So, streaming music from Apple Music to an Airplay 2 device such as the MuSo 2 seems to result in only lossy 256 AAC… bit of a bummer. Is this a bug Apple will likely fix, or is it a bandwidth thing and as such a “feature” to facilitate multi room audio?
Honestly can’t hear a difference between 256 AAC and hi-res via Tidal Connect, but still, something irks me about being told by the app music is playing lossless music while it’s being compressed.
I see 16/44 when I use airplay through roon. That should technically be lossless but it sounds not great on my setup. Really odd, it may have something to do with roon but it sounds almost muffled. If I use upnp the same files sound fine.
Muffled sound is the best description of airplay (2). My streaming amplifier got airplay as well as tidal connect. The same songs sounds much better using tidal connect then airplay.
And the hickups of the stream annoyed me a lot.
I use airplay for streaming spoken audio (radio features aka podcast) frommy phone or the sound of YouTube videos from my notebook.
Unless you have a hifi system that is over 2k it’s very much doubted that you’d be able to notice the difference anyway. AAC and mp3 320kbps is very hard to notice a difference these days
Wire that shit up.
I get 44.1 kHz recognized on my DAC (Topping e30) when streaming via Airplay2. From the Apple Support forum:
AirPlay 2 currently supports streaming audio wirelessly at 16-bit/44.1 kHz in the ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec). Many songs downloaded through Apple Music are downloaded at 16-bit/44.1 kHz ALAC, but AirPlay 2 technically isn’t lossless streaming by definition of lossless, although it will be higher quality than AAC 256 kbps (the High Quality setting in Apple Music).
AirPlay 2 does not support 24-bit/44.1 kHz ALAC or anything higher than 44.1 kHz. It’s possible, but uncertain, that Apple could add support for this in a future update to AirPlay.
Apparently it’s just AAC in a 44.1 kHz audio container. Look at the Darko audio article. It’s only lossless if airplay 1 is used by at least one of the devices.
How is it AirPlay 2 not lossless streaming by definition?
“AirPlay 2 currently supports streaming audio wirelessly at 16-bit/44.1 kHz in the ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec).”
That definition sounds like lossless
My DAC also reports 44.1/16 when using Airplay 2. My understanding is that 44.1/16 is the definition of lossless, any thing higher is defined as high res.
This is definitely not the definition of lossless. You can have 48/24 or higher lossy and you can have 22/8 lossless.
This video by John Darko may help unfog the Airplay 2 mystery.
Wow. Apple not being 100% transparent? Who woulda’ thunk?