Apple Music Lossless Full Guide: Is It Worth Trying

Key Takeaways

In June 2021, Apple announced Apple Music lossless audio, which brings users a better listening experience and benefits users' listening sessions. Up to now, Apple Music offers more than 90 million lossless songs. However, if you are new to Apple devices or have no idea how to correctly set Apple Music lossless audio, you can get help here. This post will introduce lossless Apple music in detail!

What Is Apple Music Lossless Audio

Apple Music Lossless, introduced by Apple in 2021, allows users to enjoy high-quality, uncompressed audio tracks. Unlike standard audio formats like MP3 or AAC, which use lossy compression methods to reduce file sizes, lossless audio files retain all the details and nuances of the original recording.

Apple Lossless audio provides a much higher level of audio fidelity and accuracy compared to compressed formats. It allows you to experience the music as the artists and producers intended, offering a more immersive and detailed soundstage. With Apple Music Lossless Audio, users can enjoy studio-quality recordings with a bit depth of up to 24 bits and a sample rate of up to 192 kHz, providing a vast improvement in audio quality. Moreover, Apple Music Lossless is available to subscribers at no additional cost, making it accessible to a broader audience.

Of course, if you have ever used Tidal, Amazon Music HD, Deezer, and Qobuz, you will find that they all offer 24-bit hi-res listening. And Deezer even provides a lossless tier.

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Apple Music Lossless: Supported & Unsupported Device

Currently, Apple's lossless audio can only be heard through wired headphones connected to an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Besides, you also can enjoy the lossless Apple music with a receiver or powered or built-in speaker. But the support is up to 24-bit 48kHz lossless. If you want to enjoy higher sample rates than 15kHz, you need an extra DAC whether you use an iPhone or Mac.

You might be wondering, how about your AirPods? I'm sorry to tell you, NO. There are no AirPods earbuds or headphones that support Apple Music lossless audio, even the latest Airpods Pro 2 wireless earbuds or the premium, as they are entirely wireless and Apple only supports AAC codec over the Bluetooth instead of Apple Music lossless codec.

Most importantly, to enjoy Apple Music lossless audio, your device also needs to support ALAC:

• iPhone/iPad: iOS 14.6+
• Mac: macOS Big Sur 11.4+
• Apple TV 4K: tvOS 14.6+
• HomePod
• Android: Apple Music app 3.6+

How to Enable Apple Music Lossless

If you don't know how to enable Apple Music Lossless on your device, you can check the below tutorials. Here, we take the iPhone as an example:

Step 1. First of all, you need to update your iOS if you still use an older one. Make sure it is iOS 14.6 or higher.

Step 2. Tap Settings > Music > Audio Quality > Lossless Audio.

Step 3. Then, you need to go to Apple Music and subscribe to it.

Step 4. Once done, you can find and enjoy the Apple Music Lossless songs with a wavy icon.

Final Thoughts

Now, you might have a better understanding of Apple Music Lossless. If you want to enjoy Lossless music, you'd better connect your iPhone or other device to a fast Wi-Fi network with lots of bandwidth, as it still requires an enormous amount of streaming data. If you think this post is worth reading, share it now!