What Does ‘Lossless Audio’ Mean? A 4 Minute Guide
Digital music services like Apple Music and TIDAL provide music in ‘lossless’ formats. But what does lossless mean and do you need it?
Apple Music, TIDAL and Qobuz tout themselves as providing ‘lossless’ music (CD quality, 16-bit, 44.1kHz), as well as high-res (96kHz or 192kHz at 24bit) whilst Spotify dishes out music in ‘lossy’ formats, currently limited to 128–320kbps (similar to mp3’s).
What is ‘lossless’ audio?
Lossless audio is generally accepted as being the same as CD quality with, you guessed it, the same audio quality you’ll find on a CD. Audiophiles won’t generally accept anything lower than CD quality and we have to agree with them. The lossless term refers to the fact that ‘there is no loss’ to the audio signal you’re hearing. It’s a good starting point to aim for.
What is high-res audio?
As well as lossless, some music services like Apple Music, TIDAL and Qobuz provide music files in a high-res format, which is anything up to 192khz at 24bit. This is an extraordinarily high bitrate and the jury is still out as to whether human beings can actually hear the difference at this point. We’re not going to get into that debate, but it’s safe to say that it’s nice to have the choice at least.
What is lossy audio?
Lossy audio is music delivered in formats of lower CD quality. Spotify, for example, provides lossy audio streams, typically at 128–320kbps. This means that the file has been compressed into a format that’s easy to stream (especially on slower non-4G or 5G) mobile networks.
In contrast to the difference between CD quality and high-res audio as mentioned above, most people can hear the difference between a lossy music file and a CD quality (or above) one. Lossy formats tend to suffer from a slight phasing sound (depending on the level of compression used) and sometimes more nuanced elements of a song won’t make it through the compression process.
So, what’s the best option?
Like so many things in the Hi-fi world, it’s going to come down to personal taste. Personally, I’m happy with CD quality audio streams, or indeed CD’s themselves. You might find you’re the same, or perhaps you’re interested in high-res music and specifically, the MQA high-res audio files provided by TIDAL. You might be someone who’s happy with compressed audio from the likes of Spotify or Youtube music. It really is up to you.
If you’re listening in the car, you’ll probably be happy with lossy audio, purely because you won’t have much in the way of audiophile-grade equipment installed by default in your average Nissan Juke or Vauxhall Corsa. Lossless formats are more suited to listening on headphones using a DAC or via a streamer into an amplifier and speakers.
What about streaming on my phone to a Bluetooth speaker?
No matter which music service you use, if you stream from your phone to a Bluetooth speaker the sound you hear will be lossy. This is because, currently, Bluetooth is limited to ‘broadcasting’ in a lossy format only. So if you’re streaming high-res tracks using your shiny TIDAL lossless account, they’re going to end up compressed, unfortunately. Things are getting better in this regard, what with Qualcomm’s aptX Bluetooth codec, but this is limited to newer Android and Windows devices and some newer Apple laptops only — iPhone’s and iPad’s don’t support it, and neither do the Apple Airpods Max, which you can read about below.
Costs and value for money.
Unusually, as things currently stand, you won’t normally pay a premium for lossless audio over lossy formats. Apple Music, which includes lossless and some high-res music, charge approx £9.99 per month for their streaming service, while TIDAL charge £6.99 for their ‘Hi-fi tier’ which dishes out lossless audio streams. If in doubt why not sign up for a trial of a few of these services, play around with them, and work out which you prefer? You’ve nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Story originally appeared on thebudgethifiguy.com
