![]() ![]() Without the right hardware, you won’t hear the benefit so it’s important to check that your kit is up to scratch. There are always going to be people who simply can’t hear the difference between standard and lossless audio, but it really does make a difference if you have the right setup. Spotify’s arrival on the lossless scene should really help bring high-quality tracks to a much wider audience. The streaming giant is set to bring CD quality tunes to Premium subscribers sometime in the near future, though we’re still waiting on a launch date. ![]() Not yet, but Spotify HiFi is due to land in the near future. The highest tier, Hi-Res Lossless, has fewer tracks available, with only 20 million on the books at launch in 2021. It even has its own little ‘Lossless’ logo so you can easily spot the high-quality tracks in the app.Īpple offers up three levels of lossless audio in its settings: CD quality (16-bit/44.1kHz), Apple Music Lossless (up to 24-bit/48kHz and better than CD quality), and Hi-Res Lossless (up to 24-bit/192kHz and even better). What is Lossless Audio on Apple Music?Īpple is always good at launching existing tech into the mainstream, and in 2021 it made more than 75 million lossless audio tracks available to Apple Music subscribers at no extra charge. The Amazon Music HD tier, which includes lossless audio, is now available to all Apple Music Unlimited subscribers, and Apple Music has also made its entire catalogue available in its lossless format. Previously, lossless audio was only available to those on top-tier subscriptions, but streaming platforms have now started to bundle it in with their standard tier. Tidal was one of the pioneers of bringing lossless audio streaming to the masses, but you can also listen to lossless tracks via Qobuz, Deezer and Amazon Music. If you’re on Team Apple, then you’re on Team ALAC, whether you like it or not. It’ll just come down to which service and devices you want to use. ![]() Realistically, most of us won’t actually need to choose a lossless format. You also might have heard of DSD (Direct Stream Digital), which is used for Super Audio CDs (remember those?) but it’s not really used for streaming. Apple has its own lossless format called ALAC (or Apple Lossless Audio Codec). Unsurprisingly, FLAC is not supported by Apple, which always insists on doing its own thing. It’s open-source so any brand can use it, including Tidal and Amazon Music, both of which use FLAC as the basis for their lossless music catalogues. We won’t bore you to tears with every single format and codec out there, but these are the ones you’ll hear about most: FLAC and ALAC.įLAC (or Free Lossless Audio Codec) is the most widely used lossless audio format. There are several different lossless audio formats, because life is never simple. It would be a huge help if someone could just decide what Hi-Res actually means. Technically, Hi-Res recordings can be lossless or lossy, but some sticklers say that it has to be lossless. Frustratingly, there’s no official standard for Hi-Res Audio, but it basically means the tracks are better than CD quality. Lossless audio is often confused with Hi-Res Audio, but they’re not the same thing. Is lossless audio the same as Hi-Res Audio? ![]()
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