Apple’s AirPods Won’t Support Apple Music’s New Lossless Option

As you might have heard, Apple Music just announced its new lossless streaming option. If you were looking forward to taking advantage of the higher quality audio, note that none of Apple’s AirPods lineup, which includes the AirPods, AirPods Pro, and the AirPods Max, will actually support it.

Instead, Apple’s AirPods will only be able to take advantage of the spatial audio feature, which we guess is pretty decent, but if you wanted to listen to a lossless stream, you’re out of luck and you will need to invest in higher-end audio hardware like better wired headphones or earbuds or a USB DAC.

Apple confirmed this with T3, in which the publication notes that this also applies to the higher-end AirPods which only support the AAC codec instead of the ALAC codec that Apple uses for its lossless audio. It is a bit disappointing but at the same time, a bit obvious since the AirPods aren’t exactly known to have the best audio quality.

However, spatial audio is still a pretty cool feature to have as it will help create a more immersive listening experience. Apple also notes that they will default to Dolby Atmos tracks when listened to on an audio gadget that uses Apple’s H1 or W1 chip.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Apple, Audio, Gadgets
Tags: AirPods, Apple Music, Entertainment, Headphones, Music