Apple Streaming: Too little too late?
Posted by: Tony2011 on 08 June 2015
It just came to my mind (while listening to it) that even Radio Paradise (320 KBit AAC) does have a better lossless compression quality than Apple Music (256 KBit AAC). How poor Apple.
Yours, a faithful Apple user since 25 years ;-(
They are still doing lossless.
On a side note I saw a mind blowing live concert of Tchaikovsky's 4th in an outstanding concert hall last nigh and was starkly reminded that no amount of hi fi can equal that. The dynamics, detail, instrument placement and sweetness of the string instruments were jaw dropping.
I know what you mean. Three weeks ago I was at a concert in the Ante Chapel at Kings College in Cambridge to experience Verdi's Requiem. Mrs SinS and I were about 18 feet away from two of the four lead vocalists and the orchestra spread out across in front of us. The immersive experience sitting this close to the 'action' with superb acoustics was incredible and so emotional that tears came to my eyes.. The passion, textures, dynamics, placement of the sounds and life of this real music was breathtaking. It did cross my mind at the time that reproduced music ( and amplified music) pales in comparison.... and I have experienced some pretty impressive setups including at the BBC's Maida Vale studios.
Simon
I hear you Simon. Nothing like it. My daughter is a violinist but working as one of the music librarians for The Eastern Music Festival in NC of which this concert was apart of. An entire month of classical music performances. Next full orchestra is Rimsky Korsakov's Le Coq d'or this weekend. Check it out EMF if you ever happen to be in this area during the month of July. I can also recall a tremendous concert at the Barbican Theater in London during my 2012 visit to the UK. Fantastic venue.
M
I think it's all the wood, the acoustic at the Barbican is wonderful. Lovely and warm.
On a side note I saw a mind blowing live concert of Tchaikovsky's 4th in an outstanding concert hall last nigh and was starkly reminded that no amount of hi fi can equal that. The dynamics, detail, instrument placement and sweetness of the string instruments were jaw dropping.
I know what you mean. Three weeks ago I was at a concert in the Ante Chapel at Kings College in Cambridge to experience Verdi's Requiem. Mrs SinS and I were about 18 feet away from two of the four lead vocalists and the orchestra spread out across in front of us. The immersive experience sitting this close to the 'action' with superb acoustics was incredible and so emotional that tears came to my eyes.. The passion, textures, dynamics, placement of the sounds and life of this real music was breathtaking. It did cross my mind at the time that reproduced music ( and amplified music) pales in comparison.... and I have experienced some pretty impressive setups including at the BBC's Maida Vale studios.
Simon
I hear you Simon. Nothing like it. My daughter is a violinist but working as one of the music librarians for The Eastern Music Festival in NC of which this concert was apart of. An entire month of classical music performances. Next full orchestra is Rimsky Korsakov's Le Coq d'or this weekend. Check it out EMF if you ever happen to be in this area during the month of July. I can also recall a tremendous concert at the Barbican Theater in London during my 2012 visit to the UK. Fantastic venue.
M
I think it's all the wood, the acoustic at the Barbican is wonderful. Lovely and warm.
Yes and a wonderful place. We flew in the day before went to a Beatles walking tour and that night at the Barbican listening to the London Symphony Orchestra. How cool is that! Two days later touring Naim. Fun trip...loved it.
M
I can't say I have been to many concerts at the Barbican, but one that stands out for me was the original RSC/Cameron Mackintosh production of the Les Miserable in late 1985 before it went to the West End and Broadway a year later. That performance was very good and hardly surprising it became as successful as it did.
Simon
During the same trip before returning to London we attended Easter Service in the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford where Shakespeare is buried. The pipe organ produced the lowest bass notes I've ever heard and was a religious experience for me in that regard. The pipes were way up in the air so the full wave form could occur. Stunning.
M
A bit back on topic: Apple probably never will move away from that 256kbps ACC files in the store. Let us not forget that this forum contains the 1% of the music buyers that actually do care a lot about the reproduction of sounds.
Maybe another 4% do care, but only if there is some convenience involved, like what Tidal is doing.
The other 95% simply don't care, or honestly cannot hear the difference in the first place.
They do care more about the fact that their iPhone can store some music together with photos and short movies of family events.
Rather, they just like to search and click on a song and listen when the mood strikes without burning their data plans too quickly.
And that' where the business model for Apple is: seamless and hassle free access to whatever song at whatever moment at whatever place. 256 Kbps ACC fits the bill for that.
Do you mean business model or value proposition? I suspect the latter. I think the success of the Apple service will depend on how well their proposition works across multiple mobile platforms.... my feeling is that new consumers don't like to be 'locked' in.
Simon
A bit back on topic: Apple probably never will move away from that 256kbps ACC files in the store. Let us not forget that this forum contains the 1% of the music buyers that actually do care a lot about the reproduction of sounds.
Maybe another 4% do care, but only if there is some convenience involved, like what Tidal is doing.
The other 95% simply don't care, or honestly cannot hear the difference in the first place.
They do care more about the fact that their iPhone can store some music together with photos and short movies of family events.
Rather, they just like to search and click on a song and listen when the mood strikes without burning their data plans too quickly.
And that' where the business model for Apple is: seamless and hassle free access to whatever song at whatever moment at whatever place. 256 Kbps ACC fits the bill for that.
...and I think 95% of this forum members understand that already jmt.
Anti-Trust.
I do wonder how long it will be before we see some legal cases similar to what Microsoft went through where they now have to give browser choice. Should Apple be allowed to abuse their market position to drive others out of business or should they have to give streaming service choice?
The reason Apple hasn't and is unlikely to attract too much attention from the DOJ or EU is that it's not a dominant platform in the way Windows (90% plus market share) was in the 90's and early 00's. In smartphones Apple has about 15-20% marketshare worldwide, and closer to 30-40% in the US.
Today there is plenty of plurality, both in terms of providers and business models in the streaming music market. While some will wither over the next couple of years, I still expect YouTube, Spotify, Pandora and Deezer to be around. Until Apple has a smartphone share in excess of 80% I find it unlikely the EU or DOJ would force Apple to pre-install 3rd party services or offer a choice on first boot.
What Hifi have just reviewed Apple Music and given it their maximum rating. They also think it sounds better than Spotify's 320k best.
I sometimes wonder if What HiFi has Apple staff working for it. I have never seen an Apple product get anything less than an excellent review from them regardless of what the rest of the world might think.
I think you can extend that out to most of What HiFi's reviews these days. As far as I'm concerned they are just another link bait site now.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot I love about Apple, but not this!
Here's another thing, Im streaming to my muso via airplay on my iphone, and a call comes in so the music cuts out. Ok, not bad, so I finish my call - music doesn't start again automatically, bahh. I hunt around on my phone, press play....the music starts coming out of my phone speaker. I have to try and connect to airplay again.
Also, you play a track on the phone, put it down and jump on your laptop. You want to control whats playing, so you go to itunes on the mac. Nope, they're not synced, you have to pick up your phone and do everything from there (or close that, and start a stream from your laptop).
First world problems, but hey, it makes choosing a service all the easier. 
I have to say that I've been disappointed with Airplay performance with our Mu-so, particularly in terms of dropouts and general stability. Our B&W A5, Sonos Connect and Play 1 (Using AirSonos) are rock solid over Airplay.
A bit back on topic: Apple probably never will move away from that 256kbps ACC files in the store. Let us not forget that this forum contains the 1% of the music buyers that actually do care a lot about the reproduction of sounds.
Maybe another 4% do care, but only if there is some convenience involved, like what Tidal is doing.
The other 95% simply don't care, or honestly cannot hear the difference in the first place.
What I have a hard time understanding is that Netflix on the other hand promotes hd tv streaming, so music can be lossy no problem but movies must be hd. I am not sure users would care, but the provider uses this very actively, you do not have to search long on the site to find information on hd quality streaming.
A while back a story went round on the net, saying that music submitted to Itunes should be in 24 bit format and there was also the mastered for itunes guidelines. Nothing has come out of that not even on the itunes store. Apple can do better but they do not care!
Claus
A while back a story went round on the net, saying that music submitted to Itunes should be in 24 bit format and there was also the mastered for itunes guidelines. Nothing has come out of that not even on the itunes store. Apple can do better but they do not care!
Claus
24 bit and Mastered for iTunes was widely misreported, when many publications suggested Apple might soon start selling hi-res audio in the iTunes store. It was only ever a back office effort to get the best out of Apple's encoding processes.
@jmtennapel Got it right. Most people don't care. The echo chamber that is technology journalism today hasn't helped. It was only a few months ago that the collective opinion post the Tidal relaunch was that music above 256 kbps AAC / 320 kbps MP3 was akin to snake oil. This has become the prevailing narrative. I think Apple is simply responding to market demand, in much the same way Spotify does. In fact Deezer is the only major player to offer CD quality streaming.
My hope is that there are enough potential subscribers to sustain the existing providers, but I'm not convinced. It's worth remembering that these are all still loss making businesses. Apple and Google's principle advantage is that streaming services make their products and services more attractive. They don't need to be profit making enterprises.
Do you mean business model or value proposition? I suspect the latter. I think the success of the Apple service will depend on how well their proposition works across multiple mobile platforms.... my feeling is that new consumers don't like to be 'locked' in.
Simon
All the major and most of the minor services services support Android and iOS. Apple Music will be available on Android in a few months time. Windows Phone and Blackberry are not well supported for obvious reasons.
I'm less concerned about platform lock in, and more concerned about service lock in. Moving your library and playlists from one service to the other is not easy. There are one or two sites out there that will attempt to copy your library and playlists etc. but it's a cat and mouse game as the services try to prevent or make it difficult. I used Soundiiz to try and import my Qobuz library in to Deezer Elite and the results were very poor.
GregW, thankfully I think there is evidence now that some of the masses do appreciate high quality AS WELL as lofi downloads and streaming. This is why vinyl sales continue to soar and even the decline of CD sales has reduced significantly. There is a view that the growing prevalence of streaming content for some platforms has raised interest in recorded music generally, and an increasing number people seem to lbe enjoying physicals again or buying for the first time... one can only speculate because downloads for many are seen as expensive or inferior quality copies of music. Perhaps if you want cheap and cheerful, then stream, otherwise you are specifically interested and you want quality.
I felt quite optimistic when I read this.
Simon
Source BBC