With current fake unlimited data plans and no more 3.5 mm jacks on smartphones (except LG), this service is meant for home listeners.
Er, if into this sort of thing, why wouldn’t you use the digital port on your smartphone? If not USB or Lightning headphones, then an adapter to your favorite pair? Again, BT is not the only option just because the legacy analog port was replaced with a digital one.
While I'm sure that this will make Neil Young happy, I don't see much of an audience for this feature for one simple reason: the vast majority of listeners won't notice or be able to detect any difference and thus will not bother to pay for or enable it. Even with "nice" equipment, the audible differences between 256kbps MP3 or AAC and CD-level lossless are very, very small - far too small for a mass audience to care about, IMHO. This is at best aimed at a niche market.
Sidebar: Amazon claims to offer this in "HD" and "Ultra HD", the latter being 192kHz/24-bit. That's swell, but how many recordings are natively recorded at 192/24? If a recording was made using 44.1kHz, 48kHz or 96kHz sample rates, then no amount of upsampling helps and you're just wasting data. I wonder what their logic is, beyond "more is better"?
.I get why there's an increasing attention being paid to bit tech. They can do things for little to no profit, already wealthy beyond all need and cash to burn in the short term in order to corner all the profit in a market and reap benefits later. As a consumer I love it, who wouldn't get great stuff cheap.
..but competition by new entrants is going to be increasingly difficult and "breakthroughs" tougher to bring to market IMO. Almost feels like a cartel developing. Hate to believe that regulators would have to step in but they may.
“Great stuff cheap” never happens in real life. (Not talking Black Friday deals etc here). Just imagine what happens once Amazon has used all this cash to drive competition out of the market. Then the question whether they are truly a charity or in the end come with a surprise will find its answer. I’m sure that you know which one it will be.
Not judging the quality of the service here. Just the prospect of perceived short term cheap.
Presumably Apple will offer something like this soon. If you have the hardware and bandwidth to stream UHD movies with 5.1, 7.1 or Dolby Atmos sound, you have the bandwidth for lossless audio.
Aside from lossless audio, there's also currently the niche market for music mixed in 5.1, 7.1 or Dolby Atmos. Right now, you have to buy those on physical media and play them on a Blu-Ray player. When they're done well, these multi-channel formats can be revelatory. There's a small but decent catalog of recordings already available in lossless 5.1 mixes. The recent Beatles reissues of Sgt. Pepper's and the White Album are available that way, and they're outstanding. Abbey Road comes out this month in Dolby Atmos, which is an object-oriented audio format that can use from seven to a bazillion speakers to place sounds in three-dimensional space, not only horizontally around you, but also vertically above you. These formats have been a really small niche market in the past, but were they available through things like Apple TV, which many people already have hooked up to surround sound setups, the market could expand.
Also, for things mixed in an object-oriented format like Dolby Atmos, I think it's possible to decode those into a binaural output, which creates the three dimensional field using earbuds or headphones. If I were to hazard a guess, that might be the thing that has others (like Amazon in this case) coming out with their "HD audio" offering first, before Apple comes out with something significantly better that you didn't know that you needed. Perhaps Apple may come out with lossless and surround formats available not just on the Apple TV, but also a binaural decoder built into your iPhone, making for something pretty remarkable. Add to that, if AirPods can be made to detect motion, you could have not just a binaural surround experience that places instruments in three-dimensional space around you using your earbuds, but it would be possible to actually move your head around within that environment, so that you could actually turn to face the guitar over on the right, or the piano at stage left, etc.
“Bazillion” sounds like ... a lot thanks for the post. Interesting perspective. And somehow also interesting that again it’s The Beatles pioneering a musical experience... well, somehow at least.
That's swell, but how many recordings are natively recorded at 192/24? If a recording was made using 44.1kHz, 48kHz or 96kHz sample rates, then no amount of upsampling helps and you're just wasting data. I wonder what their logic is, beyond "more is better"?
Some older recordings, with a good analog master can benefit from 192/24.
While I'm sure that this will make Neil Young happy, I don't see much of an audience for this feature for one simple reason: the vast majority of listeners won't notice or be able to detect any difference and thus will not bother to pay for or enable it. Even with "nice" equipment, the audible differences between 256kbps MP3 or AAC and CD-level lossless are very, very small - far too small for a mass audience to care about, IMHO. This is at best aimed at a niche market.
Sidebar: Amazon claims to offer this in "HD" and "Ultra HD", the latter being 192kHz/24-bit. That's swell, but how many recordings are natively recorded at 192/24? If a recording was made using 44.1kHz, 48kHz or 96kHz sample rates, then no amount of upsampling helps and you're just wasting data. I wonder what their logic is, beyond "more is better"?
Sure the vast majority of listeners won't be able to tell the difference, but there will alway be a market for high res music. This service isn't geared towards the majority of people imo. I'm definitely interested in this service for home use. I have the setup and good headphones for high res music. I listen to studio masters at home on a regular basis. I can hear the difference in quality but I'm not the average music consumer. Most recordings I know of and studios I've been in are recorded at 192/24. 192/24 is typically used for the mic feed, but mastering/mixing is often times done at 48-64 bit resolution inside the console.
For iPhone users, I think this service is rather pointless unless you will be using an external DAC and have good studio quality headphones. Sometimes I don't understand why people make such a fuss about something that's not geared for mainstream audiences. There are a lot of people, including myself, who still purchase blu-rays because they want the best picture and sound quality. I know quite a few people who continue to buy CD's.
This forum is EXACTLY like Steve Ballmer laughing at the iPhone. Except iTunes/AM is the Zune and you all are Steve Ballmer here.
HiFi industry is a hundred billion dollar industry - it's a HUGE market. Niche... lol
Apple's HomePod and earbuds are like comparing a Vic20 to the 2019 Mac Pro... and you guys are laughing at the Mac Pro while you piddle around in Basic with your cartridge programs thinking it's the shit. So far behind you think you are first.
If it wasn't so funny reading your comments - it would be sad, because most of are missing out on the experience and pleasure of hearing music the way it was intended to be heard.
But as usual - when Apple eventually releases hifi tracks and tells you it's ok now to embrace hifi... I'm sure you will all start singing a different tune.
BxBorn said: Curious about the scale of users who would actually use this service.
IMO, it's mainly a sly way of getting a % of their customers to pay more for the same thing. Most people can't consistently tell the difference between 256 kbps and 16-bit/44.1 kHz in the first place. Then when you start adding in the various sound quality factors from pre-digital recordings vs digital recordings etc + the types of hardware people are using, it's largely a wash for most of the people who sign up for it.
Like those thousand dollar gullible Audiophile ethernet cables!
It's 0s and 1s! Just get a CAT6 cable and be done with it! (pet peeve)
And yet... it makes a difference that everyone can hear. How can you call people gullible when they actually notice a big improvement?
I borrowed a $1000 Audioquest power cord from a hifi store for my Bryston amp. Just a 1.5m long power cord. My family and friends thought it was all marketing bullshit... they came over and we did the comparison and were all blown away at the massive difference in sound quality. Same with optical cables... same with speaker cables... same with interconnects... same with sort cones...
The surface math and science says it shouldn't make a difference... and yet it makes a huge difference. Almost like a multi billion dollar industry knows what it's doing.
The surface math and science says it shouldn't make a difference... and yet it makes a huge difference. Almost like a multi billion dollar industry knows what it's doing.
You're conflating science and math with marketing and buyer psychology. There were/are markets for Monster HDMI cables and healing crystals, too.
Pretty pointless subscribing to it to listen through a portable speaker, Sonos, HomePod or whatever where frankly a fairly crappy stream is good enough, but awesome if you’re sticking it through a decent hifi.
The amount of worldwide hifi enthusiasts would say it’s not that limited a market...
Actually, Sonos Play:5s are pretty good. Tidal (and my local ripped CDs) sound slightly better than Apple Music on them - more punch/directness. I can also hear some difference on my main system, with either my headphones (Sennheiser HD800s) or on the speakers attached to it.
If Apple starts offering lossless, I'll upgrade on day one.
The big question for me with any of these HD services is what is the source? Because my fear is that an awful lot of this is taking a standard 16 bit/44.1 KHz CD file and re-recording it to a higher resolution file which will provide absolutely not one iota of difference sound-wise. And even when the streaming companies request a higher resolution file from the record labels, they could be doing the same thing: taking a lower resolution file and copying it to a higher resolution file. Again, no difference is sound quality whatsoever. The big difference in sound quality isn't going to come from higher resolution files anyway: it would come from less file compression.
If you have a capable system, hi-def audio sounds as good as how much you are willing to pay -
many people use streaming digital for their format with systems running well into the hundreds of thousands.
Hi-def can sound as good as any vinyl setup at any given price point.
echo dots and HomePods don’t count here....
however, that species of audiophile uses roon as a front end to their music. Until amazon offers their tunes as a service to roon, it won’t take off like it should.
.... now ‘can lovers’ can take advantage at a much lower entry point.
While I'm sure that this will make Neil Young happy, I don't see much of an audience for this feature for one simple reason: the vast majority of listeners won't notice or be able to detect any difference and thus will not bother to pay for or enable it. Even with "nice" equipment, the audible differences between 256kbps MP3 or AAC and CD-level lossless are very, very small - far too small for a mass audience to care about, IMHO. This is at best aimed at a niche market.
Sidebar: Amazon claims to offer this in "HD" and "Ultra HD", the latter being 192kHz/24-bit. That's swell, but how many recordings are natively recorded at 192/24? If a recording was made using 44.1kHz, 48kHz or 96kHz sample rates, then no amount of upsampling helps and you're just wasting data. I wonder what their logic is, beyond "more is better"?
I disagree in part: Yes the vast majority of listeners wouldn't know the difference. BUT they will think they can and millions of consumers will probably pay for it.
Music quality is like beer. Some people can go on and on, to the point of ad nauseam, to describe the subtleties and undertones of a specific version of beer. Oooh, it has a creamy head with tawny lacing and a hint of nutmeg with a pineapple blush and lightly roasted Italian coffee bean aftertaste kind of thing. Ok, whatever. Some people just go for the high ABV just like some people like audio with thumping bass that ripples the fenders on the adjacent SUV at a red light. Whatever floats your boat. The bottom line is that if whatever you're buying makes you happy, keep buying it and enjoy it without regrets no matter what other people say or feel. Likewise, if you don't give a rip about tawny lacing, a zesty mouthfeel, and hints of citrus infused pineapple undertones with a vanilla aftertaste, and you really like paying $7.99 for your 12-pack of choice, keep doing it and do feel totally comfortable with your selection. I'm not going to complain about your choices and I expect you to do the same with mine.
While I'm sure that this will make Neil Young happy, I don't see much of an audience for this feature for one simple reason: the vast majority of listeners won't notice or be able to detect any difference and thus will not bother to pay for or enable it. Even with "nice" equipment, the audible differences between 256kbps MP3 or AAC and CD-level lossless are very, very small - far too small for a mass audience to care about, IMHO. This is at best aimed at a niche market.
Sidebar: Amazon claims to offer this in "HD" and "Ultra HD", the latter being 192kHz/24-bit. That's swell, but how many recordings are natively recorded at 192/24? If a recording was made using 44.1kHz, 48kHz or 96kHz sample rates, then no amount of upsampling helps and you're just wasting data. I wonder what their logic is, beyond "more is better"?
Most studio digital recordings are indeed recorded at high sample and bit rates, and then downsampled for making CDs or the various online formats. Studio work is necessarily done at high resolution and depth to avoid the mathematical errors and artifacts that are cumulatively generated when you start editing and mixing multiple tracks.
It's probably easier to think of visually. If you have ever edited pictures in photoshop, you know that if you start with a small, low resolution photo, any editing you do will be easily perceptible in the final product. If you start with a high resolution image, however, you can zoom way in and make corrections that are completely invisible in the final image, especially if you end up downsampling and compressing that image to share around or post online. Same thing goes for digital audio recordings. No professional studio is going to record or master anything at 44.1kHz/16-bit. The resulting product would have errors and artifacts that could easily be heard by even an average listener.
Using visual metaphor further, if you're only going to look at a photo on a phone screen, you don't need a 100MB tiff file, but if you're going to make a large format print from it, you probably do.
In any case, recording studios do start with very high resolution audio. Most listeners won't be listening in a way that would benefit from having a direct copy of the master files. Some will, so it's nice that the industry is starting to look at ways to make those things available via the digital pipe coming into your home. Likewise, professional recordings made in the pre-digital age are generally high-quality engineering, and likewise benefit from being converted to digital at high sample rates and bit depth.
Ironically, despite all of Neil Young's advocacy and commentary about high-resolution audio, it was mentioned in a recent interview with him that his favorite place for listening to music is in his car. This is hilarious, because Neil likes those good vintage cars, so there is no way that his inherently noisy automotive listening environment is one that would ever benefit from plugging in one of his Pono players.
Is there really such a market for such a thing? It's sounds more like marketing than anything.
Yes there is. You just are not in those circles, but neither am I. There are people who will pay $20,000 for an audio setup and be wanting to more. To see how you get there look at the Classe', B&W and McIntosh Labs website.
Alexa-enabled Echo devices from the second generation and onward, Fire TVs, and Fire Tablets support HD quality audio.
I have a feeling “support” and “sounds good” are not the same thing. My friend has some weird Echo dot in her kitchen, plugged into a socket like the old style Airport Express. That thing sounds terrible when she plays music through it. I find it hard to believe it would sound much better playing HD quality audio.
Most people can’t tell the difference between 256k AAC and CD. Most of the rest who can, don’t care. Honestly, nobody can tell 24/192 from anything else, though a few claim they can.
it takes a very good system for the differences to even be able to be played back. There’s a problem. 24bits is 144db of dynamic range. My amps throughout my system, bottom out at 120db, which is extremely good. But realistically, when converted back to analog, these signals are not much better than 18 bits. 192k sampling isn’t really sampling music. That’s a top frequency of 96k! Some claim the filters aren’t audible when moved that far up, but really, it’s a joke. I can see using 24/96, or 24/88.2 just to get a bit more headroom, but otherwise, not really.
the idea that an Echo can p,ay this back in any audible fashion is ridiculous. Having the ability to accept hi Rez files is very different from having the ability to actually play them audibly.
Will most people notice a difference in sound or does it depend on the hardware used to listen?
It’s both. 256 AAC sounds pretty good, most of the time. But you, the listener, need to be trained to hear the differences, even when they can be played back. That is, a lot of people don’t know what they’re hearing, and until it’s pointed out, they don’t know I t’s wrong. A good example is Frank Sinatra. During the 1950’s and ‘60’s, his recordings, to me, had his voice sound distorted, with a buzz. Most people said they didn’t hear it, or that it was his voice. it wasn’t. I did a lot of live recordings in the 1970’s and early ‘80’s, and heard Sinatra live.
when HBO did a two part series on the 100th birthday of Sinatra, I found out what happened. they showed a recording session. They quickly panned to the two VU meters. They were slamming against the high stop. No wonder! That was about 10-20% harmonic distortion. When I point out the distortion to people, they can always know what it sounds like on any other recording, if present.
my system can do pretty much the best at this. I know that’s not too modest of me, but I designed equipment and I’ve been involved with sound for a very long time. Still, as I mention in an earlier post here, some of this isn’t playable, or contains no usable sound. The argument gets complicated.
but basically, compressed music depends on the fact that there are things we don’t hear very well, and removing much of it. The more compressed it is, the more us removed. At some point, everyone can hear the difference. But for 256 AAC, most of us can’t really hear much difference with most music. Most of what’s removed in lossy compression is high level high frequency. I’m over simplifying it, of course. But it’s a close explanation. So if music doesn’t have a lot of high frequency high level information, we won’t notice that removal, which is mostly empty bits—nothing much there.
but if music with a lot of that is played, you’ll hear a harshness, a distortion. It may not even be heard, but you’ll get listener fatigue fairly quickly. Ironically, it’s rarely classical, or even most jazz that’s the problem because most live music doesn’t have much of those signals. But artificial recordings that themselves are highly compressed in dynamic range, as most popular music is, has more of a problem. Some of the worst is German Autobann music, as we used to call it. it usually sounds strident. Not because of the recording, but because of the lossy compression.
but less expensive gear can’t reproduce high frequencies vary well, so much of the harshness and distortion is sort of filtered out.
Comments
Stop using this dumb headline cliche.
For iPhone users, I think this service is rather pointless unless you will be using an external DAC and have good studio quality headphones. Sometimes I don't understand why people make such a fuss about something that's not geared for mainstream audiences. There are a lot of people, including myself, who still purchase blu-rays because they want the best picture and sound quality. I know quite a few people who continue to buy CD's.
Except iTunes/AM is the Zune and you all are Steve Ballmer here.
HiFi industry is a hundred billion dollar industry - it's a HUGE market.
Niche... lol
Apple's HomePod and earbuds are like comparing a Vic20 to the 2019 Mac Pro... and you guys are laughing at the Mac Pro while you piddle around in Basic with your cartridge programs thinking it's the shit. So far behind you think you are first.
If it wasn't so funny reading your comments - it would be sad, because most of are missing out on the experience and pleasure of hearing music the way it was intended to be heard.
But as usual - when Apple eventually releases hifi tracks and tells you it's ok now to embrace hifi... I'm sure you will all start singing a different tune.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U
How can you call people gullible when they actually notice a big improvement?
I borrowed a $1000 Audioquest power cord from a hifi store for my Bryston amp. Just a 1.5m long power cord. My family and friends thought it was all marketing bullshit... they came over and we did the comparison and were all blown away at the massive difference in sound quality.
Same with optical cables... same with speaker cables... same with interconnects... same with sort cones...
The surface math and science says it shouldn't make a difference... and yet it makes a huge difference. Almost like a multi billion dollar industry knows what it's doing.
If Apple starts offering lossless, I'll upgrade on day one.
many people use streaming digital for their format with systems running well into the hundreds of thousands.
Hi-def can sound as good as any vinyl setup at any given price point.
echo dots and HomePods don’t count here....
however, that species of audiophile uses roon as a front end to their music. Until amazon offers their tunes as a service to roon, it won’t take off like it should.
.... now ‘can lovers’ can take advantage at a much lower entry point.
It's probably easier to think of visually. If you have ever edited pictures in photoshop, you know that if you start with a small, low resolution photo, any editing you do will be easily perceptible in the final product. If you start with a high resolution image, however, you can zoom way in and make corrections that are completely invisible in the final image, especially if you end up downsampling and compressing that image to share around or post online. Same thing goes for digital audio recordings. No professional studio is going to record or master anything at 44.1kHz/16-bit. The resulting product would have errors and artifacts that could easily be heard by even an average listener.
Using visual metaphor further, if you're only going to look at a photo on a phone screen, you don't need a 100MB tiff file, but if you're going to make a large format print from it, you probably do.
In any case, recording studios do start with very high resolution audio. Most listeners won't be listening in a way that would benefit from having a direct copy of the master files. Some will, so it's nice that the industry is starting to look at ways to make those things available via the digital pipe coming into your home. Likewise, professional recordings made in the pre-digital age are generally high-quality engineering, and likewise benefit from being converted to digital at high sample rates and bit depth.
Ironically, despite all of Neil Young's advocacy and commentary about high-resolution audio, it was mentioned in a recent interview with him that his favorite place for listening to music is in his car. This is hilarious, because Neil likes those good vintage cars, so there is no way that his inherently noisy automotive listening environment is one that would ever benefit from plugging in one of his Pono players.
it takes a very good system for the differences to even be able to be played back. There’s a problem. 24bits is 144db of dynamic range. My amps throughout my system, bottom out at 120db, which is extremely good. But realistically, when converted back to analog, these signals are not much better than 18 bits. 192k sampling isn’t really sampling music. That’s a top frequency of 96k! Some claim the filters aren’t audible when moved that far up, but really, it’s a joke. I can see using 24/96, or 24/88.2 just to get a bit more headroom, but otherwise, not really.
the idea that an Echo can p,ay this back in any audible fashion is ridiculous. Having the ability to accept hi Rez files is very different from having the ability to actually play them audibly.
It’s both. 256 AAC sounds pretty good, most of the time. But you, the listener, need to be trained to hear the differences, even when they can be played back. That is, a lot of people don’t know what they’re hearing, and until it’s pointed out, they don’t know I t’s wrong. A good example is Frank Sinatra. During the 1950’s and ‘60’s, his recordings, to me, had his voice sound distorted, with a buzz. Most people said they didn’t hear it, or that it was his voice. it wasn’t. I did a lot of live recordings in the 1970’s and early ‘80’s, and heard Sinatra live.
when HBO did a two part series on the 100th birthday of Sinatra, I found out what happened. they showed a recording session. They quickly panned to the two VU meters. They were slamming against the high stop. No wonder! That was about 10-20% harmonic distortion. When I point out the distortion to people, they can always know what it sounds like on any other recording, if present.
my system can do pretty much the best at this. I know that’s not too modest of me, but I designed equipment and I’ve been involved with sound for a very long time. Still, as I mention in an earlier post here, some of this isn’t playable, or contains no usable sound. The argument gets complicated.
but basically, compressed music depends on the fact that there are things we don’t hear very well, and removing much of it. The more compressed it is, the more us removed. At some point, everyone can hear the difference. But for 256 AAC, most of us can’t really hear much difference with most music. Most of what’s removed in lossy compression is high level high frequency. I’m over simplifying it, of course. But it’s a close explanation. So if music doesn’t have a lot of high frequency high level information, we won’t notice that removal, which is mostly empty bits—nothing much there.
but if music with a lot of that is played, you’ll hear a harshness, a distortion. It may not even be heard, but you’ll get listener fatigue fairly quickly. Ironically, it’s rarely classical, or even most jazz that’s the problem because most live music doesn’t have much of those signals. But artificial recordings that themselves are highly compressed in dynamic range, as most popular music is, has more of a problem. Some of the worst is German Autobann music, as we used to call it. it usually sounds strident. Not because of the recording, but because of the lossy compression.
but less expensive gear can’t reproduce high frequencies vary well, so much of the harshness and distortion is sort of filtered out.
i can easily illustrate this on my system.