Article: Apple Music Lossless, High Resolution, and Dolby Atmos Announced

[firedog]

Happy to note: no MQA. Puts a pretty big hole in their argument that MQA is necessary for hi-res streaming.

Also emphasizes that MQA has yet to really break through in the market. 

Maybe some manufacturers will now wake up to the fact that they don't have to kowtow to MQA. Users have more and more choices for streaming hi-res and lossless that don't include MQA. 

[firedog]

The Amazon announcement means that Tidal is clearly an inferior offering. More trouble for MQA/Tidal.

[firedog]

20 minutes ago, JoshM said:

Very happy to see no MQA. Hopefully this deals a death blow to it as a format.

 

As of now, though, I don't see Apple as likely to overtake Qobuz in quality. (See Amazon HD.) Unless Apple 1) demonstrates that they're actually streaming lossless hires, 2) creates a quality standalone app, and 3) allows developers to integrate the service into audiophiles players like Audirvana, it's not going to be an option for serious audiophiles. It's hard to say whether that matters at all to Apple, though.

 

This is, however, a belated victory for Neil Young, who tried to convince Steve Jobs to go the lossless hires route pre-Pono.

The hard core audiophiles will stay with services like Qobuz, Deezer, or Primephonic, who all offer quality hi-res or lossless streaming.  For more "average"  people who just want quality sound, the Amazon and Apple offerings (and upcoming Spotify) will be all they need. I don't think Tidal is going to be attractive to them at all, the way it is currently structured. Of course, the tiny number of MQA fanboys will stay there. But they are a drop in the bucket and insignificant. 

[firedog]

4 hours ago, katools said:

If Apple & Spotify offer a way to stream lossless content to their DACs why would they choose to pay more to access the same content via those services?

Because they aren't going to offer hi-res in the same way, aren't going to offer full integration with Roon, et. al., and aren't going to offer the same ability to control the PC side (endpoints, drivers, etc) that the "audiophile" services do. Note that I did say "hardcore"