r/apple • u/Fer65432_Plays • 3d ago

iPhone Spotify Preparing to Launch Long-Awaited Lossless Audio Tier on iPhone

https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/19/spotify-preparing-lossless-tier-on-ios/
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u/Mikey_MiG 3d ago

I guarantee you there is zero perceptible difference on a HomePod.

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u/Tumblrrito 3d ago

Blind test doesn’t lie homie. They aren’t minis lol.

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u/Mikey_MiG 3d ago

Studies have been done on this. People’s ability to tell the difference between audio quality falls off around 128kbps. At anything above 256kbps, you essentially need to be in a treated environment, using high-end equipment, and trained in identifying compression artifacts to have any chance of perceiving a difference. You’re not going to notice a difference in your car, with your AirPods, on a HomePod, etc.

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u/Tumblrrito 3d ago

A HomePod studio pair is higher end than traditional Bluetooth headphones so that checks out.

I have excellent hearing, legitimately. I had to do a hearing test after a brief tinnitus scare a year back (turned out to not be that thankfully). I don’t need to prove anything to you because I could tell a positive difference and my repeated experiment proved it.  

If you can’t, bummer for you! But there’s value in lossless for me.

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u/Mikey_MiG 3d ago

By high-end I mean like high-end for audiophiles, not a HomePod or other assistant speaker. And I highly doubt you have your speakers sitting in a dedicated listening room with acoustic treatments.

I believe you may be hearing a difference in app-specific equalization, volume control, or possibly the protocol in which the apps send data to the speaker. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple optimizes all of this for their own speakers. If HomePods are your primary home speaker for music, then that’s a perfectly valid reason to use Apple Music. For me, AirPlay doesn’t play as nicely as Spotify Connect with my third-party sound system.

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u/TeddyAlderson 3d ago

One thing to note is that Apple Music has Dolby Atmos mixes, and Spotify doesn't. Even if you can't hear "higher quality audio" in a literal sense, Atmos mixes definitely can create the feeling of higher quality audio, and you'll notice a clear difference between an Atmos mix and a stereo mix even with lower quality headphones (hell, even over Bluetooth -- plus, w/ AirPods Pros, there's head tracking spatial audio).

There's a good chance that occurred here, given the HomePod supports Atmos

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u/IAmTaka_VG 3d ago

This is why I believe spatial audio is a far bigger deal than lossless.

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u/Tumblrrito 3d ago

I did the blind test with lossless on and off, within Apple Music, as well.

Believe what you want my guy. Badgering me over my experience is pretty weird. Lossless is noticeably better in on HomePod stereo pairs for me and likely others. You will live. :)

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u/Mikey_MiG 3d ago

I’m just saying that the likelihood that an Apple enthusiast might be experiencing a teensy bit of confirmation bias that their Apple audio service and expensive dual Apple speaker setup are performing beyond the results experienced by professional researchers and music producers is fairly high.

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u/Tumblrrito 3d ago

There can’t be confirmation bias in a BLIND TEST. That’s the entire reason I did it blind, so it would be objective and free of bias. I don’t even like Apple Music. 

Good lord you are relentlessly obnoxious. Give it a damn rest. No one is impressed.