Airplay at 24/48

[Jazz]

What do we make of this?
https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/apple-homepod-24-bit-lossless-audio-airplay-2/

I experimented and found that if you start Apple Music on HomePods (voice or via Home app) and added something like an AVR to the speakers, then unchecked the HomePods, the AVR kept playing. But mine would not show bit rate. I checked also by powering off the iOS device and unplugging the pods. It was the first pod that sends the Airplay to the AVR. (Now the article comes to mind…)
This begs the question: Since most (all!) AVR DACs can easily handle high lossless music, does that mean it is doing 24/48? It seems this is possible. The WiiM mini, for instance.
So is the HomePod now behaving like that in some way… way being 24/48…
Remember, keep your iOS device out of this mix except for the COST button (Control Other Speaker & TVs) at bottom of Airplay pane on iOS.
OK, read that link before you respond to what I have written here. Actually read it and think. Thanks… for thinking…

 

[Head_Unit]

Interesting, puts me in mind of this that I just stumbled on
https://darko.audio/2023/10/apple-airplay-isnt-always-lossless-sometimes-its-lossy/

I'm kinda confused by "Remember, keep your iOS device out of this mix except for the COST button (Control Other Speaker & TVs) at bottom of Airplay pane on iOS." since you said you powered off the iOS device.

 

[Eric Natural]

Apple does not make it easy to get the lossless audio. When I Airplay my phone directly to my AVR, it shows a 16/44 stream. My hack is to plug an AppleTV 4k box with hdmi cable into the receiver. I can now airplay Applemusic from my phone to the AppTV device which grabs it's own lossless version from the internet to play 24/48. Three other devices can work in the same fashion, acting as music servers for Applemusic - a recent vintage ipad, iphone or macbook : all needing to use a hardwire of one kind or another into your dac.
best of luck