KAUSTHUB RAVI & SIVANESH NATARAJAN
APPLE MUSIC ANNOUNCES SPATIAL AUDIO AND WILL BRING LOSSLESS AUDIO TO THE ENTIRE CATALOG
Picture credit- Official Apple Website
Apple music just recently announced that it would be bringing both Lossless Audio and Spatial Audio ( in partnership with Dolby Atmos ). This is very likely a direct competition to services like Tidal and other high res providers . While this is a very exciting prospect for both casual consumers and audiophiles , it does bring with it some interesting implications to some of us who are making music .
Let ’ s first try and understand what these new additions are starting with Lossless Audio . Basically in simple terms , all audio on streaming platforms usually undergo some degree of compression . This is done to ensure smaller file sizes that play faster on consumer devices and also take up less space on servers . Lossless Audio does away with the middle man that is the software compression that the file goes through . Instead , it allows you to hear the file just as the producer / artist had put up in all its full-sized glory . This is done with Apple ’ s new codec - ALAC ( Apple Lossless Audio Codec ). They have different playback tiers and it starts at CD quality , which is 16 bit at 44.1 kHz ( kilohertz ), and goes up to 24 bit at 48 kHz , and is playable natively on Apple devices . For the true audiophile , Apple Music also offers Hi- Resolution Lossless all the way up to 24 bit at 192 kHz . The last one however will need a dedicated DAC ( Digital to Analog Converter ) and possibly a nice headphone amp / Headphone pairing to be fully appreciated . It is important to note that Bluetooth devices cannot decode these formats so you ’ ll need wired headphones / earphones . The iPhone has a built-in DAC that
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