How to boost Apple Music sound quality

Summary

Turn on High Quality cellular streaming to boost Apple Music’s quality on the go.
On many devices, you can also switch Apple Music over to lossless, but only if you’re using wired audio gear — no Bluetooth allowed.
The difference between High Quality AAC and lossless ALAC is usually insignificant.

It’s safe to say at this point that if you consume music on a regular basis, you’re probably doing it through a streaming service like Spotify or, yes, Apple Music. While it’s better to own all your music — digitally or otherwise — it’s far cheaper and easier to stream music on the fly. If I synced the collection on my PC to my iPhone, I’d need over 200 gigabytes of extra storage, putting aside all the music I discover on streaming each day.

One of the sacrifices of streaming tends to be fidelity, since companies want to ensure uninterrupted listening over limited, potentially flaky internet connections. But if you want to hear every nuance of your library, there are a few settings you can change on Apple Music. Just be mindful of when and where you turn them on, as I’ll explain in greater detail.

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How to boost sound quality on Apple Music

Turn on High Quality streaming for cellular

Turning on High Quality streaming in Apple Music for iPhone.

While Apple Music prefers high quality whenever you’re connected to Wi-Fi, it defaults to a lower setting whenever you’re on 4G or 5G cellular. Depending on the music you’re listening to — and the headphones or speakers you’re listening with — you might not even notice the difference. If the lack of fidelity bothers you, however, you can fix that with one quick change. Follow these steps on an iPhone running iOS 18 or later, or a cellular-equipped iPad with iPadOS 18 or higher:

Open the Settings app.
Scroll to the bottom and select Apps.
Tap on Music. If you’ve got a large library of installed apps, it may be easier to find using the search bar.
Under Audio, select Cellular Streaming.
Choose High Quality.

This switches over to 256kbps AAC, similar to what you’d get if you synced purchased files from your computer. Be warned, though, that this could lead to buffering if you wander into an area with weak reception, such as a rural road or an urban tunnel. If interruptions happen on a regular basis, you’ll want to switch cellular quality back to High Efficiency, which uses a more compressed form of AAC.

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Turn on lossless audio

selecting lossless audio in music app on macOS

The absolute best quality is reserved for “lossless” mode. This streams using ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec) instead of AAC, and as its name implies, nothing is lost via compression. You’ll get at least 16-bit/44.1kHz resolution — equal to a CD — but potentially as much as 24-bit/192kHz. If those terms don’t mean anything to you, you might as well skip lossless, since even Apple acknowledges that ALAC can be “virtually indistinguishable” from AAC. You also can’t use it for radio stations and music videos, and it only works over CarPlay when you connect an iPhone via USB, not wireless.

In fact, there are a few other limitations, the biggest being that you won’t get lossless audio over Bluetooth. There simply isn’t enough bandwidth, so you’ll need wired headphones or speakers. In many cases, you’ll also need an external digital-to-analog converter (DAC) to get sample rates higher than 48kHz.

On an iPhone or iPad, turn on lossless with these steps:

Go to Settings > Apps.
Find and select Music. Use the search bar if there are a lot of apps to sort through.
Tap Audio Quality, then Lossless Audio.
Choose Lossless or Hi-Res Lossless. The first caps things at 24-bit/48kHz resolution, while Hi-Res ups quality to 24-bit/192kHz. Frankly, Hi-Res is usually pointless, even if you have high-end audio equipment — you’re running into the limits of human hearing. Select it only if your bandwidth and storage are unlimited.

Lossless streaming is also available on Macs, HomePods, Windows PCs, Apple TV 4Ks, Android devices, and the Vision Pro headset. It’s impractical to cover all of those platforms in this guide, but here’s how to turn it on for a Mac:

Launch the Apple Music app.
In the macOS menu bar, select Music > Preferences.
Click on the Playback tab.
Under Audio Quality, toggle Lossless audio on or off, including separate options for streaming versus downloads.
Choose between Lossless or Hi-Res Lossless.

Remember, you probably won’t get any benefit out of Hi-Res.

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Should you turn on High Quality or lossless audio for Apple Music?

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Wired headphones on a desk next to a Focusrite audio interface.

Switching from HE-AAC to regular AAC (High Quality) may have an impact if you own high-end (or even mid-range) headphones or speakers. While the difference will often be unnoticeable, in ideal conditions, High Quality may sound a little clearer and richer. If you’ve got a high-speed internet connection without any data caps, it just makes sense to turn the option on.

Lossless is another matter. As I mentioned, even Apple admits that ALAC doesn’t sound that much better than AAC. The only reason to turn it on for streaming is if you’ve got high-end (wired) audio gear and want to be sure you’re getting the full effect. Otherwise, you’re just wasting bandwidth and storage, too, when songs need to be cached. Caching an entire playlist in lossless is a surefire way to fill up your iPhone.

The ideal use case of lossless audio is a purchased library on your computer, not subscription streaming. It guarantees that you’ll own the best possible version of a song or album, no matter how far technology advances in the foreseeable future. The only reason to re-buy lossless music is when the content is remastered, or remixed into a new version with spatial audio. Even then, you might not consider the money worth it.