Article: Apple Music's Lossless and Hi-Res Mess

[agladstone]

This is a real disappointment! 
Seems like it’s more of a marketing ploy vs actually commitment and dedication for Apple to actually bring HiRes and lossless to the masses. 
They may realize 99% of their customers won’t realize the difference on their AirPods or tiny Bluetooth wireless speakers anyhow? 
So now Apple and Amazon can market to the masses “we play music in HD”, yet in reality, neither service is actually useful or fully operational in a system that can actually play bit perfect HiRes and Lossless audio, but the 99% of both of these giants customers will never even know or understand the difference because they all lack the ability to play audio at that level anyhow. 
The real negative (in my opinion) to this situation, is that Apple and Amazon will (or already have) captured so much of the consumer market that this will put real pressure on Qobuz and Tidal sales and memberships and subscription fees, that they may have a very difficult time staying in business in the long run? 

[agladstone]

Is Dolby Atmos the only way to play HiRes or is that only for multichannel and Apple has both 16/43 lossless and 24 bit HiRes albums available? 
I don’t currently have the Apple Camera kit (finally need to get one!) to try on my iPhone 12 Max yet and I have not yet tried on my MacBook Pro because from what’s described here, without auto switching in MIDI it just sounds like a pain in the ass! 
I did try a few albums (Sgt Peppers, Abby Road, and What’s Going On) via my Apple TV in Dolby Atmos yesterday. 
However, that goes through my Home Theater Pre Processor and not my 2 channel DAC rig. 
Also, unfortunately my multi channel amp for my Home Theater rig died on me recently, so I only have it going through my two mono amps powering the front two speakers at the moment. 
It does show the input as 5.1 Dolby, but due to my current temporary “stereo only” setup, the Home Theater processor is down sampling the 5.1 to stereo internally, so I think that defeats the HiRes anyhow (maybe not??). 
As is, it didn’t sound too bad, but not at all even a close match to Lossless, HiRes or DSD files streaming on my 2 channel rig via my Aurender server into my DAC. 
So, Qobuz for the definite win in ny setup for the moment. 
If Aurender implements and imbeds Apple Music into their ecosystem like Qobuz and Tidal, it could be equally as good, I’m hoping they may be able to eventually add it! 

[agladstone]

32 minutes ago, charlesphoto said:

There's a real simple solution to all of this: it's called Qobuz (or Tidal if you must). Heck I even have a free 'lifetime' sub given to me by Tidal, and I still ponied up $150 this year for Qobuz, because it's better (sound and curation, for me at least). I do understand it's not in all regions, so yeah, there's that, and that some already have package Apple subs or subs to several services. 

 

But man humans, and audiophiles more specifically, just love to chase after the newest sparkly thing no matter what - and I do realize it's Chris' job to do so, and many are investigating AM out of curiosity, but in my opinion Apple has had enough of our $$ to last them until the next millennium, so be sure to do the right (audiophile) thing and continue to support the small guys. Nobody on here or other audiophile forums need to save the $3/month. I love Apple hardware (ok, not their phones - Pixel user myself for the camera) and am planning on an M1 purchase at some point, but resolutely refuse to go anywhere near Apple Music. Rant over, continue on...

Agreed! I switched to Qobuz from Tidal a year ago and never looked back! 
I have what’s called the Apple One subscription which includes the Apple TV+, Apple Music, Apple Fitness +, and multiple family iCloud accounts and a much larger iCloud storage limit, so I’m paying for Apple Music also regardless. 
Also, as an iPhone user and I have two MacBook Pro’s and two iPads, an Apple TV, it would also be nice to have the lossless or high resolution Apple Music too, but mostly for car or travel/ desktop convenience, although I suppose Qobuz is available to use on all these hardware platforms anyhow except for the Apple TV.