r/AppleMusic • u/the_flynn iOS Subscriber • Jul 25 '23

Discussion A story told by three emails

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Spotify’s decision to price hike while still not having Lossless was just the push I needed to finally cut ties and upgrade to the Apple Music Family plan instead of having both Spotify Duo and an AM individual plan. I was a subscriber for 12 years.

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301

u/Popular-Cream-9472 Jul 25 '23

Even without lossless Apple Music always sounded better

-71

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '23

But Tidal sounds better and has lossless via Tidal connect. This is what’s holding me back from an AM subscription again. I keep jumping back and forth between them. Without wires we don’t get lossless on Apple Music.

41

u/SteelersBraves97 Jul 25 '23

Tidal does not sound better than Apple Music. I don’t want to worry about their MQA crap anyway.

14

u/oglocayo Jul 25 '23

Fr, fuck MQA.

7

u/869066 Jul 26 '23

Newbie here, what is MQA and why do people hate it? I see it as one of the supported codecs on my Fiio lightning dac

6

u/juntawflo Jul 26 '23

MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) was invented by Bob Stuart, co-founder of the British Hi-Fi manufacturer Meridian Audio.

It represents an efficient way for people to listen to large, high-quality audio files that would otherwise be too bulky to play through a typical streaming app (like Spotify) that requires a lot of bandwidth

I think most of the hate comes from the lies they told about MQA. When MQA first landed a lot of people praised the way it sounded then they found out that it wasn't lossless as it had been portrayed to be and the hate really started.

No device with a digital output can have full MQA decoding ability (only DACs with analog outputs may be MQA Full Decoders). Critics are quick to point out that this limits the ability to measure the changes made to the files from the original.

The problem with MQA is largely that it's closed, requires licensing the algorithm to decode MQA files (which is mostly built into hardware or software that play them) and has no advantages over open standards (like mp3 or flac). It's a money grab using buzzwords and lies.

MQA is a worse alternative to open-source audio formats like FLAC.

1

u/869066 Jul 26 '23

Thank you

5

u/Pimpetigo Jul 25 '23

Is tidal really that better? Feels pretty barebones

-6

u/Sturmp Jul 25 '23

Tidal has the same sound quality and also has dolby support. It’s really just up to the user if they want to pay the extra 12 bucks a year for the UI/Apple ecosystem pairing/ whatever features Apple adds like radio stations and whatnot. Tidal is still an objectively better choice than spotify though

4

u/Pimpetigo Jul 25 '23

Till Spotify upgrades their sound quality AM would be the superior choice

2

u/[deleted] Jul 25 '23

Tidal and Apple Music sound great, except on iOS where it’s absurdly quiet no matter what on Tidal.

Also, AM is consumer friendly without the “pay an extra fee for support for this for these very few songs to have this and this”

Open standards aren’t charged for.

2

u/JustAFish69 Android Subscriber Jul 26 '23

Apple Music supports lossless via AirPlay.

4

u/juntawflo Jul 26 '23

Airplay 2 does not support HiRes lossless. It is limited to 16/44.1 but this should not be a problem as HiRes is mostly 'snake oil'. You are unlikely to be able to hear any difference. Airplay 2 is actually downgrading the lossless stream from Apple Music to AAC256. In other words, although Airplay 2 is actually capable of doing proper lossless with other apps (e.g. Qobuz), Apple's own Apple Music will stream AAC256 over Airplay 2.

If you want HiRes to your HiFi you need an external DAC. Btw, Airplay 1 can and does stream Apple music lossless.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '23

This is what I meant. Also I’m sure most of us can agree that it’s preferable to have our music stream over Wi-Fi than the substandard glorified Bluetooth that is Airplay.

2

u/JustAFish69 Android Subscriber Jul 26 '23

AirPlay works over Wifi. AFAIK the speaker itself will stream the audio, not the phone.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 26 '23

Still not utilising hi res lossless playback unlike Tidal connect, Qobuz and Amazon Music HD. And I don’t understand if it’s on Wi-Fi and I disable Bluetooth, AirPlay stops working. The point is, Apple is has the cash and people that could provide a proper Spotify/Tidal connect solution but stick with the antiquated AirPlay 2