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Headphoneus Supremus
Respect the Music: Apple & Dolby Atmos
Jim Austin | Aug 17, 2021
In early May, some of in the music press got an advance look at what was coming soon from Apple Music. Apple announced that, following the example of Tidal, Qobuz, and Amazon Music HD, the company would no longer deal in AAC, their improved (but still lossy) MP3 equivalent.
Henceforth, all Apple stereo downloads and streams would be at at least CD resolution; many tracks would be offered in higher resolutions, up to 24/192. Apple estimated that by the end of 2021, 75 million songs would be available at resolutions of 16/44.1 or better.
That's big news, but the Apple people on the call played it down. The improvement wrought by lossless over AAC is small, they suggested, even difficult to hear. Apple had long claimed AAC was "virtually indistinguishable" from CD resolution, so this was nothing new; they were just being consistent with previously stated positions. And they weren't wrong: Today's AAC is far better than '90s-vintage, low-rate MP3 and not far behind CD in terms of sound quality, as rigorous tests have shown. (Which doesn't mean the difference is unimportant.)
