Apple today announced its new Apple Music "Lossless" service, a new way to listen to high-resolution music with Dolby Atmos spatial sound. How can I take advantage of this new functionality? We explain it to you below.
What is "lossless" music, without loss
The arrival of music streaming services meant leaving behind our CDs, and carrying our entire music library in our pocket, thanks to our smartphone. But this comes at a price: compression. In order to be able to transmit the music through the internet and to be able to store it on our device, compressed formats are used, which make the files much smaller, and thus consume less data rate, less bandwidth and take up less space. No matter how good the compression is, quality loss is inevitable.
Lossless music goes from "16-bit 44.1kHz" to "24-bit 48kHz" if we talk about CD quality, while if we talk about "High Resolution" we go up to "24-bit 192kHz". If we go to the maximum of High Resolution quality, a simple song could occupy about 145MB, compared to the 1,5MB of more compressed formats, or 6MB if we want something more quality. As you can see, the difference is obvious.
Apple ensures that at the time of launch, about 20 million songs in its catalog will be in lossless format, reaching over 75 million songs by the end of the year. These new lossless songs will use a codec called "ALAC" (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) and will require you to update to iOS 14.6, iPadOS 14.6, tvOS 14.6 and macOS 11.4 to enjoy it.
Where can I listen to music without loss
Apple has offered a list of devices that can play this music without loss of quality, either in CD quality or in High Resolution. These are the minimum requirements to be able to reproduce it:
- iPhone 7
- iPad Pro 12,9 ″ (3rd Generation)
- iPad Pro 11 "
- iPad Air (3rd Generation)
- iPad (6th Generation)
- iPad mini (5th Generation)
- MacBook Pro 2018
These devices will be able to play music in this quality, but that does not mean that you will be able to listen to it with any headphones that you connect them. The Bluetooth connection does not allow enough bandwidth for lossless music in high resolution, in any way, and it could offer up to CD quality, but it depends a lot on the type of bluetooth that is used and the codec that is compatible. For example, According to Apple itself has confirmed, neither the AirPods Pro nor the AirPods Max are compatible with the ALAC codec, so wirelessly they will not be able to play music without loss, or in CD quality.
We do not know at this time if the AirPods Max, which do allow a connection via cable, will be able to play music without loss of quality using some type of compatible accessory. Apple ensures on its website that for music without loss of quality in high resolution a DAC will be necessary, but at the moment we do not have more details. The situation of the HomePod and HomePod Mini is also a bit in limbo, which should be able to play music without loss of hardware quality, but Apple has not made any review about them on its website.
What is Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos
Another novelty of Apple Music will be the compatibility with Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio. At this point, after reading several times the different Apple websites and another good handful of websites with information about it, I cannot explain the difference between Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio, because both terms are used indifferently everywhere, even on the Apple website. So we can say that Dolby Atmos or Spatial Audio is a type of surround sound in which we can distinguish the position of the instruments while we listen: the drums behind us, the vocals in front, the guitar to the right… it's a «3D» audio, similar to when we watch a movie with a home theater system.
This Dolby Atmos will be available at the launch of this new service in a few thousand songs, the exact number is not specified, but It is expected that little by little the catalog will increase, and above all, that the new music that is incorporated will already be compatible with this format.
Where can I listen to Dolby Atmos music?
To be able to listen to this enveloping music You will need, at a minimum, the following devices:
- iPhone 7
- iPad Pro 12,9 ″ (3rd Generation)
- iPad Pro 11 "
- iPad Air (3rd Generation)
- iPad (6th Generation)
- iPad mini (5th Generation)
- MacBook Pro 2018
- HomePod
Here we can use any Apple headset to enjoy this sound. AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max or Beats headphones, it won't matter, as long as they include the H1 or W1 chips. If we use these headphones, Dolby Atmos will be activated automatically if available. If we use other third-party headphones, which may also be compatible, we must activate it in the Apple Music Settings.
As with music without quality loss, You must have your devices updated to iOS 14.6, iPadOS 14.6, tvOS 14.6 and macOS 11.4 in order to enjoy this Dolby Atmos music.
Two independent and distinct novelties
Although they have come hand in hand, Spatial Sound and music without loss of quality each go on their own. Just as expected, Dolby Atmos will be quite usable in current devices. With our current iPhone, iPad, HomePod ... we can enjoy this surround sound in our Apple headphones, without the need for new investments. Things change when we talk about lossless sound, especially High Resolution. Waiting for Apple to clarify some doubts that are still in the air, It seems that it is something that is prepared for new hardware coming soon.
This new Apple Music with Dolby Atmos and sound without quality loss will arrive in the month of June, and there will be no price increase on Apple Music, which will maintain the same prices as there are currently.
I expect it to be a lot better than the streaming services I currently use as I use a normal iphone 12
I trust that things will be done in such a way that users can enjoy the audio quality, it is well known that for optimal sound delivery it is not enough that the audio has no loss but that dedicated chips are also needed and of quality that can convert that in the best way (DAC), Apple is a company that is characterized by doing quality things and I do not doubt that they can offer us good options, apart from that perhaps this can encourage people to start listening your music without loss as it is a completely different experience than what we can usually be used to hearing in terms of audio quality
I am extremely upset that the wireless headphones sold by Apple do not bring the support for the music that they are now going to release, I saw that the beats brand has just released some that are compatible, I think I will stop buying Apple headphones and better I buy them from beats because if you have the support to listen to the music of higher quality, I like the apple company but I do not go much with its management.