Lossless WAV via cable from Apple Music on Mac/iPhone?

Question

Level 1

4 points

Lossless WAV via cable from Apple Music on Mac/iPhone?

A lot of the music I have stored in my Apple Music library on my MacBook Pro (M3) are WAV files. I regularly sync these files over to my iPhone (16 pro) and am playing these on both devices with no issues. Both devices are fully up to date (Tahoe 26.3.1 and iOS 26.3.1). I can check the file type on my MacBook and can see that this is indeed WAV. It's less straightforward on the iPhone however (the option for 'file type' is not included) but when my phone is connected to the MacBook, the 'file size' does appear to the same as that stated on the MacBook. My question is (for all the audiophiles out there!): when I listen to these music files via a cabled connection (through the 3.5 mm headphone jack on the MacBook or through USB C on the iPhone), am I getting fully lossless audio? My thinking is yes but any further confirmation would be appreciated.

iPhone 16 Pro

Posted on Mar 20, 2026 1:04 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Mar 21, 2026 1:50 AM in response to EddieCetera

WAV and AIF are both uncompressed PCM audio and are the same quality. They might differ how and what metadata (artist, album, track name etc) they support, and apps might treat them differently.

You can losslessly convert between WAV, AIF, ALAC and FLAC but test how metadata is preserved between conversions.

BTW I am importing my audio CDs so I can listen them via Apple Watch. I chose to import and archive them as lossless ALAC .m4a which is the same quality as FLAC (both are about 50% the size of WAV and AIF), and WAV and AIF.

I then used Music.app to convert ALAC as tiny 128 kbps AAC so more songs fit to the Apple Watch. ...I could not hear any difference between ALAC vs AAC via Beyer Dynamic 880 headphones via Mac mini 2018 headphone jack so I obviously I don't qualify as an audiophile...

Reply

Answer 2

EddieCetera Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 21, 2026 4:52 AM in response to Matti Haveri

Thank you for your reply. Being able to compress music into much smaller files sizes definitely has its advantages. I too import CDs and up until a few years ago, just went with the standard AAC conversion. I didn't even realise there were options which included formats such as WAV. I've done a few head-to-head listening comparisons between AAC and WAV versions of tracks on decent cabled headphones and via good speakers and tbh the differences are there but they are small.

I recently got some new bluetooth headphones to replace some faulty earbuds and have tried the same WAV/AAC comparisons and really don't hear much difference at all. My thinking is that when you listen to anything via bluetooth, even the most lossless codecs available (which of course Apple don't support) will convert the signal into the headphones and render it on a level with AAC.

My hope is that if the music on my phone is at least WAV to begin with, then it might sound a bit more 'lossless' by the time it gets processed by the headphones DAC and into my ears.

Reply