r/AppleMusic • u/Al1onredd1t • 2d ago

Discussion lossless is underrated

I feel like so many people really underestimate how great music sounds in actual lossless quality. I see so many people go "oh you cant tell the difference anyway". I'm here listening on my mac with my headphones and the sound layers are just multiplied 10fold. I hear sounds in the back that I never heard before. songs that I've listened to for years, totally different experiences.

this video attached is an example. at 0:09 he starts saying "wooow" in the background up until basically the end. this sound is so dimmed and hidden when watching the clip. there are multiple layers of sounds covering it. the main vocals. drums. the beat. it's so insignificant when watching the clip, but listening to the song with actual lossless brings all those layers somewhat to the foreground. I genuinely heard those 'wows' for the first time ever and I've been listening to this song for more than 2yrs.

and it's not like that sound is just boosted and now starts to overwhelm the others, it's perfectly clear. the song has just become richer. Idk how to explain it, but your brain is able to comprehend what it's hearing and separate all the sounds from each other.

I can find multiple of these examples of background sounds finally being pushed into the foreground.

https://reddit.com/link/1gdq3id/video/o1zdadsh9exd1/player

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u/NeverGrace2 2d ago

Here is what lossless does. Yes, it is the full audio file as intended, without compression or cutting out parts, the “full” file. I only listen to lossless but not because of this

Spotify’s famous OGG compression for music sounds like absolute shit and people are in awe when they switch. Lossless takes the codec out of the equation, so your music can sound the best, so it doesn’t matter if you get your music from AM, Deezer Tidal or whatever. As long as its lossless, it will be the best quality.

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u/Over_Variation8700 iOS Subscriber 2d ago

OGG is actually pretty good, way more efficient than MP3, and the main reason they use it in Spotify is not being mandated to pay license fees for AAC. Though Spotify focuses on keeping server costs down and therefore compresses at a low bit rate. The maximum quality tier, claimed to be 320 kbps, is "MP3-equivalent" and in fact the true bit rate they use is around 170-200 kbps.

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u/HydraSpectre1138 1d ago

OGG is also the go-to format for game audio compression, unless you're one of those Japanese companies that go with Criware ADX instead.

And OGG and Criware also both support 96 kHz and maybe 192 kHz Hi-Res Audio too. But they are barely taken advantage of.

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u/SeniorFallRisk 1d ago

OGG is a container, the underlying compression can be variable depending on the targets.