5 ms·

Don't Buy into Apple's Hype About AirPods Max Gaining Lossless Audio

48 points by ksec 2y ago

ksec 2y ago
First we have Gruber. Then we have Macrumors. Something about the Apple's PR wall is falling.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  Was ready to upvote. But a bit strange seeing this comment from the person who posted the article.
  - ksec 2y ago
    The submission was precisely because I want to post this comment.
  - watusername 2y ago
    Hmm, I thought it was good etiquette for posters to comment, rather than just throw a link out there with little effort.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - lxgr 2y ago
    At least I never understood submission of an article to automatically signal endorsement (either of the reporting or the news being reported).
- thedevilslawyer 2y ago
  Tim Cook/Apple's cozying to Trump is perhaps a reason for them to pause a bit on the koolaid.
theandrewbailey 2y ago
> There are lossy compression standards like MP3, and Apple's own Advanced Audio Codec (AAC), which result in some data loss. While Apple popularized usage of AAC, I think it's disingenuous to say that it's "Apple's own" format. Wasn't it developed by MPEG, and therefore, was an industry collaboration? Maybe it's because I've never been an Apple fan, but am I alone in thinking this?
- ksec 2y ago
  Macrumors has never been good or accurate with technology reporting.
- Analemma_ 2y ago
  It is an industry standard, in the sense that there are published standards for it and it was developed by an industry consortium, but in practice it never got traction outside Apple and they are essentially the only one who uses it. This happens sometimes: FireWire was an IEEE standard too but Apple and Sony were pretty much the only users. I don’t think it’s too misleading to refer to it as a de facto Apple-only technology.
  - Scaevolus 2y ago
    What? AAC is one of the most common codecs used for streaming audio on the internet, Opus being the other common one. It's not exclusive to Apple at all.
  - skyyler 2y ago
    >in practice it never got traction outside Apple and they are essentially the only one who uses it Are you thinking of ALAC? What you're saying is true, if you're talking about ALAC. ALAC is Apple's lossless codec. AAC is a lossy codec and is unrelated to ALAC. AAC is an industry standard. It's in the Nintendo DSi and 3DS handhelds. Heck, according to wikipedia, the Nokia S40 series of phones supports it.
  - atoav 2y ago
    You are aware that 99% of the video mp4 containers you ever watched use AAC for the audio stream? Maybe Apple is one of the few who use AAC for audio-only purposes, but as a technology AACs predominant use is in video (as a percentage of marketshare). And because literally everything can play MP4s, as such they can also play AAC.
Kirby64 2y ago
The lossless audio isn't the real benefit of this, it's the low latency. Current latency is ~100ms over bluetooth and is considered unacceptable for live playback of things (DJ'ing, music, etc). People used this on the Lightning version of the Airpods Max apparently, and it was missing until now on the USB-C version.
- lxgr 2y ago
  > The lossless audio isn't the real benefit of this, it's the low latency And we could have had that on all AirPods, for several years now, if Apple were to finally implement LC3 and Bluetooth LE Audio. Other than enabling much lower latency for unicast, LE Audio even supports broadcast use cases (think gym TV audio, public announcements, hearing aid audio in cinemas etc) and much more. I really don't understand why that's taking so long; this type of thing seems exactly like something Apple would usually excel at. (Maybe it's too open a standard, and they can't figure out a way to make gyms and cinemas pay for broadcasting to AirPods?)
  - Kirby64 2y ago
    > And we could have had that on all AirPods, for several years now, if Apple were to finally implement LC3 and Bluetooth LE Audio. LC3 still has 50ms or so latency from what I’ve seen. LC3+ is lower, but 20ms is still something. Wired you can be single digit ms easily.
    - jampekka 2y ago
      20 ms on top of other latencies (buffers) is not good for e.g. live monitoring.
  - pySSK 2y ago
    LE Audio is still too slow and low quality. The next step will likely be UWB audio.
  - conradev 2y ago
    Yes! I have a pair of "on-ear speakers" and they support the broadcast API: https://nwm.global/products/one https://nwm.global/products/one but I have not found a single place in the US that uses it
42772827 2y ago
All I want is Spatial Audio with head tracking that doesn't have audio drop outs, an issue that has been there from the start and never fixed. At this point I'll give up the wireless aspect for it.
lxgr 2y ago
> Accordingly, the company also says "the difference between AAC and lossless audio is virtually indistinguishable." Then how come they are offering lossless audio on Apple Music, and even (actuall physically!) imperceptible "Hi-Res Lossless"? Are enough dogs and bats paying for it to justify the extra bandwidth required by 24 kbps/96 KHz audio? When catering to pseudoscience, arguably one really needs to go all the way. Do it like Sony, for example; go full "audiophile" and invent your own Bluetooth audio codec [1]. Or digitally sign your bits to make a special light go on on expensive hardware [2]. Delivering lossless 24/96 to the device and then downsampling it to 16/48 and AAC compressing it for the last meter over Bluetooth is just sad. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LDAC_(codec) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LDAC_(codec) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_Quality_Authenticated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_Quality_Authenticated
- Kirby64 2y ago
  > Then how come they are offering lossless audio on Apple Music, and even (actuall physically!) imperceptible "Hi-Res Lossless"? Because people, despite repeated double blind testing, claim they can hear a difference. That’s the only reason. Same reason anyone offers an output format beyond 16-bit/48k for audio playback. It’s pointless, but people think it matters for stupid reasons.
  - SOLAR_FIELDS 2y ago
    Yep. People will pay for it even if there’s only a perceived benefit. Everyone who has hung out with audiophiles has known at least one who is convinced they can hear the difference. But if that person was tested in a blinded format would they actually succeed? Lossless music is great. As an archival tool, to transcode into something smaller on your actual listening device. It’s not a technology designed for streaming or listening in today’s world.
    - Nition 2y ago
      > But if that person was tested in a blinded format would they actually succeed? I always think of that famous coathanger post: https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/speakers-when-is-good-enough-enough.2512/page-2#post-15412 https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/speakers-when-... And the immediate nitpicking following it: "Is your speaker system time coherent?"
blogabegonija 2y ago
[dead]
xyst 2y ago
For my aging Apple devices, I have historically liked the airpod pros. But have never understood the hype around the AirPod “max” headphones. Are professionals really using the AirPod max over much better and higher quality headphones? As a regular consumer and $549, I would rather pick up some regular open back headphones from sennheiser (hd490s) and save myself some $ and get much higher quality headphones. Plus these headphones had issues with weight and wearing them for long periods of time. No amount of updates will fix the issues with these headphones. It’s nothing more than a flex
cadamsdotcom 2y ago
Agreed, you can buy into it when it’s in a shipping product.

48 points by ksec 2y ago

ksec 2y ago

First we have Gruber. Then we have Macrumors. Something about the Apple's PR wall is falling.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
Was ready to upvote. But a bit strange seeing this comment from the person who posted the article.
- ksec 2y ago
  The submission was precisely because I want to post this comment.
- watusername 2y ago
  Hmm, I thought it was good etiquette for posters to comment, rather than just throw a link out there with little effort.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- lxgr 2y ago
  At least I never understood submission of an article to automatically signal endorsement (either of the reporting or the news being reported).
thedevilslawyer 2y ago
Tim Cook/Apple's cozying to Trump is perhaps a reason for them to pause a bit on the koolaid.

theandrewbailey 2y ago

> There are lossy compression standards like MP3, and Apple's own Advanced Audio Codec (AAC), which result in some data loss. While Apple popularized usage of AAC, I think it's disingenuous to say that it's "Apple's own" format. Wasn't it developed by MPEG, and therefore, was an industry collaboration? Maybe it's because I've never been an Apple fan, but am I alone in thinking this?

ksec 2y ago
Macrumors has never been good or accurate with technology reporting.
Analemma_ 2y ago
It is an industry standard, in the sense that there are published standards for it and it was developed by an industry consortium, but in practice it never got traction outside Apple and they are essentially the only one who uses it. This happens sometimes: FireWire was an IEEE standard too but Apple and Sony were pretty much the only users. I don’t think it’s too misleading to refer to it as a de facto Apple-only technology.
- Scaevolus 2y ago
  What? AAC is one of the most common codecs used for streaming audio on the internet, Opus being the other common one. It's not exclusive to Apple at all.
- skyyler 2y ago
  >in practice it never got traction outside Apple and they are essentially the only one who uses it Are you thinking of ALAC? What you're saying is true, if you're talking about ALAC. ALAC is Apple's lossless codec. AAC is a lossy codec and is unrelated to ALAC. AAC is an industry standard. It's in the Nintendo DSi and 3DS handhelds. Heck, according to wikipedia, the Nokia S40 series of phones supports it.
- atoav 2y ago
  You are aware that 99% of the video mp4 containers you ever watched use AAC for the audio stream? Maybe Apple is one of the few who use AAC for audio-only purposes, but as a technology AACs predominant use is in video (as a percentage of marketshare). And because literally everything can play MP4s, as such they can also play AAC.

Kirby64 2y ago

The lossless audio isn't the real benefit of this, it's the low latency. Current latency is ~100ms over bluetooth and is considered unacceptable for live playback of things (DJ'ing, music, etc). People used this on the Lightning version of the Airpods Max apparently, and it was missing until now on the USB-C version.

lxgr 2y ago
> The lossless audio isn't the real benefit of this, it's the low latency And we could have had that on all AirPods, for several years now, if Apple were to finally implement LC3 and Bluetooth LE Audio. Other than enabling much lower latency for unicast, LE Audio even supports broadcast use cases (think gym TV audio, public announcements, hearing aid audio in cinemas etc) and much more. I really don't understand why that's taking so long; this type of thing seems exactly like something Apple would usually excel at. (Maybe it's too open a standard, and they can't figure out a way to make gyms and cinemas pay for broadcasting to AirPods?)
- Kirby64 2y ago
  > And we could have had that on all AirPods, for several years now, if Apple were to finally implement LC3 and Bluetooth LE Audio. LC3 still has 50ms or so latency from what I’ve seen. LC3+ is lower, but 20ms is still something. Wired you can be single digit ms easily.
  - jampekka 2y ago
    20 ms on top of other latencies (buffers) is not good for e.g. live monitoring.
- pySSK 2y ago
  LE Audio is still too slow and low quality. The next step will likely be UWB audio.
- conradev 2y ago
  Yes! I have a pair of "on-ear speakers" and they support the broadcast API: https://nwm.global/products/one https://nwm.global/products/one but I have not found a single place in the US that uses it

42772827 2y ago

All I want is Spatial Audio with head tracking that doesn't have audio drop outs, an issue that has been there from the start and never fixed. At this point I'll give up the wireless aspect for it.

lxgr 2y ago

> Accordingly, the company also says "the difference between AAC and lossless audio is virtually indistinguishable." Then how come they are offering lossless audio on Apple Music, and even (actuall physically!) imperceptible "Hi-Res Lossless"? Are enough dogs and bats paying for it to justify the extra bandwidth required by 24 kbps/96 KHz audio? When catering to pseudoscience, arguably one really needs to go all the way. Do it like Sony, for example; go full "audiophile" and invent your own Bluetooth audio codec [1]. Or digitally sign your bits to make a special light go on on expensive hardware [2]. Delivering lossless 24/96 to the device and then downsampling it to 16/48 and AAC compressing it for the last meter over Bluetooth is just sad. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LDAC_(codec) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LDAC_(codec) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_Quality_Authenticated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_Quality_Authenticated

Kirby64 2y ago
> Then how come they are offering lossless audio on Apple Music, and even (actuall physically!) imperceptible "Hi-Res Lossless"? Because people, despite repeated double blind testing, claim they can hear a difference. That’s the only reason. Same reason anyone offers an output format beyond 16-bit/48k for audio playback. It’s pointless, but people think it matters for stupid reasons.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 2y ago
  Yep. People will pay for it even if there’s only a perceived benefit. Everyone who has hung out with audiophiles has known at least one who is convinced they can hear the difference. But if that person was tested in a blinded format would they actually succeed? Lossless music is great. As an archival tool, to transcode into something smaller on your actual listening device. It’s not a technology designed for streaming or listening in today’s world.
  - Nition 2y ago
    > But if that person was tested in a blinded format would they actually succeed? I always think of that famous coathanger post: https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/speakers-when-is-good-enough-enough.2512/page-2#post-15412 https://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/speakers-when-... And the immediate nitpicking following it: "Is your speaker system time coherent?"

blogabegonija 2y ago

[dead]

xyst 2y ago

For my aging Apple devices, I have historically liked the airpod pros. But have never understood the hype around the AirPod “max” headphones. Are professionals really using the AirPod max over much better and higher quality headphones? As a regular consumer and $549, I would rather pick up some regular open back headphones from sennheiser (hd490s) and save myself some $ and get much higher quality headphones. Plus these headphones had issues with weight and wearing them for long periods of time. No amount of updates will fix the issues with these headphones. It’s nothing more than a flex

cadamsdotcom 2y ago

Agreed, you can buy into it when it’s in a shipping product.