I’ve spent a lot of today (too much) playing around with Apple Music from an iPad via an audioquest dragonfly cobalt dac. I have tried via headphones and really enjoyed the spatial audio stuff, especially on older recordings like Marvin Gaye, the Beatles. I think it lost some of the sparkle and drive on the newer stuff like weeknd.
As far as quality goes I used my “golden ears” wife as she blindly compared Qobuz to AM. Qobuz was preferred each time but there wasn’t a huge difference. The same outcome was seen when I connected the dac to my Naim amp 3.5mm to DIN. interestingly, Qobuz via the native Naim implementation wiped the floor with both of the services via the dragonfly.
I would be interested to hear how @Simon-in-Suffolk went with his Chord dac.
yep - and I suspect those people won’t value or even hear the difference in hidef - so are unlikely to use a DAC and hifi speakers - and wireless speakers will be all they need
Not sure of the dongles bit - but sounds intriguing
S
lightning to USB cable yes
Possibly - I don’t subscribe to Amazon music so I wouldn’t know - but have been Apple Music subscriber for sometime for the car and travelling - though hasn’t had as much use with Covid lockdown - that might change now 
But the AppleMusic system is rather good - I like its curation, playlists and tailored suggestions - and the offline download buffer is helpful as well… i always felt it was a shame it limited to AAC and now that is changed. AAC into my main system often sounds relatively dull and filtered and lacking presence and feel - the lossless and hires lossless transforms the Apple system into a credible hifi source - it was sounding very good last night at 96/24
I disable the spatial setting - but I will play around with that aspect perhaps at the weekend - but that looks more like a toy for the car
Eddy Cue, Apple: I’ve been waiting for something in music that was a real game-changer. The quality of audio has not been able to really rise because there hasn’t been anything out there that when you listen to it, it truly is differentiated to everybody. It doesn’t matter whether you’re eight years old or 80 years old, everyone can tell the difference and everyone knows this one sounds better than the other one.
This about Apple Spatial. At least it seems much more fun than MQA
Now we are just waiting for the Logic Pro X version to produce content.
Eddy needs a Naim system 
I agree with you on spatial audio… whereas with the movies it’s absolutely amazing and I had high expectations on the music as well, but most tracks I listened to has lost its attack and overall sparkle. Some electronic music was not bad though.
I tend to agree, but never went there due to AAC and the option to use Tidal even when I had a UQ2. Now we have Qobuz in NZ and I’m using Roon and a NDX/252 etc, so I’d really be wanting the same SQ and app functions to shift back to Apple. When Airplay is upgraded or Naim can integrate it, then things may look and sound different. Early days I guess.
I’ll still be considering Spotify’s lossless offering unless Apple enables Apple Music to output ALAC over Airplay 2.
That is the problem. I thought I’d try it out just to hear if it’s any good. I now can’t be assed as even if it works well, I have hires native on my 2i via qobuz and amazon. For apple hires to be useful I need to be able to sit in my seat and cast it to my hifi.
Excellent
Listening now to Apple Music in hi res
Using iPhone mobile Dax and Shure earphone great pleasure. Good quality
Wonder what is the way to stream to my Naim Atom at home .
Well…for myself, and I’m an Apple Music lover, at the moment I can stream Qobuz hires. To have hires from AM…as you say…I need to go shopping. I think I’ll listen to Qobuz while I think about it…
Thanks Simon, I believe there are two types of adapter, one for headphones or other rca jack connection and one called lightning camera adapter. Do you happen to know why Audioquest insists that users connect the latter to their Dragonfly products?
That’s what I thought. So to connect an iPhone or iPad to any DAC, one must use the lightning camera adapter it seems?
Gotcha. Thanks.
Currently you can’t, without an iOS device to a DAC feeding the analogue ins not the Atom, which is then redigitized at 48k so kind of defeating the whole thing but that’s the only way currentl.
Simon,
please could you check if the itunes content is in high-res now (for buying albums) after subscribing to their streaming service? I see no better content then 256k …THANKS!
One thing i’ve learned - any existing downloads that are now showing as Lossless need to be re-downloaded for that to actually be the case. They’re not being updated in background; you have to force a fresh download.
Right. After seeing the label change I assumed they were changed. I have 1400+ albums. That’s a pain. But last night I re-did all my Cocteau Twins. And checked the size. They sure did download. Now if I want to listen (from my iPad Pro) I need…what is best?