I tried Apple Music Classical for a week – it’s great but needs two big improvements

[What Hi-Fi?]

Apple Music Classical is an excellent home for your favourite composers and compositions - but it isn't perfect

I tried Apple Music Classical for a week – it’s great but needs two big improvements : Read more

 

[DrIanX]

So far the albums I've wanted to download on classical have been available and downloadable on the main Apple Music site. Once they're added to the library, and downloaded from there, they seem to be available in the classical app, too. it's a clunky workaround, and hopefully apple will make them downloadable directly in the classical app.

 

[Hifiman]

This is generally a great development, but one aspect not touched on here is the iPad version of the ‘app’ is just an enlargement of the iPhone’s screen. While that might be understandable with a third party provider it seems very amateurish of Apple doing it themselves.

 

[Ferdy Bossy]

Apple was always the most expensive, but now with streaming it is absolutely the cheapest (€109 per year). The reproduction quality via an external DAC is sublime. Apple's Operation System was a household name, and DOS was far from easy. Bill Gates came up with Windows after the Apple tour. Apple Music (Classical) are unfortunately not without BUGs and the customer service is nil. BUG?!! for example searched 'Candy Dulfer' was not found, tried 'Dulfer' and it was found. The search engine is a disaster, too often nothing is found, the only way that the album or track, title etc. is found. Look it up in, for example, another language on (for instruments) organ/organ/órgão/organe. Seems exaggerated but if you want to hear it? The Apple range is much larger than Qobuz or Tidal, but unfortunately it often happens that (often incomplete) albums or tracks cannot be found on Apple Music. Unfortunately, the order option cannot always be determined by yourself and I am not the only one, why is it impossible, just like with Spotify, Qobuz or Tidel, to play Apple Music and (Classical) via every streamer. Every audiophile knows that the difference between Bluetooth or connect is huge. Please note that with a well-recorded album or track, the Bösendorfer concert grand is not in the living room, no, you are in the concert hall. By the way, every instrument (including the voice(s)) sounds much better in the concert hall. If you really want to judge the reproduction quality, the installation must be really good and, above all, do not forget to place the loudspeakers correctly, see the tweeters manual at ear height, sufficient free distance side-back wall, an isosceles triangle speakers and listener is often the best, if you have an active subwoofer place it between the L/R loudspeaker.