Lossless-quality streaming is now out there on Apple Music, shortly after it flipped the swap on Dolby Atmos spatial audio. As of now, you can stream supported tracks in each normal CD-quality lossless or high-res lossless on the most recent variations of iOS, iPadOS and macOS. Some heavy caveats do apply, nevertheless, particularly in the case of Apple’s personal audio merchandise. 

Whereas Dolby Atmos spatial audio can be restricted to sure albums, Apple mentioned yesterday at WWDC that lossless streaming will ultimately come to its whole catalog of 75 million tracks. Over 20 million songs ought to already be out there on the service as of right this moment, in comparison with simply “1000’s” of spatial audio tracks. Each options require a subscription to Apple Music. 

The service is out there on the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV 4K, with assist coming to the HomePod and HomePod Mini with a future replace. After you have the most recent OS, you may want to modify your preferences from AAC to lossless within the Music app part of the iOS/iPad OS settings. Apple then warns you that lossless tracks will eat “considerably” extra knowledge. They will additionally take up extra space in your system if you happen to obtain them. 

Lossless audio requires a wired connection and thus will not work on any of Apple’s AirPod wi-fi audio gadgets. That features AirPods Max headphones, as a result of they assist a digital, not analog wired connection through a Lightning cable. For extra on that, test our explainer right here. 

You may hearken to common lossless (CD-quality) audio by merely connecting any wired analog headphones to an iPhone 7 or later (with iOS 14.6), Mac (with macOS 11.4), iPad (iPadOS 14.6) or Apple TV 4K (tvOS 14.6). A Lightning to three.5mm adapter could also be required, after all. To hearken to lossless hi-res, nevertheless, you may want an exterior digital-to-analog (DAC) converter like this one. To understand the additional dynamic vary, you may need the perfect wired headphones you may afford.