Apple Music to Get Lossless Audio

Apple Music Enhancements: Lossless Audio and Spatial Audio

Apple has recently revealed upcoming additions to its music streaming platform, Apple Music. These improvements, scheduled for release next month, will introduce new functionalities for subscribers.

Lossless Audio Coming to Apple Music

Users will gain access to both spatial audio, featuring Dolby Atmos support, and high-fidelity lossless audio files. This follows a similar announcement from Spotify regarding a premium subscription tier offering CD-quality, lossless audio.

However, Spotify HiFi will require an additional fee beyond the standard Spotify Premium subscription. The exact pricing structure for this enhanced tier remains undisclosed.

Apple is taking a different approach, integrating lossless audio directly into the existing Apple Music subscription. For a monthly fee of $9.99, users can select from a range of audio quality settings.

Understanding Audio Quality Options

Typically, streaming services compress audio files to minimize bandwidth consumption. With the update, subscribers can opt for CD-quality, lossless streaming at 16 bit and 44.1 kHz.

Apple utilizes its proprietary lossless audio format, ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec). Despite the format, the audio quality will be identical to FLAC, WAV, or ALAC files, as they all represent lossless audio.

For users with generous data plans, options extend to 24 bit at 48 kHz or even 24 bit at 192 kHz. These higher resolutions result in significantly larger file sizes, averaging around 250MB per song.

To fully experience the highest-resolution lossless tier, Apple recommends using an external USB digital-to-analog converter (DAC). Standard headphones connected directly to an iPhone will not suffice.

Extensive Catalog Support

The entire Apple Music catalog, encompassing 75 million songs, will be compatible with lossless audio. Music distributors routinely submit lossless audio files to streaming platforms.

The update focuses on making these existing lossless files accessible to end-users. This is achieved by surfacing those files within the streaming experience.

Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos

Spatial audio will be automatically enabled on devices supporting Dolby Atmos, including AirPods and Beats headphones equipped with an H1 or W1 chip. Recent iPhone, iPad, and Mac models also offer Dolby Atmos support.

However, it’s important to note that songs must be specifically remastered for Dolby Atmos to take advantage of this feature.

Initially, only “thousands of songs” will be available in spatial audio. Participating artists include J Balvin, Gustavo Dudamel, Ariana Grande, Maroon 5, Kacey Musgraves, and The Weeknd.

These tracks will be easily identifiable within the Apple Music interface through a dedicated badge.