How to play Hi-Res music on iPhone

How to play How-do-you-do-Res music on iPhone

(Paradigm credit: Tom's Guide)

Once you know how to play Hullo-Res music on iPhone, you tin heed to the best quality sound on your smartphone — but it'due south not a straightforward process. The iPhone has a lot to offering music fans, especially when paired with AirPods or AirPods Pro, but information technology lacks native support for Hi-Res Sound. Even the latest iPhone 12 can't play Hello-Res music out of the box.

That's unfortunate, peculiarly given that many Android phones offering this feature, but iPhone owners aren't entirely out of luck. You'll need to purchase some additional hardware, including the right kind of headphones, but before long you lot'll exist listening to lossless tunes in all their celebrity. Here's how to play Hi-Res music on iPhone.

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What is Hullo-Res Audio?

Firstly, for the uninitiated, Hi-Res Sound is audio that'due south mastered above the "CD quality" bit rate and sampling frequency of 16-flake/44.i kHz, with 24-bit/96 kHz beingness a common Hi-Res combination.

And what does this mean? Essentially it's music that's less compressed than "lossy" formats, resulting in the audio files existence much bigger simply allowing for higher quality and finer sonic detail.

This "lossless" music needs to come in a special file type, usually FLAC, which presents a primal problem to iPhones: their default music apps simply tin't play FLAC files locally. MP3, AAC are WAV all work fine, just FLAC? Not without making some changes.

Why tin't my iPhone play How-do-you-do-Res Audio?

There's a daisy-concatenation of bug that tin cease you from enjoying Hi-Res music on your iPhone, even if individual issues appear to have easy solutions. Showtime, in that location's the software: Apple Music and iTunes can't play FLAC files. That'south not a big deal in itself, as y'all tin can just use a streaming service that supports Hello-Res Audio, like Deezer or Tidal.

Only you tin't listen over Bluetooth headphones, equally iPhones don't support the Bluetooth aptX-Hard disk codec; this only allows for "near-lossless" every bit opposed to true lossless playback, but information technology certainly comes a lot closer than the iPhone's preferred AAC codec. In any case, what you're hearing won't be truthful Hi-Res Audio.

And if y'all attempt to use a pair of wired headphones using the 3.5mm-to-Lightning adaptor, you'll find this limits playback to a 48 kHz sample frequency. Again, that'due south not actually High-Res Audio.

How to play Hello-Res music on iPhone

The kickoff pace in knowing how to play Hi-Res music on iPhone, then, is getting your headphones continued in such a way that you can play Hullo-Res music at its full scrap rate and sample frequency. Ane way of doing this is to simply buy a pair of headphones with a Lightning connector, though many of these limit the sample rate too, and usually aren't forthcoming about doing and so. It's much safer, if more fiddly, to utilise a DAC (Digital to Analog Converter).

This, besides, is an imperfect solution equally even highly portable DACs like the AudioQuest DragonFly Cerise or Cyrus soundKey will require a USB-to-Lightning adaptor to connect to the iPhone — so you'll end upwardly with two separate devices dangling from your telephone in add-on to a pair of wired headphones. However, once everything is connected, the external DAC bypasses the iPhone's own internal DAC and lets you relish How-do-you-do-Res Audio at the quality it was always meant for.

Hither'due south how to setup a DAC on your iPhone:

ane. Plug your headphones into the 3.5mm jack on the DAC unit of measurement. This can exist pretty much any pair, including usually-wireless headphones with a detachable 3.5mm cable, though naturally you'll want a high-quality pair to enjoy the added item of Hi-Res Audio. Check out our best headphones list for ideas.

two. Connect the DAC, via USB, to the USB-to-Lightning adaptor. Apple has an official USB3 adaptor, but some DACs use USB-C instead, so brand sure your Lightning adaptor has the correct port.

3. Plug the adaptor into your iPhone. The result will be a lot trickier to conduct around than, say, a pair of wireless earbuds, just it will enable Hi-Res Audio playback on iPhones.

4. Play some Hi-Res music and enjoy.

In addition to streaming apps like Deezer, Tidal and Qobuz, you can also install music player apps that let you play locally-stored Howdy-Res Audio on your iPhone. Voice is a popular choice; information technology's free and enables FLAC playback, and y'all tin upgrade to a Premium tier for $4.99 a month if you desire unlimited Cloud storage for your songs.

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James joined Tom'south Guide in 2020, bringing years of experience in consumer tech and production testing. As Audio Editor, James covers headphones, speakers, soundbars and annihilation else that intentionally makes noise. A PC enthusiast, he also covers the occasional spot of computing and gaming news, unremarkably relating to how hard it is to find graphics card stock.