So I read this help page Engine OS | What audio quality does Apple Music support? | Engine DJ and as you can see it says apple music supports lossless audio streaming, yet on my Prime 4+ I only get options for 128 or 256 KB/S AAC. Anyone know if I am missing something?
1 Like
The AAC codec is often advertised or described as lossless.
Let’s put it this way: In a blind test, 99.9% of people won’t hear the difference between AAC vs. FLAC vs. 320 kb/s. Especially since we’re often talking about PA systems that certainly sound good but certainly don’t claim to be audiophiles.
I maintain that most people would rate loud with lots of bass as good.
So I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
I guess the help article needs to be rewritten then as AAC is still a lossy compressed codec, and not the lossless audio that the help article claims is available. I can definitely tell the difference between the 256kbps from apple music, and lossless files from other sources, even on tiny Pioneer DM-40 speakers.
1 Like
That’s why I wrote: “The AAC codec is often advertised or described as lossless”
I realize that AAC is lossy after all. But AAC is often compared to FLAC. 256 kb/s is certainly audible compared to 320 kb/s. I’m sensitive to that myself. But I have the right speakers at home (Klipsch Palladium). I only use Tidal for streaming because of the quality.
As far as I know, Tidal on the Prime supports Lossless 16-bit / 44.1 kHz (FLAC), or lower formats like AAC or HE-AAC at 96 kHz.
So I would be surprised if Apple Music/Denon offered less. But I think that depends more on the provider than the player, which supports all of these formats anyway.