Apple is bumping up Apple Music’s audio quality by adding spatial and lossless audio

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Apple has been hinting that “music is about to change forever,” and now we know what the company was hinting at. Apple Music is adding Dolby Atmos support, and also Lossless Audio for every single song in its catalog.

That’s a big deal, as early rumors thought that the addition of Hi-Fi quality audio would be a new tier of pricing, as every other music streaming service that has multiple tiers has that pricing model.

Starting June 21, support for lossless music, Dolby Atmos, and also Spatial Audio will be available to every Apple Music subscriber.

READ MORE: How to enable lossless audio on Apple Music

If you’re listening to your Apple Music subscription on headphones that have the H1 or W1 chips, like AirPods or some Beats models, you’ll get Dolby Atmos as the default playback version, assuming that the track has Dolby Atmos support. New tracks will be constantly added, with ‘thousands’ available at launch.

Every track will have lossless audio, using Apple’s ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) to “preserve every single bit of the original audio file” according to Apple. Lossless is available in a range of bitrates, from CD quality, all of the way up to 24 bit at 192 kHz if you have an external DAC that can handle it. Apple devices will top out at 24 bit at 48 kHz.

You’ll have to opt-in to the lossless tier if you want it, as Apple isn’t making it the default because the larger file sizes will straight-up murder your data plan. Head to Settings > Music > Audio Quality to change your options for cellular, Wi-Fi and Download use.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience at KnowTechie, SlashGear and XDA Developers. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere, with particular focus in gadgetry and handheld gaming. Shoot him an email at joe@knowtechie.com.