Article: Apple Music Lossless Mess Part 2: AirPlay

[Derekw]

Just did a listening test, airplay via system sound setting, as compared to airplay via Music.app's setting, does sound slightly cleaner and more solid, with less 'compression like' artefacts.

 

This test is done using a Mac mini (Monterey 12.1) playing local ALAC files to the lowly Ikea Sonos Symfonisk Bookshelf speakers, my only airplay speakers. Even with these basic 'desktop' speakers, the difference is noticeable.

 

Another notable difference ... when using the system sound output to airplay to Sonos, the volume control in Music.app is independent from the Sonos.app's volume control. I set the Music.app's volume to the max, then use Sonos.app's volume to control the volume. I'm assuming this sends the ALAC file bit perfect to the speakers and the amplifier inside the Sonos controls the volume. This is different if I use the Music.app's setting to airplay to the Sonos. In this case, the Music.app's volume control is in lock step with the Sonos.app's volume control. Change either volume slider and the other volume slider mirrors the change. Another difference is that this setup has much less response lag. Press play and sound comes out in less than 1 second. When using the system sound output to airplay, the response lag is longer, at around 2 seconds. So it seems the audio pipeline is quite different between these 2 set up!

[Telecastermds]

I have an Airport Express 2nd Gen.  Is Airplay 2 firmware 7.8.1 lossless from IOS 15+ on iPhone yet?  Do I need to downgrade to 7.6.9 for Airplay 1 for lossless?

[MgP2804]

Well, I am in the same situation and think that FW Downgrade would just be a logic step. However myself using Qobuz, so not really needing it according to the measurements here. Right now experimenting with Shairport-Sync on a Pi too. https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync 

[MgP2804]

18 hours ago, MgP2804 said:

Well, I am in the same situation and think that FW Downgrade would just be a logic step. However myself using Qobuz, so not really needing it according to the measurements here. Right now experimenting with Shairport-Sync on a Pi too. https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync 

did downgrade to 7.6.9 (just hold option key on fw version in airport utility program). took five minutes. so, little 2nd gen is not able for airplay 2 anymore. But for my usage scenario airplay 1 seems to be better. anyway give Shairport a try too. It has a lot of great options imo and runs very fine on  Pi :) by adding a toslink/coax hat you may avoid usb too, if you want to. :) +++ maybe you read about the new AI for Youtube compression. If I remember correct, Youtube saves 4% bandwith requirement in their datacenters by using the new AI. Guess, for Apple it is just the same, when their algorithms decides to stream in aac instead of ALAC....But do not know...

[Crunchynut]

This is a really interesting thread that shows the complexities of ‘knowing what you are getting’ when connecting to a service and streaming into your system.

 

Can anybody help me understand something related that I have observed with Apple Music? It is that, an album may be advertised at a certain resolution - let’s say 24 bit / 192 KHz  or 24/48. What I mean by advertised, is when you click on the lossless logo and it displays the resolution available. But, when you starting playing said album, and then click on the logo for the track playing, it is often (but not always) a lower resolution. So, 24/192 might suddenly say 24/96, or 24/48 might say 16/44.1, or 24/44.1 etc.

 

I know my set-up (IOS Apple Music app>iPad mini 6 > CCK > USB >RME DAC) can handle 24/192, and indeed a few tracks do play at their advertised resolution, suggesting there is nothing wrong with the set-up, but many tracks do not.

 

With all that has been discussed in this thread, is there a reason for this? Anybody else observed the same?

[leonn]

"Apple's Music App, lossless streaming content, USB output with CCK - not bit perfect at 44.1."

I'm gutted.. Then again when I see apple music 192/24 on my WM1A I tell myself it sounds transparent. Could always go back to Bluetooth AAC for convenience *Shudders*

I'll just tell myself the USB 3 CCK is bit perfect so I can sleep at night.

 

Glad to see someone doing thorough testing on this though. Interested in seeing other types of iOS and iPadOS connections like lightning USB 2 or 3 and direct to USB C.

If USB C with a dumb OTG is not bit perfect I'm going to lose my shit.

[MgP2804]

Airplay 1 with Airport Express: well it seems you need FW 7.6.1, which is available for Gen 1 but not for Gen 2 using the utility program. Using 7.6.1 with Airport Express Gen 1, I do not have any stuttering. (Pls. note that later FW fix some security issues. So, Shairport-Synch running with Airplay 1 might be the better way.)

[taynos]

Incredible thread and discussion here.  Question - there were 3 versions of Airport Express

 

A1392 / A1088 : 2004-2008 (Plugged Directly into Wall)

A1264  : 2008-2012 (Plugged Directly into Wall)

A1392 : 2012-2018 (Base station with power cable)

 

Does "1st Generation" group together the first 2 models that plugged directly into the wall? Wikipedia does calls both 1st gen but thought I would confirm here for clarity.

 

I have multiple A1392s that I use for Airplay2 around the house for multi-room synchronous audio using the onboard AKM dacs where fidelity isnt as important then I use my original A1084 2004 model > DAC to plug into my main system on separate input when I want higher fidelity. Confirming the 2004 Airport Express is still "1st gen" and is therefore bit perfect via iOS > Apple Music > Airplay 1 > A1392 > DAC . Thanks in advance

 

 

[MgP2804]

On 3/12/2022 at 6:31 PM, taynos said:

 

 

Does "1st Generation" group together the first 2 models that plugged directly into the wall?

 

Well it is A1264, also here https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_AirPort (Take a look at Airport Express table)

 

I am using it with FW 7.6.1. to avoid stuttering.

[great04]

Great efforts! Did you get a chance to test Amazon Music on iOS and MacOS? Thanks very much!

[bruceanz]

Hi folks - thank you for the helpful info on playing lossless bit perfect music from my Mac to my Airplay devices!!! I have spent months trying to understand this.  I have a Sonos 5 and a Denon 250 in different rooms. In NZ, Sonos devices do not support Sonos Radio HD or Amazon Music Hi Res format. My question is - does this method of streaming lossless music from my Mac to the Sonos 5 work? It sounds great, but might be all in my mind.... The Denon 250 does support Amazon Music Hi Res using the Heos app, but it is not user friendly. When I Airplay Apple Music from my Mac to my Denon amp/Usher Diamond DMD speakers using this method the music quality sounds awesome (and the house shakes!). Again many thanks and regards.

[MgP2804]

On 5/26/2022 at 12:49 AM, great04 said:

Great efforts! Did you get a chance to test Amazon Music on iOS and MacOS? Thanks very much!

well, did test some month ago. Amazon Music streams all the time with highest sample rate. So, it is not bit perfect at all. Even if you put via the app on Mac the speaker in "exclusive" mode, it still streams upsampled everything to highest sample rate, as you DAC will show. Did not check, if Amazon did fix this meanwhile. Maybe Amazon ist waiting for something from Apple to fix in Mac OS? 

[MgP2804]

15 hours ago, bruceanz said:

Hi folks - thank you for the helpful info on playing lossless bit perfect music from my Mac to my Airplay devices!!! I have spent months trying to understand this.  I have a Sonos 5 and a Denon 250 in different rooms. In NZ, Sonos devices do not support Sonos Radio HD or Amazon Music Hi Res format. My question is - does this method of streaming lossless music from my Mac to the Sonos 5 work? It sounds great, but might be all in my mind.... The Denon 250 does support Amazon Music Hi Res using the Heos app, but it is not user friendly. When I Airplay Apple Music from my Mac to my Denon amp/Usher Diamond DMD speakers using this method the music quality sounds awesome (and the house shakes!). Again many thanks and regards.

That is what myself is doing pretty much with Sonos: streaming from iOS or Mac OS to the Sonos speakers. As most services do not provide lossless or hires streams to Sonos Controller. Exceptions that I know for Sonos Controler: Tidal, Qobuz (best quality but special limitations), Amazon Ultra (best quality - in Europe, bad UI in Sonos imo). Hope this helps a bit. So Apple Music I am streaming via Airplay to Sonos. So, not using Sonos App. (I believe Amazon is bit perfect on Bluesound devices. Could not check)

[loop7]

It would be nice if the Apple Music price increase coincided with some improvements but I guess that's asking too much.

[brisko]

This seems to be accurate based on my experiments with shairport-sync as an AirPlay receiver. I was getting delays with play / pause / skip, etc when using AirPlay at a system wide level and according to the sharport-sync documentationshairport-sync/AIRPLAY2.md at development · mikebrady/shairport-sync

* Two types of audio are received by Shairport Sync – "Realtime" streams of CD quality ALAC (like "classic" AirPlay) and "Buffered Audio" streams of AAC stereo at 44,100 frames per second.The selection of stream type is made by the player.

* Realtime streams generally have a latency of about two seconds. Buffered Audio streams typically have a latency of half a second or less.

* In AirPlay 2 mode, Shairport Sync reverts to "classic" AirPlay when iTunes on macOS or macOS Music plays to multiple speakers and one of more of them is compatible with AirPlay only.

When I switch to using AirPlay directly from the Music app it becomes much more responsive, which correlates to the AAC / buffer comments in the documentation.

 

Any updates on this later into 2022 or 2023? It's been a while since the last comment.

[Bigreddog]

Quick question. Article says MacBook Pro to Node 2i using AirPlay 2 is bit perfect. Can a newer MacBook AIR achieve the same thing or does it have to be a Pro? Thanks!

[The Computer Audiophile]

12 minutes ago, Bigreddog said:

Quick question. Article says MacBook Pro to Node 2i using AirPlay 2 is bit perfect. Can a newer MacBook AIR achieve the same thing or does it have to be a Pro? Thanks!

Air should work just fine. 

[Bigreddog]

Awesome thank you!

[tgp-2]

First post here on Audiophile Style 😀 ... See attached summary ... I recently looked at various combinations of Airplay-enabled apps, receivers, etc. to verify for myself which support lossless vs lossy transmission ... a lot of overlap with info from the original article here and the discussion thread, but I thought it might be useful for some to see a summary of how things look as of May 2023 ... I tried most of the combinations listed here, and those that I didn't try, I indicate with a "?" (I'm sure folks here can point out any errors or help me fill in the blanks).

Airplay vs Airplay 2 for audio streaming May 3 2023 tgp-2.pdf

[Marco Klobas]

Thanks @tgp-2 for your AirPlay-related recap. I found it useful.

[Bevok]

3 hours ago, tgp-2 said:

First post here on Audiophile Style 😀 ... See attached summary ... I recently looked at various combinations of Airplay-enabled apps, receivers, etc. to verify for myself which support lossless vs lossy transmission ... a lot of overlap with info from the original article here and the discussion thread, but I thought it might be useful for some to see a summary of how things look as of May 2023 ... I tried most of the combinations listed here, and those that I didn't try, I indicate with a "?" (I'm sure folks here can point out any errors or help me fill in the blanks).

Airplay vs Airplay 2 for audio streaming May 3 2023 tgp-2.pdf 58.08 kB · 9 downloads

Thanks for that useful study.

I actually plan on doing some benchmarking soon on Airplay battery use - I’ve always heard that as a negative feature but haven’t particularly noticed it myself. Will advise on my findings if I get time to do it (compare phone airplaying Qobuz for 1 hour vs sitting idle).

I was interested to see that ALL airplay 2 is AAC as I had understood it could take Redbook quality and had thought the aac was a specific choice by Apple Music. How did you determine that? I did a recent data throughput test using an Apple TV (comparing playing a track losslessly using the built in app vs playing the track via Airplay from my phone) and noted over twice the amount of data via the built in app backing up your summary. 
 

[tgp-2]

28 minutes ago, Bevok said:

Thanks for that useful study.

I actually plan on doing some benchmarking soon on Airplay battery use - I’ve always heard that as a negative feature but haven’t particularly noticed it myself. Will advise on my findings if I get time to do it (compare phone airplaying Qobuz for 1 hour vs sitting idle).

I was interested to see that ALL airplay 2 is AAC as I had understood it could take Redbook quality and had thought the aac was a specific choice by Apple Music. How did you determine that? I did a recent data throughput test using an Apple TV (comparing playing a track losslessly using the built in app vs playing the track via Airplay from my phone) and noted over twice the amount of data via the built in app backing up your summary. 
 

Use of a Mac as an Airplay 2 receiver helped ... on the Mac, it's relatively straightforward to observe the incoming network traffic (using System Monitor ... or better still, using an application like "bmon" which puts a numbered scale on the Y axis of the data vs time graph ... System Monitor just shows an unlabeled graph) ... try this with an Airplay 2 enabled app like Tidal

[Rijckholt]

Hi all, 

 

Also first poster here. Have been reading this thread with interest. Trying to get the best out of my Dynaudo Focus 50 speakers (Wireless Active Speakers, so not able to connect via cable easily) and was expecting Apple to play ball with their lossless offering.

 

I was assuming I get 44.1/16 bit lossless (ALAC) wirelessly from my iphone/ipad using the ios apps "Apple Music" and "Apple Classical" when streaming to my focus speakers using airplay2. This thread made clear that is not the case, and i am listening to an AAC stream instead. 

 

OK, so I dug up an old gen 1 airport express  (A1088 currently on firmware 6.3) and was able (using the old windows laptop) to configure it as a speaker in my network. It is connected to a switch via ethernet and via the mini jack using toslink to the Focus speakers. 

 

And yes, I can now select this airport express gen 1 speaker (named: Focus Lossless ;-) from the Apple music and Apple classical app. The focus speakers even wake up when I start and the Focus app is indicating it is receiving music on the optical in (Toslink).

 

Success..... at least that is what I think and hope, but sceptical for Apple tricks ;-) also would like to confirm. With my current setup I cannot easily check what my phone is sending and what the Focus is receiving ( @DYNAUDIO if you are reading along.. it would be really nice if you can see in the Dynaudio app what the speakers are receiving from their active source) 

 

 

Is it possible that the iOS Apple Music or iOS Apple Classical App when it sees it has to use legacy Airplay (Airplay 1) streaming that it compresses the music before it hands it over to the Airplay service on the phone and this whole setup does not gets you a wireless ALAC stream from your idevice to a receiver. 

 

I am trying to look at data usage in my network to answer this, but have not been able yet. 

 

@tgp-2 Could you be able confirm this?

 

Thanks in advance for any efforts in this. 

 

Regards,

Onno

[tgp-2]

hi @Rijckholt ... when you select the Airport Express device from the Airplay dialog on your iPhone/iPad, the uncircled check mark next to the device name means it only supports legacy "Airplay 1" mode ... so Airplay2-enabled apps (Apple Music, etc.) have no choice but to send a real-time 16/44.1 ALAC stream (and when you select an Airplay2-capable receiver, you'll see a circled check mark and an option to select other devices for multi-room playback)

[Rijckholt]

20 hours ago, tgp-2 said:

hi @Rijckholt ... when you select the Airport Express device from the Airplay dialog on your iPhone/iPad, the uncircled check mark next to the device name means it only supports legacy "Airplay 1" mode ... so Airplay2-enabled apps (Apple Music, etc.) have no choice but to send a real-time 16/44.1 ALAC stream (and when you select an Airplay2-capable receiver, you'll see a circled check mark and an option to select other devices for multi-room playback)

Hi @tgp-2,

 

Thanks for your reply. While the icons are indeed a tell tale of the protocol that is being used (AirPlay 1 at 44,1 kHz ALAC ) it does not necessarily mean that what is inside that ALAC wrapper is the original (lossless compressed) content. Based on my network traffic I suspect that the Apple Music and classical app are compressing in lossy way BEFORE it is handed over the the AirPlay service of the phone. Resulting in sending less data wrapped in the ALAC AirPlay1 stream (like playing an MP3 via Airpay 1 in the old days).
 

This would have been introduced in the either iOS 15 or 16 as in iOS 14 (if the testing done as described in this article is correct) the input and output are identical. 
 

I am suspecting Apple made changes and this is no longer the case. However I cannot test it in my setup. Except by looking at network traffic that sits well below the 1000 kbps that I would expect when a lossless compressed music file (CD quality) is streamed. 
 

In order to confirm this you need to know what is sent and what s unpacked in the DAC and compare the two. Maybe @The Computer Audiophile or @Marco Klobas can help here.

 

cheers

Onno