As a long time Apple hater myself, after using Apple music for over 1.5 years I got to admit that it's actually very good, the best music streaming service, even though I still dislike pretty much everything else from Apple.

Apple music easily has the best catalog for my music, on par with Spotify, and way better than Qobuz, Tidal and Deezer that I used to try but sometimes couldn't find my music.

The lossless in Apple music is 100% legit, and it comes with no additional cost and very cheap. I know some people will say you might not be able to tell the difference compared to sth like Tidal or Spotify, but I much rather know the fact that I listen to authentic lossless than unauthentic ones from Tidal, or lossy from Spotify while I'm paying even less, so the value for purchase is just much higher with Apple music, even if I might not be able to tell the difference myself.

Not to mention, I found Apple music to be quite easily registered using VPN to get even much less price, as compared to Spotify that can notice the change in location. I don't know if this still holds true but if it does, you can get Apple music lossless for dirt cheap, which I think is an absolute no brainer compared to everything else.

Also, I don't know how this is possible, but sometimes I even find some of my music on Apple Music to have exclusively higher mastered versions than everywhere else, having songs and albums entirely in Hi-Res quality while others like Qobuz only have standard lossless, this probably doesn't matter much but it's still a nice bonus for me, showing that Apple is very serious about their lossless catalog.

It's also worth noting that I only use these services for Music, not for something else like podcasts on Spotify, which to be frank I don't give a damn about. And even though back then I used to believe that the UI on AM is worse than Spotify, that's not really the case anymore and I actually found it looks quite nice and very modern. On Windows I use Cider which looks fine, and you can also try the official Apple Music Preview if you can.

Overall I believe Apple Music is currently hands down the best service for sound quality, catalog, and value, probably even UI, and I will keep using it even though I use Android and Windows, it's simply too good.

Very interesting, thank you.

DAC's can change the how a headphone sounds. Where the classification of good and bad DAC lies is up for contention

Unfathomably based Hello Meteor listener. I cannot recommend his music enough to anyone interested.

I know - you were the guy who got me onto them 😄

We had that discussion maybe a month ago (?) comparing the FLAC to YouTube.

I liked the album so much I went and bought it.

Tremors in the static was my favorite album last year. I really hope they're going to make new music.

Good shit. Didn’t expect something like that from apple tbh. I have it on my iPhone and windows. I don’t see any indication of my music being lossless on windows which is why I made the comment.

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No, I just subscribed and checked on Android. It supports their highest audio setting, Hires Lossless, which is 24bit/192 kHz ALAC

I haven't turned that highest option on yet because I'm using Bluetooth In Ears right now anyways and they give an average of 145 MB per 3 minutes but if it's there it should work. You first need to switch a 'Lossless Audio' toggle for it to appear

Here is a screenshot

https://imgur.com/a/G5VbhdX

Brown

https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/apple-music-preview/9PFHDD62MXS1?hl=en-us&gl=us&rtc=1

I thought lossless is only available on iPhone as of right now?

Oh I wasn't aware of that, I'll keep an eye on that, thank you!

The sound quality is excellent. However, the shuffle algorithm is laughably bad and the main reason I intend to drop Apple Music. I have over 12k tracks on my main playlist, but the "shuffle" plays only ~75 of them. Over and over. Similar problem with the customized (your name) radio. You can sort of get around it with Smart Playlists, but those do not sync or appear on other devices like streaming boxes, only on your phone or laptop.

If you don't need a good shuffle feature, it's great. The old disk-based iPod had a great shuffle algorithm, so I'm not sure why Apple decided to get rid of that, but it's truly the worst part of Apple Music. Spotify's shuffle is considerably better, but their sound quality is awful. If they ever get true lossless service (as they've repeatedly promised for years) they could own the category, but they're too stupid and/or greedy to ever do that. There is no single service that gets everything right.

Man those pre Gibson Mesas are historic in a good way. Hope you never need to sell them.

Apple Music is good. I used the student discount of spotify for awhile because Apple Music didn’t always have a discount. I would say it like this…

If you value knowing that you are streaming high quality audio, go with Apple Music.

If you like being able to discover new music very often, go with Spotify.

For a brief period I had both but only use Spotify now. I personally didn’t think that the higher quality audio was worth my extra money.

There's no need for VPN. Just changing location on Windows Settings is enough.

Check out CanJam!

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Yes. They have released a “preview” app for windows that works fine but I believe it’s windows 11 only right now.

Tried it for 2 weeks on windows. Even though it’s only in a browser for now, it sounded better than Quobuz and Amazon HD.

It sounded more airy than Tidal.

Anyway definitely 👍 😊

Should have known this would happen eventually.

I've had a good experience using apple music on Android. Technically you can get better sound quality out of tidal because UAAP supports tidal streaming (UAAP bypasses android's audio processing) but it takes a decent amount of listening training and a transparent setup to even hear that difference so I wouldn't worry about it. Imo apple music is a good middle ground offering good enough sound quality while still being reasonably convenient.

Unfortunately this tends to happen to adhesives when you live in a hot and humid climate which seeing from your posts, you do. I too live in the same country and have had products that have adhesives delaminate. From an iPad to multiple jackets and shoes.

Edit: Also happened to my TFZ no. 3. The nozzle on the left earbud has detached twice already.

my only complaint is there seems to be massive battery drain on my android. maybe its just my device. it drains 20+% in the same amount of time amazon hd/youtube music would drain 7%.