Apple Music in Cloud - Quality Question

Question for you all. I have a huge collection of lossless Grateful Dead shows in Apple Music. I love Apple Music for this because I can sync them all with the Cloud. Unfortunately, the versions on my Mac are usually around 1-1.5GB per show (lossless ALAC), but when I then try to pull them down to my iPhone, they are like 300-400MB for the same show. Clearly some form of compression is happening, either on the way up to the Cloud or the way down to my iPhone.


I think I have all of the settings setup correctly. Downloads on my iPhone are set to Hi-Res Lossless.


Has anyone messed around with this? Is there any way to tweak this either on the Mac or on the iPhone?

iMac 21.5″ 4K, macOS 13.3

Posted on May 26, 2023 3:56 PM

Reply

Similar questions

1 reply

May 28, 2023 8:29 AM in response to clozner

Hello clozner,


Welcome to Apple Support Communities. 


We understand that you’re concerned about the same downloaded music files showing as a different size on iPhone and Mac. We are happy to help.


Since lossless audio is a high quality, then you should not experience any difference in the music quality for the music downloaded to your Mac or iPhone. Here’s how to determine what you need to listen to lossless music: About lossless audio in Apple Music - Apple Support

"How to listen to lossless on your iPhone or iPad

  

What you need

You can listen to lossless on an iPhone or iPad updated to the latest version of iOS or iPadOS using:

  • A wired connection to headphones, receivers, or powered speakers
  • The built-in speakers
  • To listen to songs at sample rates higher than 48 kHz, you need an external digital-to-analog converter.

How to turn lossless on or off

  1. Go to Settings > Music.
  2. Tap Audio Quality.
  3. Tap Lossless Audio to turn it on or off. From here, you can choose the audio quality for streaming and downloading audio.
    • Lossless for a maximum resolution of 24-bit/48 kHz
    • Hi-Res Lossless for a maximum resolution of 24-bit/192 kHz

How to listen to lossless on your Mac

  

What you need

You can listen to lossless on a Mac updated to the latest version of macOS using:

  • A wired connection to headphones, receivers, or powered speakers
  • The built-in speakers
  • 14-inch MacBook Pro and 16-inch MacBook Pro support native playback of songs at sample rates up to 96 kHz.
  • To listen to songs at sample rates higher than 48 kHz on other Mac computers, you need an external digital-to-analog converter.

How to turn lossless on or off

  1. Open the Apple Music app.
  2. In the menu bar, choose Music > Preferences.
  3. Click the Playback tab.
  4. Under Audio Quality, select or unselect "Lossless audio" to turn it on or off. From here, you can also change the settings for streaming and downloading lossless.
    • Lossless for a maximum resolution of 24-bit/48 kHz
    • Hi-Res Lossless for a maximum resolution of 24-bit/192 kHz"


Let us know if you have further questions.


Take care.

Apple Music in Cloud - Quality Question

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.