Any point in enabling lossless audio when listening through AirPodss?

[Telesmurfen]

Hi! As I understand it, the AirPods are restricted to AAC 256 kbps when it comes to sound quality, because of the Bluetooth connection.
So, I was wondering if there is any point in enabling lossless audio when listening through AirPods? Or is it just a waste of space and data traffic?
I could swear that the lossless version of a song sounds slightly better than the “high quality” version of the same song. Is it just placebo and my imagination? Or have the lossless versions been mastered and mixed in a better way, so that they sound better, even when listening with AirPods?
This goes for the AirPods Pro and the AirPods Max. Any thoughts?

 

[turbineseaplane]

I could swear that the lossless version of a song sounds slightly better than the “high quality” version of the same song. Is it just placebo and my imagination?

Placebo, as you've hit on here, is a seriously powerful "drug" of sorts.

Apple's 256 AAC is superb and with some possible exceptions (newly re-mastered, alternate mix, etc), what you're hearing is absolutely being influenced by knowledge of the settings change to lossless.

We humans are very fallible in these regards.

It's why we have swaths of the population hawking "essential oils" that they insist "keep you from getting sick if you just rub it on your throat each day"

Play whatever sounds best -- or in this case, "feels best"

All that matters is what you want/like, since you are the one listening to it (not us here on a forum)

 

[bigshot]

Playing lossless files just forces your phone to transcode on the fly from lossless to AAC. One more step for possible error. If you can play AAC files, that is better.

If you are listening to Apple Music, it won't sound any better because Apple accepts files from the record labels at 24/96 and encodes them down to 16/44.1 lossless and AAC 256 VBR. There's no differences in mastering on Apple. (Except between regular and spatial audio tracks, of course...)

 

[Htsi]

I find it better and I stick with lossless. Wired or wireless.

 

[bigshot]

Your phone is converting the file from lossless to AAC to stream over bluetooth because your AirPods can't play lossless files. It may sound better to you, but that is just placebo effect.

 

[Telesmurfen]

Thank you for confirming what I thought.. I have no problems with using a 256 AAC file - I just thought it sounded a little “fuller” when playing the “lossless” version. But, as I said, I suspected that it was mainly placebo or a trick of my imagination. Though, being quite inexperienced with different resolutions of music files, I wanted to hear your thoughts. No use spending extra data traffic and storage on lossless files, if the 256 kbps files sound the same (using AirPods exclusively).

 

[Htsi]

Thank you for confirming what I thought.. I have no problems with using a 256 AAC file - I just thought it sounded a little “fuller” when playing the “lossless” version. But, as I said, I suspected that it was mainly placebo or a trick of my imagination. Though, being quite inexperienced with different resolutions of music files, I wanted to hear your thoughts. No use spending extra data traffic and storage on lossless files, if the 256 kbps files sound the same (using AirPods exclusively).

If it sounds better to you use it. I have plenty of storage so don’t mind it. Will not go back to lossy.

 

[bigshot]

If you think it sounds better, it is because of different mastering or expectation bias. The file format itself isn't capable of sounding better to human ears.