy_at]

You can Buy the cheapest apple phone or ipad you can(old ones also that run lossless compatible IOS version and above) and dedicate it for music. Nothing better for AM for the moment.

I currently use my old iphone SE. couldnt be happier.

I really dont want to take this approach I hope I won't end up here.

 

[jaiwant_alex]

Hoping that AM improves or Spotify Hifi and Amazon Music HD come into play.

Having gone through this journey with Apple music myself and having read the other threads here, i think the above is the only answer to this conundrum !

What would really change the game would be Spotify going lossless, Hi Res. I'm now kind of happy to wait till then while trying out all these (imperfect) workarounds from time to time.

These are the ways I listen to Apple music in order of my impression of sound quality
-Sideloaded Android app in Nvidia Shield (Shield outputs upto 24/192, but the app interface is a nightmare)
-Ipad to DAC/amp via Airplay
-Ipad to Rpi via Shairport

 

[slash1814]

Why do I see 24/96 on my apple music app, while steaming to my Denon x4500? and why it does not go beyond 16/44.1 when I stream to my old Apple TV? Can some one explain please?

 

[SiR]

How to get the best out of Apple Music High Resolution Lossless

Apple Music now provides lossless and high resolution streaming. But you'll need a bit of equipment and some knowledge to gain the full benefit of the higher quality formats now on offer. Here's all you need to know.

addictedtoaudio.com.au

Will the above article will help in understanding - how to get best of Apple Music !!

 

[mbhangui]

Why do I see 24/96 on my apple music app, while steaming to my Denon x4500? and why it does not go beyond 16/44.1 when I stream to my old Apple TV? Can some one explain please?

apple tv is meant for movies. The max it supports is 24/48. It is not meant as a high-end audio playback device.

If you are using airplay to atv, airplay further restricts to 44.1 kHz. If you directly connect it do a DAC or using optical cable or use the HDMI, it can go upto 24/48.

What the apple music app shows is the audio file that it has picked up and not what is playing on the end device.

The only possible way to get the max is to use an ios device (IPAD or iphone) connected to the dac using a cable. Even the macbook cannot play bit-perfect unless you fiddle with the audio midi setup to change the bit rate everytime the song bitrate changes. The moment apple music app sees that the end device doesn't support ALAC, it will pick up the AAC version of the music file. Remember that ALAC is a proprietary codec and only apple device support that. So non-apple device cannot play lossless.

 

[sachinchavan 15865]

What the apple music app shows is the audio file that it has picked up and not what is playing on the end device.

That’s something most people don’t realise. Even after having been repeatedly mentioned in multiple threads before.