Apple is bringing higher-fidelity audio to its AirPods Max headphones in April, the corporate introduced at the moment. When the $549 headphones switched to a USB-C connector last year, they misplaced assist for wired audio playback — however it looks like Apple is about to rectify that with full lossless assist, which even the prior Lightning mannequin technically lacked.
“With the included USB-C cable, customers can benefit from the highest-quality audio throughout music, motion pictures, and video games, whereas music creators can expertise important enhancements to songwriting, beat making, manufacturing, and mixing,” the corporate wrote in a press release on Monday. “With this replace, AirPods Max will unlock 24-bit, 48 kHz lossless audio, preserving the integrity of authentic recordings and permitting listeners to expertise music the best way the artist created it within the studio.” Lossless assist “extends to Personalised Spatial Audio,” Apple famous.
The earlier version of the AirPods Max with a Lightning connector don’t provide true “lossless” playback because of a signal conversion that happens at any time when a wired enter is used.
There’s additionally an extremely low latency facet to this soon-to-arrive replace, which the corporate says ought to make the AirPods Max higher fitted to music manufacturing and gaming functions. The brand new firmware replace will roll out alongside iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS Sequoia 15.4 someday in April.
You need to use a USB-C to USB-C wire for lossless audio, however Apple can also be now promoting a $39 USB-C to 3.5mm audio cable that shares the identical braided design as the corporate’s different latest cables.