Apple recently announced that it’s dropping a new lossless audio tier and spatial audio for Apple Music.
While this is great news for audiophiles, it’s more than a bit strange that not very many of Apple’s own audio products support these features, especially the ultra-expensive AirPods Max and the original HomePod.
The reason that Apple’s speakers and earphones can’t support lossless audio is that since music streams to those devices wirelessly, the audio quality can’t travel without a wire on Apple’s platforms.
While there are high-quality Bluetooth codecs available on Android and other platforms, I don’t find them comparable to listening to music via wired headphones. You can read more about that in my Shure Aonic headphone review. Basically, if you care about HQ music, buy a good pair of wired headphones or earbuds and save those AirPods for more casual listening.
With that in mind, all Apple speakers and headphones/earbuds that are currently available support the tech giant’s Spatial Audio format, which gives music a subtle 3D effect.
Via: The Verge