Japanese blog Macotakara claims that Apple is planning better-than-CD quality audio for iTunes at some point in 2016.
According to several insiders familiar with Apple, whose products are exhibited at Portable Audio Festival, Apple has been developing hi-res audio streaming up to 96kHz/24-bit in 2016.
By way of comparison, CDs offer 44kHz/16-bit. The sources cited appear to be manufacturers making Lightning-based headphones, which would support the hi-res format. It should be noted, however, that Apple has been sourcing at least some of its music at 96kHz/24-bit for many years …
Apple first started asking music labels to supply the high-resolution audio files almost four years ago, for its Mastered for iTunes albums. At that time, Apple was then doing its own encoding to a lower-resolution format. The company said at the time that it had an eye to rolling out higher-resolution versions at a later date.
Keeping the highest quality masters available in our systems allows for full advantage of future improvements to your music.
It was suggested last year that Apple was planning to release at least some albums in 96kHz/24-bit form later the same year, with Macotakara lending its support for the rumor a month later.
There have also been long-running suggestions that Apple plans to ditch the 3.5mm audio jack in favor of Lightning, the latest of them once more from Macotakara. In our own poll, the majority of you expected Apple to go this route.
Image: Sony
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
What am I missing? When Tidal did this people said there is no need. When a few people did say they could tell the difference they were pretty much called liars.
It’ll all be in the price. If Apple Music will cost $20/mo instead of $10/mo people will still say it’s not needed… but if for some (very improbable) reason Apple makes it their new standard, people will welcome it
Tidal max is 44.1/16 whereas here they seem to be suggesting HiRes, i.e. higher sample rates and 24-bit depth.
Having virtually everything available in 24/96 may keep me from having to buy CDs. $20 per month would be a bargain compared to the $200 I’m spending now.
Sadly, most music that comes out of the studio has been corrupted well before encoding. Studio Music Product these days is effectively “photoshopped” like the cover of Cosmo. One does not call the cover of Cosmo great art.
I wish Apple would fix metadata issues (especially compilation albums splitting into separate albums because the tracks match other albums) and everyhting else about Apple Music *first* before going on adding new features and better sound.
This will be a hardware-software-service integration.
When Apple brought Beats they became the world’s largest headphone supplier. They published a standard to support headphones through Lightning with higher quality DACs. However, Apple has held back from releasing such a product, why? Because the software and streaming service integration first had to be ready.
I work everyday in an audio r&d lab and I can tell you that Beats headphones do not sound great. It would be very easy for Apple to release better sounding headphones along with high def. audio. Even people with untrained ears will be able to tell that the new ones sound better than their current popular Beats headphones.
High def. music will only make a difference if you use high quality headphones/speakers. You probably won’t tell the difference with earbuds.
This all fits in with rumors about removing the 3.5mm jack, it all points to new headphone hardware and higher quality audio.
If Apple truly cares about “music” – as in all music, pretty contrary to how they present things on AM front page – this is exactly what they’ll do. I hope so.
I would love to see higher resolution Audio coming to iTunes, not really interested in streaming audio so Apple Music is not for me.
There’s not a huge catalog of 24 Bit recordings. You can get 24 Bit recordings from HD Tracks, but their catalog isn’t that big, plus the file sizes are a lot bigger and you need a 24 Bit DAC to play them back, etc. It’s not for everyone.
I can play 24 Bit files on iTunes, but I have to use a 3rd party player that leverages iTunes as the library only. I use either PureMusic, Amarra, Audirvanana on my Mac and route the USB to my stereo which has an USB connection and 24 Bit DAC. The s/w automatically changes the AudioMidi settings between the bit and sample rate as iTunes doesn’t automatically switch. That’s something they need to change with the iTunes software.
3.5 mm jacks only support cd quality, so higher fidelity music won’t matter till Apple pushes for lightning headphones for idevices. So we won’t see the change till Apple ditches ancient 3.5 mm jacks.
That’s incorrect, the 3.5mm jack is an analogue interface. The quality of the sound coming out of it depends on the quality of amplification powering it. There are a number of external DACs and Hi-Res dedicated audio players that all use the same 3.5mm jack and sound quite noticeably better than a standard iPhone…with the right quality recording and headphones mind. I have one myself by HRT. I plugged it into my iPhone via a Lightning to USB adaptor, plugged my (high quality) headphones into its 3.5mm headphone jack. And even with compressed 256kbps AAC tracks from iTunes, noticed an improvement! Mainly in the spaciousness of the sound…it surprised me because I was a skeptic.
This is by far the dumbest thing I’ve read in my life.
Yeah well, nobody believes an audiophile, we’re all kooks…
Seems a nice tie in with ditching 3.5mm jack and promoting lightning port headphones / BT headphones.
It would be nice if Apple finally offered this, or at least allowed support for Hi-Res audio files like almost every other smartphone brand have done already for a couple of years now. Even Apple has offered it with its Mac line for a good few years too.
Using my Sony MDR-1ADAC via the Lightning port sounds great. Then again they do have their own DAC. Maybe it’s just me but I couldn’t tell a huge difference (if any) between Tidal and Apple for sound quality. I think it’s more what you are listen through than what you are listening to.
Even when I bought some true hi-res tracks there wasn’t enough to make a difference (played via VLC or the Sony HiRes app on my Macbook Pro).
I did try some Sony Z7s attached to a PHA-3 DAC. I could tell a difference listening to Hotel California (the bass sounded amazing) but for around $2k for the lot it just wasn’t worth it for me.
The biggest issue with Lightning headphones is not being able to charge the phone whilst listening to music. I hope there is a cable solution or that soon.
The protocol supports pass-thru power, so that should happen at some point.
Ben yes, in theory, it supports it but in reality, it’s not going to be easy to do. Either you need to have battery on your headphones to charge your phone or you need an adapter with two lightning ports to charge & listen at the same time which won’t be useful. You can also have second lightning port on your headphones and you can charge the device with this second port, but none of them are good choices when you compare it to today’s standards. You can easily plug in the headphone jack and the lightning cable to the lightning port to charge your device.
A simple splitter seems just as convenient to me.
Yeah I do agree…It’s like a read somewhere and it’s so true…Audiophile listen to their sound systems thru music and Music lovers listen to their music thru sound systems. I always been a music lover and when I see a nice piece of hardware over $1000, I can’t justify buying even if the sound way crispier and stuff, because the difference for me is just not that great in my opinion. I love music, but the price for great hardware is insane!!!
I think Apple is going to use HiRes audio in iTunes and on Apple Music as a way of selling the hardware change when they remove the 3.5mm headphone jack, in favour of the smaller and HiRes Lightning connector…
It seems to me that Apple should either purchase or lease Meridian’s upcoming MQA technology. It seems to have the promise to solve everyone’s hi res concerns. Tidal is already on board with it as are a lot of high end equipment manufacturers.