After months of leaks, rumours and all those other things that happen, Apple Music’s lossless and spatial audio streaming qualities are finally available in India. We have the screenshots to confirm it too, as you will see below. It’s not really a “leak” though. It’s not really a surprise even, as Apple had announced the feature back in the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) earlier this year. The features essentially enhance the kind of music you can listen to while streaming on Apple Music, but only as long as you have the right equipment to go along with it. We have a detailed explanation of the technology here.
How to turn on Lossless Audio on Apple Music
It seems pretty much everyone has Apple Music’s lossless quality right now, and turning it on is pretty easy.
Here’s how to do it on iPhone:
- Open the Settings app.
- Search for Music and open it.
- Tap on “audio quality”
- You will see the lossless audio option here, which you can turn on.
And here’s how to do it on a Mac:
- Open the Apple Music app
- Click the menu bar on the top of your screen and click Preferences.
- Click the Playback tab here.
- Again, under the “audio quality” option you will have to check the “lossless audio” format on.
You can choose the kind of lossless audio streaming you want on both the iPhone and the Mac. Apple is offering lossless streaming at two resolutions — 24-bit/48kHz and 24-bit/192kHZ. The app also warns you that an external DAC will be needed in order to listen to the highest possible lossless quality Apple offers.
Comprende? Ok. Let’s move on.
How much will listening to lossless audio cost you?
If you haven’t read the explainer we linked above, here are the cliffnotes. Apple’s 900 rupee lighting to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter does support lossless audio, and since this will pretty much work only through wired headphones, you will need to buy one of those. The cheapest headphone that supports this kind of audio quality will cost you around at least Rs. 2000, but as things go with audio, expensive is usually better. Note, we said usually, not always.
Lastly, lossless audio basically means more data, which means more audio frequencies being transmitted to your ear. Most of our ears aren’t tuned to so many frequencies, and we know of no operation that will give you that kind of hearing too. Lossless and spatial audio should still enhance the experience to an extent, but if you don’t really feel the difference after buying the gear, remember that we warned you. Here’s hoping the editor deletes this paragraph. (Editor’s note: He didn’t).
