Airplay can't do hi res and as of now it is only AAC and not ALAC. I suspect this will change down the road
Any sources for this?
Airplay can't do hi res and as of now it is only AAC and not ALAC. I suspect this will change down the road
This was such a dumbfounding decision on Apple's part. I really really don't understand this at all, I would love to have heard that discussion in the conference room.
A: So, as you can see, this new Apple TV4K is set to release and with our lossless Apple Music initiative, and we can just add back in an optical output for only an additional $1.43 of build cost, and then we can own the living room, and we can charge a ridiculous amount of money, but people will pay for it
B: No
A: No? What do you mean, no? This new Apple TV box would appeal to tv, movie and music lovers alike. People just need a way to hook this to their stereo systems to be able to take advantage of our lossless and Dolby Atmos music - and then it's perfect and could be a revolutionary device.
B: No.
A: Why in the world would we not do this? It costs us practically nothing. It makes perfect sense
B: Cause fuck 'em, that's why
? Not sure I understand where you are coming from. My point was they are rolling out these new audio services, but their new flagship living room entertainment device has no way to connect to an existing audio setup (other than HDMI, which is mostly used to go to the tv anyway). If they had included a common audio output (toslink, usb, coax), it would have broadened the ability of many to fully use the new services, especially since you need an external DAC and Dolby Atmos decoder to take full advantage.Why not include RCA, Balanced, Coax and 3.5mm and hey let's throw in Composite, S-Video and Component hook-ups as well to cover all of our bases?
Oh, that's right, it's where YOU'D draw the line that makes sense...
But are any of these options ideal for wireless control of lossless audio? Currently I use Roon for Tidal and Qobuz on my ipad, which controls the hard wired Rasberry Pi output to my DAC. Works flawlessly.
I want to be able to sit on my couch and run Apple music app on my ipad, wirelessly controlling the music stream that is running via Cat6 ethernet into my DAC. Airplay does some funny conversions with an audio signal and is limited to 24/48 anyway (which is fine, but another discussion).
Is there a device that will act as an endpoint for Apple Music that will output a bit perfect lossless signal to my DAC that can be controlled wirelessly from an ipad running Apple Music App?
Will an older Apple Airport Express 2 act as this endpoint? Or is it just streaming over Airplay from the ipad?
? If they had included a common audio output (toslink, usb, coax), it would have broadened the ability of many to fully use the new services, especially since you need an external DAC and Dolby Atmos decoder to take full advantage.
Seems like a big miss to me.
Using a MacBook Pro, I tested Apple Music with Airplay on both Volumio and a Denon receiver. When I select my airplay device as output in the Music app, the lossless logo does not appear. As soon as switch to the internal speakers or headphones connected to the MBP's headphone port, the lossless logo reappears. When I select the Airplay device as a system wide output, the lossless logo does stay enabled. Whether it's actually using lossy or lossless codecs at this point is not clear, however, as I have no way to test this (surely not my ears). Both Airplay devices behave in the same way.
You could pick up an older iPad (say a Gen 6) which can be had for $200-$300 and set it up as a dedicated streamer with the CCK. Uninstall all unnecessary apps and turn off all notifications. It makes a very nice streamer. I have one I’m using this way, hardwired to the RME:
I have an idea that needs to be verified, but it cost approximately the same as buying some adapters (I have a spare Raspberry here, so I only need a little time to mess with it ):
Run a Raspberry with Android, install Apple Music, check if one of the Android EQs listed in this forum works properly, there are multiple remote control tools for android (vnc is one for sure), I use my headphone next to my workstation and I prefer to do the searching/control with a keyboard/mouse (otherwise using an older tablet sounds good).
The LinageOS Raspberry build states that it has a working USB support along with "Audio DAC (using PCM512x DACs e.g. Hifiberry DAC+)".
I have an external DAC so I don't think there should be a lot of trouble making it work.
All things considered this is probably the best option to make Apple Music work in 'headless' mode for now.
BTW I also considered using a headless browser on top of a linux but I read that the browser based version is not lossless.
I managed to set this up and get sound through the 3.5 onboard jack.View attachment 143855
The usb-sound output didn't work out of the box, probably this can be done as some people are using their android phones with external DACs. Anyway this LinageOS build doesn't support it and there aren't many Android builds out there that support raspberry. The biggest problem of all is that the Raspberry is just too slow for this to be considered even remotely acceptable. (used a Raspberry Pi 3 model B, I don't think using a RPi 4 would make a huge difference).
Are you running it from micro SD, was reading that Android doesn't run well from that. Might be worth trying from USB drive if you have one lying around.
Pity that USB sound didn't work as that's listed as being working. Oh well
You could pick up an older iPad (say a Gen 6) which can be had for $200-$300 and set it up as a dedicated streamer with the CCK. Uninstall all unnecessary apps and turn off all notifications. It makes a very nice streamer. I have one I’m using this way, hardwired to the RME:
View attachment 133896
Another option would be a Raspberry Pi 4 running Ropieee XL. You can reliably Airplay to the Raspberry Pi, though the controlling device does still need to be running, unlike with Roon or Spotify Connect.
That’s where the RPi comes in.I tried using the iPad method but for headphones it’s fine but if I’m on the couch listening to speakers it’s a pain in the ass having to get up to change songs.