It’s not just the introduction of Spatial Audio on Apple Music that fans can get excited about. During the company’s announcement, Apple confirmed that its entire catalog of more than 75 million songs will be made available in Lossless Audio for the first time, at no additional cost.
This is perhaps one of the most surprising elements of the announcement, as rival platforms like TIDAL and Amazon had thus far been charging an additional fee for lossless content. It makes sense: lossless audio files are much larger and less compressed than standard music files, requiring significantly more bandwidth as a result.
However, after Apple announced the service would be offered to consumers for free, Amazon quickly followed suit and dropped its Amazon Music HD package, offering lossless streaming to every subscriber.
TIDAL, on the other hand, currently offers three tiers of music, including Standard, which is “easily accessible and the best compromise between data usage and sound fidelity,” HiFi, which “allows you to stream audio using the lossless format FLAC, creating a crisp and robust music streaming experience,” and Master, an “authenticated and unbroken experience with the highest possible resolution — as flawless as it sounded in the mastering suite and precisely as the artist intended.” Although TIDAL still offers a more advanced level of audio quality, it’ll set you $19.99 per month rather than $9.99 for a standard subscription.
Apple will use its Apple Lossless Audio Codec to preserve every single bit of the original audio file. This means Apple Music subscribers will be able to hear the exact same thing that the artists created in the studio, offering a TIDAL Master-style experience without the price tag.
Indeed, users can begin their lossless audio experience by heading to Settings, then Music, and then choosing their preferred Audio Quality. Conveniently, Apple will allow users to choose audio quality depending on their connection, for example, when downloading content, when listening to Apple Music over WiFi, and when streaming on the go via cellular. The company has confirmed that its lossless tier begins at CD quality, 16 bit at 44.1 kHz, and it goes up to 24 bit at 48 kHz and plays natively on Apple devices.
Apple Music users can also listen to Hi-Resolution Lossless all the way up to 24 bit at 192 kHz, but what’s perhaps disappointing to hear is that none of Apple’s current earphones or headphones support lossless music as standard – including the very controversially-priced AirPods Max. However, with Apple rumored to be launching next-generation AirPods 3 and a second-generation AirPods Pro model in the coming months, perhaps they will support lossless sound quality as standard? Apple is also readying the release of Beats Studio Buds, according to a new leak inside of iOS 14.6 code, suggesting an imminent drop. HomePod and Apple’s new HomePod mini also cannot support lossless sound, which is certainly something the company will want to fix in future releases or updates.
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