Can anyone tell me about the quality of the music? Spotify has an option between high and low, and so does pandora. Is the AppleMusic the same as if you downloaded it from the store? just trying to figure out if it's better than Spotify or Pandora.
254kbps apparently so below the Spotify high bit rate
Apple is saving the Apple Music stuff that they allow you to download as M4P, a lossy format they have kept hidden for a few years. It is not lossless like M4A, the audio file format used in music purchased from iTunes. M4P is protected so that it cannot be burned to a cd or converted to another format. It is also rather poor quality, and you can hear the difference in audio quality. Apple screwing its customers yet again.
bmorey94 wrote:
Apple is saving the Apple Music stuff that they allow you to download as M4P, a lossy format they have kept hidden for a few years. It is not lossless like M4A, the audio file format used in music purchased from iTunes. M4P is protected so that it cannot be burned to a cd or converted to another format. It is also rather poor quality, and you can hear the difference in audio quality. Apple screwing its customers yet again.
??? M4A has a lossless version in Apple Lossless, but what you get from the Store is AAC 256k encoded. It is a lossy format, albeit a fairly reasonable quality, and Store purchases are not DRM protected. M4P is essentially a DRM protected version of AAC so equivalent quality to an iTunes Store purchase. The old M4P files Apple sold 5 years or so ago were of a lower bitrate and lower quality.
Apple Music is 256k AAC and other services use MP3 I believe, and offer it at 320k. On a pure bitrate comparison others offer higher quality, but the encoding is not the same format and some argue you get a bit more with AAC. You also need to weigh other factors. 320k files are going to take up more room so if you are planning on loading up a limited storage iPod you may prefer smaller files. And can you tell the difference listening to it through so-so quality earbuds?
music quality?
