Apple Music HiFi Tier incoming?

Very unlikely to be hi-res, the lossless/hi res service has not kicked in yet.

It may be that Apple decide to upgrade all purchases to lossless or even hi-res when the “switch is thrown”, but they are under no obligation to do that.

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It appears to be here!

I’ve never seen this before circled label. Plus, the reason I went to Apple was the album “Ram” isn’t on Qobuz. SO!!!

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ah…

And this…download tools???

So…what…the tools are for converting existing files, like a musician, to this?

Some selections have the label and some don’t now. So that makes it seem as it they are incorporating them in.

I’m going to look… :hot_face: :flushed: :sweat_smile: :grin:Yes! Albums I have downloaded are now converted! That’s awesome…and I have Apple Music for free grandfathered with my Verizon!

Yeah I think it is the preparation of the service but there needs to be an update to the device to allow the playback and selection in the settings. That is the part that is missing. Still AAC at the moment I think.

Can you see file sizes? Are we talking iphone or MAC?

But…I have to say…critical listening, Qobuz quality is still better. It’s good…but a step below Qobuz. Sadly…

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I don’t think those file sizes are lossless. Maybe wrong. I still don’t think it’s released yet. I’d wait till the “official release” to assess.

I’d say they look like compressed CD quality file sizes.

Well…the album I looked up is. And others are not.

OK…this one is not labeled “Apple Digital Master” and this is it’s size. The other is a master and downloaded. These are a bit smaller apparently.

Those file sizes are compressed AAC… an album of lossless 16/44 would be a several hundred megabytes.

Exactly…

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Looking at the spec it looks like Apples wont support masters that are not multiples of 41khz for hires only of 48khz so you get 96/24 and 192/24 it mentions nothing about 88.2 or 176.4. Qobuz supports all of them so with Apple Music some masters will have been resampled I guess to fit into their delivery platform.

Decent explanation of the various services on What Hi Fi?, posted yesteday:

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I thought the current Airplay was limited to 192/24. I think it was the legacy Airplay 1 that was 44.1/16.
However I think I am correct that most if not all iOS devices will limit to 48/16, or the Airport products to 44.1/16.

Interesting observation about multiples of 48. Yes I know much new material is now released in 48/24 and 48/16 as CD is not really a dominant platform anymore and YouTube and video sample rates are more appropriate… but there are still many at 44.1.
Of course Tidal uses resampled 48 to 44.1 if you want PCM and I don’t hear too many complaining… but yes Qobuz gives distribution master native resolution.

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There seems to be no real evidence that Airplay2 supports hires at all. Apple’s keeping that firmly under their hat. Only seen speculation on it and rumours from someone saying it’s in the Android beta app. If it was possible then Apple would have come out and said it is straightway surely with the announcement. I imagine they are working on a system though that does now. Obviously Spotifies move to lossles caught them on the hop. Their whole eco system is based on aac homepods and airpods are testement to that.

It’s available on Qobuz in 96/24 where I am.

I know many are excited about this Apple announcement, but I urge all to do the right thing and stick with Qobuz or Tidal. I wonder how many on here would switch out from Naim to Bose, if Bose said they offered the same product cheaper than Naim? (extreme analogy I know, but trying to make a point).

…and it’s not the same. For myself, I had lifetime Apple Music and the bought Qobuz. Compared the Master Apple to Hi-res…no comparison. Qobuz wins hands down.

If other services are offering the same quality music with a larger library and a cheaper price, why should be stick with the first service other than loyalty? And if I wasn’t using Qobuz with roon, would easily find Apple Music interface better. The issue is we currently don’t know how we’d stream hires to our streamers. Apple currently says it will only work by direct connection. If you’re ok with cd quality, I believe AirPlay 2 will be fine.

I’m a lifetime member to roon, so mostly seeing if the other services can complete. The big issue with roon is it’s limited to just Tidal and Qobuz and has no mobile offering. So out of the house, I have to use the native app. I’m not a big fan of Qobuz app and stopped using Tidal when they swapped out cd quality for MQA albums. They even have some aac albums in their catalog.

Anyway, competition is good. Think most of hires hardware issues will be sorted out by next year. Spotify is still kicking their heals without even following up their initial announcement. They had the jump on Apple but looks like Apple will get there first. And Amazon has a had a while to fix their apps to play bit perfect but still hasn’t got that fix as far as I know.