Apple TV sound quality concern.Studio Monitors through AirPlay

conceptmat · Oct 25, 2012

Hi All,

Here is what I am trying to do. I have a pair of powered studio monitors and I want to stream audio through them using my McBook Air, Apple TV, and TV.

My idea: to play HD audio on MacBook - stream it through AirPlay to Apple TV - connect Apple TV to HDTV (LG) through HDMI, and then connect Studio Monitor Speakers to HDTV's AUX 3.5 mm audio output.

Here are my concerns:

1) Will there be any audio quality loss when transmitting through Airplay to Apple TV? This article I found online is filling me with doubts about Apple TVs sound quality: http://www.appledystopia.com/bad-apple/apple-tv-poor-audio-quality/ - is this even true?

2) Will there be any audio quality loss when transmitting from Apple TV to TV through HDMI? Do I need a better quality HDMI? Or should I use Optical Digital Audio output on Apple TV instead?

3) Will there be any audio quality loss while using my TV as HDMI to analog converter? Since I'll be hooking up studio monitors to analog audio out (3.5 m headphones output), I worry that TV converts the sound and makes it sound worse then original.

Please let me know if anything from above would contribute to sound quality loss and if I should just buy Airport Express instead of Apple TV. Or if I should buy a Digital Optical Audio to RCA converter and connect studio monitors directly to ATV.

My ATV is 3d generation, by the way.

Sorry for the long post, looking forward to your replies.

THank you!

zhenya · Oct 25, 2012

The Airport Express carries bit perfect lossless audio no problem at 44.1khz, while the ATV up samples to 48khz; whether this is audible is entirely up to how well its implemented, probably not too big a deal in reality. In your described situation, the weakest part of the chain by far would be allowing the tv to do the d/a conversion and output the analog signal.

If you only care about audio, as someone who owns 4 Airport Expresses and 2 Apple TV's, the Expresses are far better for music. They turn on faster, and don't require a tv to manage settings.

What do you mean HD audio? Neither of these devices can carry real HD audio, but again, with the setup you are proposing it won't really matter.

conceptmat · Oct 26, 2012

Zhenya,

Thank you for your input.

Few questions: how 48 could be worse then 44.1? I don't see why this would do any harm or will it?

My LG TV - while converting to analog - how bad can the difference be from original quality? If I use a converter instead of TV (Optical Digital Audio to Analog), would it save me from loosing quality?

By HD I mean mp3 files that are wav or 320kbps (i know it's not real HD) but I just want to make sure it sounds exactly like if i connected speakers to MacBook directly.

Bymatt · Oct 26, 2012

Know you mention music, but if a faithful soundtrack

from a Movie is important to you, the there is only one way I know of to get DTS sound track through your system. That is a movie file, I like MKV which can be generated at a reduced size by HB fed from a MKV player of your choice, DIRECTLY into your AVR DHMI input. Compressing to a smaller or compressed MKV file does NOT affect the audio portion of the sound track. Then your AVR does its thing out to your speakers direct. The TV is not involved in this nor is any optical audio connection. The ATV DOES NOT pass a DTS sound track.

orestes1984 · Oct 26, 2012

HDMI is a pure digital signal and so there sound not be any quality loss, there is no analogue conversion going on here between your Apple TV and the TV just a pure digital signal. Airplay through the Apple TV is 48khz, so by far the weakest link here is always going to be your source in this case poor quality 320kbs lossy MP3s and the output device in this case the powered speakers.

An Apple TV will play 320kbs MP3s just fine without any quality loss in between it, and the HDMI... By today's standards however MP3s are a pretty poor way of encoding a sound source. Whether or not you are able to detect the tin sounding MP3s through your monitors will be another issue.

The problem here is never going to be the Apple TV, or HDMI. You would see improvement from a better quality sound source such as AIFF or WAV files which use the rebook (Compact Disc) standard if you really want "HD" lossless CD quality audio. You would also see better sound output device by upgrading to better quality speakers.

The problem here is that Your sound source is a poor one straight away by making the choice of going with a lossy format like MP3... I don't know enough about your speakers to comment, other than to say better quality speakers and stage = better quality output. Look at investing in an amp and better quality unpowered speakers down the track if you want to make some quality improvement to your output. Definitely go for a lossless format for your sound source however in future to make the most of what you have.

Next time if your going to encode your CDs always go with WAV or AIFF to here them as they were encoded on the CD in the first place, MP3s will always sound poor by comparison.

The guy who wrote this http://www.appledystopia.com/bad-apple/apple-tv-poor-audio-quality/ seems like a bit of a hairbrain by my understanding of what he's wrote though :/ Of course audio that has been encoded using a lossy format is always going to have artifacts, this is not the problem of the Apple TV but of going with a format that is not lossless.

JGRE · Oct 26, 2012

As indicated in one of the responses above, your tv is the weakest part in the chain.
TV's are generally of far less quality for audio than dedicated amplifiers. I use a home cinema amplifier (Onkyo) with HDMI connectors to connect my MBP via ATV3 which gives a good sound.

orestes1984 · Oct 26, 2012

JGRE said:
As indicated in one of the responses above, your tv is the weakest part in the chain.

Not if your using a digital audio source. a 5 cent HDMI passthrough device should not sound any different to a $500 one, it's all digital signal. The sound quality loss through digital signals is nominal at best be they optical or HDMI, the benefit of HDMI is that it can carry more information, but even then the Apple TV can't handle the full benefit of HDMI and won't play "HD" surround sound standards. I guess this is something that will be left for the Apple TV4 just so Apple can say they've improved something? heh

The real issue here is input (MP3's) and output (speakers) This is where the most quality will be lost/gained by using AIFF/WAV instead and upgrading to a better Amp/speakers. The Apple TV by itself will playback 48khz CD quality audio just fine.

zhenya · Oct 26, 2012

conceptmat said:
Zhenya,

Thank you for your input.

Few questions: how 48 could be worse then 44.1? I don't see why this would do any harm or will it?

My LG TV - while converting to analog - how bad can the difference be from original quality? If I use a converter instead of TV (Optical Digital Audio to Analog), would it save me from loosing quality?

By HD I mean mp3 files that are wav or 320kbps (i know it's not real HD) but I just want to make sure it sounds exactly like if i connected speakers to MacBook directly.

It's not that 48khz is bad, it's that it's different than the standard audio format of 44.1khz, which means an up-conversion is needed when the files are passed to the AppleTV. In audiophile terms, up-conversions are generally bad unless they are done by a quality piece that has been designed expressly for this purpose. The AppleTV is not such a device.

320kbps files are perfectly fine if encoded correctly. There are very very few people who can reliably tell the difference between mp3's at 320kbps and the original source (when tests are done correctly). That said, the problem with MP3 if you are ripping your own original discs is that it is a lossy format. As such, if you ever wish to change formats in the future, there will be a quality loss.

I generally recommend, for people who care about quality, to rip their sources to Apple Lossless. This will compress your files by about 1/2 vs. the original (or WAV or AIFF for that matter), but since the compression is lossless, the files remain bit identical to the originals. WAV is a bad format because the files are huge and they don't accept standard tags, making it difficult to manage libraries of WAV files.

orestes1984 said:
Not if your using a digital audio source. a 5 cent HDMI passthrough device should not sound any different to a $500 one, it's all digital signal. The sound quality loss through digital signals is nominal at best be they optical or HDMI, the benefit of HDMI is that it can carry more information, but even then the Apple TV can't handle the full benefit of HDMI and won't play "HD" surround sound standards. I guess this is something that will be left for the Apple TV4 just so Apple can say they've improved something? heh

The real issue here is input (MP3's) and output (speakers) This is where the most quality will be lost/gained by using AIFF/WAV instead and upgrading to a better Amp/speakers. The Apple TV by itself will playback 48khz CD quality audio just fine.

The MP3's, if encoded properly, are not the weak point. I can't say what the speakers are like; there are garbage powered monitors and truly excellent ones.

I stand by my statement that the tv would be the weak point in this chain; yes, the signal through the AppleTV would be all digital, but this would leave the D/A conversion to the TV which is going to have the worst audio components in the chain.

orestes1984 · Oct 26, 2012

eh... so rip in 48khz Apple lossless or Aiff/WAV. Yes I'm aware of the fille sizes of WAV files but it also meets the standards for CD quality audio. MP3 is generally a bad file format and there are better formats than MP3 in this day and age. I guess for average listening it's OK, but to say MP3 good, WAV bad is wrong. MP3s generally end up sounding harsh and digital and yeah most of the times I can hear it.

The TV should not be an issue if it's going to the speakers via optical or HDMI, if it's coming out of the TV then the DAC in the TV might be an issue. If the signal from the TV is digital to the next link in the output chain it's just another link in the chain that will be passed through to the amp in the powered speakers which is where the garbage may occur, as you said there are good powered monitors and not so good ones.

zhenya · Oct 26, 2012

orestes1984 said:
eh... so rip in 48khz Apple lossless or Aiff/WAV. Yes I'm aware of the fille sizes of WAV files but it also meets the standards for CD quality audio. MP3 is generally a bad file format and there are better formats than MP3 in this day and age. I guess for average listening it's OK, but to say MP3 good, WAV bad is wrong. MP3s generally end up sounding harsh and digital and yeah most of the times I can hear it.

The TV should not be an issue. If the signal is digital it's just another link in the chain that will be passed through to the amp in the powered speakers which is where the garbage may occur, as you said there are good powered monitors and not so good ones.

You clearly don't understand that of which you speak. Apple Lossless ALSO meets the standards of CD quality audio, while taking up 1/2 the space of WAV files, and conforming to modern tagging standards. There is absolutely no point in ripping 44.1 cds at 48khz...

If you believe you can hear the difference between 320k mp3 and CD, I invite you to come over to the Sound Science forum at head-fi and try out the blind tests that are posted there for yourself. You'll be surprised at what you learn, first of which is that well encoded MP3's above about 256k don't sound harsh or digital; those who can identify them can do so because they know exactly which artifacts to listen for, but even for most of them, with concentrated listening on very expensive headphone systems, they have a hard time passing the tests.

You also don't understand the role the TV will play. The signal will be digital TO the tv, but coming OUT of the tv it will be analog (powered monitors have analog inputs with all but a very few exceptions). Hence you are relying on the tv to do the D/A conversion, and driving the monitors from the (likely very poor) analog output stage from the TV.

orestes1984 · Oct 26, 2012

zhenya said:
You clearly don't understand that of which you speak. Apple Lossless ALSO meets the standards of CD quality audio, while taking up 1/2 the space of WAV files, and conforming to modern tagging standards. There is absolutely no point in ripping 44.1 cds at 48khz...

If you believe you can hear the difference between 320k mp3 and CD, I invite you to come over to the Sound Science forum at head-fi and try out the blind tests that are posted there for yourself. You'll be surprised at what you learn, first of which is that well encoded MP3's above about 256k don't sound harsh or digital; those who can identify them can do so because they know exactly which artifacts to listen for, but even for most of them, with concentrated listening on very expensive headphone systems, they have a hard time passing the tests.

You also don't understand the role the TV will play. The signal will be digital TO the tv, but coming OUT of the tv it will be analog (powered monitors have analog inputs with all but a very few exceptions). Hence you are relying on the tv to do the D/A conversion, and driving the monitors from the (likely very poor) analog output stage from the TV.

I've seen many powered speakers that buck the trend with optical inputs. Sure if the TV is doing the DA conversion IT becomes the issue as I stated above. WAV/Aiff are perfectly acceptable formats, I acknowledged the issue about file sizes.

As for the thing about MP3s perhaps I haven't listened to any recent encoding but that's because by choice I don't listen to MP3.

I understand you clearly won't get any increase in SQ by ripping to 48khz, but if you think the Apple TV is the issue here in, then take it out of the equation by doing the upscaling yourself. You live with the limitations of the product you purchased.

JGRE · Oct 26, 2012

orestes1984 said:
Not if your using a digital audio source. a 5 cent HDMI passthrough device should not sound any different to a $500 one, it's all digital signal. The sound quality loss through digital signals is nominal at best be they optical or HDMI, the benefit of HDMI is that it can carry more information, but even then the Apple TV can't handle the full benefit of HDMI and won't play "HD" surround sound standards. I guess this is something that will be left for the Apple TV4 just so Apple can say they've improved something? heh

The real issue here is input (MP3's) and output (speakers) This is where the most quality will be lost/gained by using AIFF/WAV instead and upgrading to a better Amp/speakers. The Apple TV by itself will playback 48khz CD quality audio just fine.

Although you may be right in respect to the speakers and the MP3, having a proper amplifier with a quality DAC makes a big difference. Note that the output is analog and the good amplifier will do a far better job than any TV can and will do. I have a Samsung 7000 series TV, which sounds without my Onkyo like *****.

BTW, I have no problems with Dolby Digital, DTS or THX, all goes fine through the ATV3, having an exellent surround sound.

Appledystopia · Nov 11, 2012

There is a problem with Apple TV audio quality

zhenya said:
You clearly don't understand that of which you speak. Apple Lossless ALSO meets the standards of CD quality audio, while taking up 1/2 the space of WAV files, and conforming to modern tagging standards. There is absolutely no point in ripping 44.1 cds at 48khz...

If you believe you can hear the difference between 320k mp3 and CD, I invite you to come over to the Sound Science forum at head-fi and try out the blind tests that are posted there for yourself. You'll be surprised at what you learn, first of which is that well encoded MP3's above about 256k don't sound harsh or digital; those who can identify them can do so because they know exactly which artifacts to listen for, but even for most of them, with concentrated listening on very expensive headphone systems, they have a hard time passing the tests.

You also don't understand the role the TV will play. The signal will be digital TO the tv, but coming OUT of the tv it will be analog (powered monitors have analog inputs with all but a very few exceptions). Hence you are relying on the tv to do the D/A conversion, and driving the monitors from the (likely very poor) analog output stage from the TV.

Yep. This guy doesn't even know about Apple Lossless, and he calls me a hairbrain?!?

I have found some people just don't accept that Apple Lossless is lossless. They claim, if it has less data, it must lose something. Hmm, really? Then how do .zip, .gz, and .tar work? They reduce the file size, but uncompress into a binary identical output. If they didn't, your software application or data file that is zipped would lose information and not work. Sure, it doesn't produce the tiny file sizes of lossy compression, but it is, indeed lossless and sounds as good as the original CD. There are redundant patterns in all those 1's and 0's that can be compressed and uncompressed without loss of information.

orestes1984 · Nov 11, 2012

Why bother coming here, and to call me a fanboy

and then accuse me of an ad hominem attack that was really a hair brained idea. Nice way to waste a signup

Appledystopia said:
hairbrain?!?

Yes that's you hairbrain for signing up to sledge someone who doesn't agree with you... good one, I hope you plan to stay around hairbrain.

Appledystopia · Nov 11, 2012

Apple TV has sound problems

orestes1984 said:
HDMI is a pure digital signal and so there sound not be any quality loss, there is no analogue conversion going on here between your Apple TV and the TV just a pure digital signal. Airplay through the Apple TV is 48khz, so by far the weakest link here is always going to be your source in this case poor quality 320kbs lossy MP3s and the output device in this case the powered speakers.

An Apple TV will play 320kbs MP3s just fine without any quality loss in between it, and the HDMI... By today's standards however MP3s are a pretty poor way of encoding a sound source. Whether or not you are able to detect the tin sounding MP3s through your monitors will be another issue.

The problem here is never going to be the Apple TV, or HDMI. You would see improvement from a better quality sound source such as AIFF or WAV files which use the rebook (Compact Disc) standard if you really want "HD" lossless CD quality audio. You would also see better sound output device by upgrading to better quality speakers.

The problem here is that Your sound source is a poor one straight away by making the choice of going with a lossy format like MP3... I don't know enough about your speakers to comment, other than to say better quality speakers and stage = better quality output. Look at investing in an amp and better quality unpowered speakers down the track if you want to make some quality improvement to your output. Definitely go for a lossless format for your sound source however in future to make the most of what you have.

Next time if your going to encode your CDs always go with WAV or AIFF to here them as they were encoded on the CD in the first place, MP3s will always sound poor by comparison.

The guy who wrote this http://www.appledystopia.com/bad-apple/apple-tv-poor-audio-quality/ seems like a bit of a hairbrain by my understanding of what he's wrote though :/ Of course audio that has been encoded using a lossy format is always going to have artifacts, this is not the problem of the Apple TV but of going with a format that is not lossless.

I'm the "hairbrain" who wrote the article. Clearly, this person does not understand what I wrote. This article is one of the most popular on my site, and people find it by searching for "Apple TV poor audio" or related search terms. Many people have taken issue with the audio quality on Apple TV. My Google Analytics stats clearly show why people are finding this article.

If he bothered to read and comprehend the article, he would realize that when one plays the same sound file from a Mac, through iTunes/AirPlay, to Apple TV it sounds worse than through a hi-fi audio transmitter such as Amphony. This is because the sound file has its sampling rate converted from 44.1khz to 48khz. I provide links to other people who noticed the same thing.

When I temporarily replaced my Amphony transmitter/receiver with Apple TV, I noticed the difference right away. I A/B'd both setups. There is clearly a difference.

Some people will not notice. They may have tin ears. They may listen to modern music with lots of program compression. It's easier to hear if you listen to music with dynamics.

As for audio format, if you buy an iTunes album it is 256kbps AAC. If you listen to this through AirPlay on Apple TV, it will not sound as good as the original. Simple concept, even for a hairbrain. Maybe his brain is made of something capable of less thought? I'll let you fill in that blank...

Apple TV is worth buying. I use mine all the time, for Netflix and Hulu, mostly. It is not an audiophile product. Surprise! An iPod isn't an audiophile product either.

----------

orestes1984 said:
Why bother coming here, and to call me a fanboy and then accuse me of an ad hominem attack that was really a hair brained idea. Nice way to waste a signup

Yes that's you hairbrain for signing up to sledge someone who doesn't agree with you... good one, I hope you plan to stay around hairbrain.

I've had this account since August. Look at the left side. Good luck with your ad hominem attacks and audio advice! Thanks for the backlink!

orestes1984 · Nov 11, 2012

Appledystopia said:
I'm the "hairbrain".

Yes, rather than coming out with a reasonably thought out rational response it's

This guys an idiot he doesn't know what he's talking about ZOMG! I'M RIGHT WHY WON'T ANYONE LOVE MY WEBSITE!

You're doing well for your website traffic

It is you that started the ad hominem dribble.

Appledystopia · Nov 11, 2012

orestes1984 said:
eh... so rip in 48khz Apple lossless or Aiff/WAV. Yes I'm aware of the fille sizes of WAV files but it also meets the standards for CD quality audio. MP3 is generally a bad file format and there are better formats than MP3 in this day and age. I guess for average listening it's OK, but to say MP3 good, WAV bad is wrong. MP3s generally end up sounding harsh and digital and yeah most of the times I can hear it.

The TV should not be an issue if it's going to the speakers via optical or HDMI, if it's coming out of the TV then the DAC in the TV might be an issue. If the signal from the TV is digital to the next link in the output chain it's just another link in the chain that will be passed through to the amp in the powered speakers which is where the garbage may occur, as you said there are good powered monitors and not so good ones.

There is no choice as to sampling rate with Apple Lossless. It's just Apple Lossless with one choice -- automatic settings. Furthermore, if you download from iTunes, you will get 256kbps/44.1k AAC files. The best thing to do is, if you need audiophile quality, find another method to get the music on to your stereo. There are A/V receivers from Pioneer, Marantz and Yamaha that support AirPlay. Perhaps they got it right. I'm sticking with my Amphony transmitter/receiver. It's easier than what you suggest -- re-encoding all of my iTunes purchases and ripped CDs, which may not make a difference. Apple TV is a black box. We suspect that sampling rate conversion could be the problem, but who knows. We know there is a problem. And by "we", I mean me, the hundreds of people who have found my article because they noticed a problem, and the people I have linked to who suspect it is the sampling rate...

Apple TV is what it is. It's a consumer device. It's great, I use it all the time. Don't expect your Honda to drive like a Ferrari.

orestes1984 · Nov 11, 2012

"Apple lossless", tin ears, blah blah... I'm an audiophile.... I didn't talk about Apple Lossless because I do not choose to use it and don't pretend to know about it. Really is that simple

You're not winning anything by saying that.

Not all of us put up with downloading our music from iTunes either. Seems to me you don't get the fact you can rip your audio cds to 48khz if you want to without losing quality using a redbook encoding standard. And yes maybe use Apple Losless if you really love it so much. Perhaps you should try this and do something useful like telling us the results of what happens when you do.

Appledystopia · Nov 11, 2012

orestes1984 said:
Yes, rather than coming out with a reasonably thought out rational response it's

This guys an idiot he doesn't know what he's talking about ZOMG! I'M RIGHT WHY WON'T ANYONE LOVE MY WEBSITE!

You're doing well for your website traffic It is you that started the ad hominem dribble.

My website is 4 months old, and I get 12,000 hits a month (and growing). There's plenty of love for Appledystopia. Thanks to your backlink and the fact that most people seem to disagree with you and have to correct your facts, I expect more traffic. Thank you!

Appledystopia · Nov 11, 2012

orestes1984 said:
"Apple lossless", tin ears, blah blah... I'm an audiophile.... I didn't talk about Apple Lossless because I do not choose to use it and don't pretend to know about it. Really is that simple You're not winning anything by saying that.

Not all of us put up with downloading our music from iTunes either.

Well, you did mention that people should rip in 48khz Apple Lossless, which isn't possible, at least with iTunes. I just wanted to point that out, to save people the trouble of trying to do what you suggest. It won't work.

iTunes is a popular music store, and people use it. My site provides help for Apple users.

I'm not trying to win anything. Since my article came up for discussion, and you seem to think I am a hairbrain for writing it, I think I have the responsibility to clarify the information. Your ad hominem attacks and poor attitude only do disservice to you. I'm not the only one who has had to correct you about your misinformation.

My hunch is that you are projecting your anger at being constantly corrected by people, onto me, claiming that what I am writing is false, with no evidence. I don't know if this is the case. Perhaps you need therapy?

orestes1984 · Nov 11, 2012

Appledystopia said:
My website is 4 months old, and I get 12,000 hits a month. There's plenty of love for Appledystopia. Thanks to your backlink and the fact that most people seem to disagree with you and have to correct your facts, I expect more traffic. Thank you!

No one cares how many hits your website gets on google analytics, its not a trophy, I know personally two Apple "fanboys" that work for Oracle and EMC who have made it, your getting 12000 hits on Google Analytics whoopdi flapping doo, you didn't make it by having 12000 hits I know of other guys that have run Mac "rumors" related websites that get a lot more hits than that. If you wanted me to change my opinion and offer you an apology you could start by responding like you weren't chucking a tantrum about what someone else was saying.

Take that as a word of advice.

I have no anger to project at you, I don't even remotely have a figment of an idea who you are. It is you who came here and called me a "fanboy" that "I need therapy" and that I was personally attacking you (ad hominem). If you stamp your feet on the ground your simply not going to get the response your looking for and you're still doing it.

If you're going to act like a juvenile you will get exactly the same response back.

Appledystopia · Nov 11, 2012

orestes1984 said:
No one cares how many hits your website gets on google analytics, its not a trophy, I know personally two Apple "fanboys" that work for Oracle and EMC who have made it, your getting 12000 hits on Google Analytics whoopdi flapping doo, you didn't make it by having 12000 hits I know of other guys that have run Mac "rumors" related websites that get a lot more hits than that. If you wanted me to change my opinion and offer you an apology you could start by responding like you weren't chucking a tantrum about what someone else was saying.

Take that as a word of advice.

I have no anger to project at you, I don't even remotely have a figment of an idea who you are. It is you who came here and called me a "fanboy" that "I need therapy" and that I was personally attacking you (ad hominem). If you stamp your feet on the ground your simply not going to get the response your looking for and you're still doing it.

If you're going to act like a juvenile you will get exactly the same response back.

You really do project onto other people. Now the person who posts in a large red font is claiming I am throwing a tantrum, because I am trying to bring facts into the discussion. You claimed I am hairbrained and my article is wrong. I bring facts -- others have noticed it, as per my Google Analytics stats and the others I link.

All I am doing is trying to defend my work. I spent time writing an article and doing research, and you say I am hairbrained for writing it, with no facts or evidence. If anything, it seems you didn't understand my article. I'm not the only one who has had to correct you here.

I think your posts here come off as angry. It's just gadgets dude... Lighten up.

orestes1984 · Nov 11, 2012

Appledystopia said:
You really do project onto other people. Now the person who posts in a large red font is claiming I am throwing a tantrum, because I am trying to bring facts into the discussion. You claimed I am hairbrained and my article is wrong. I bring facts -- others have noticed it, as per my Google Analytics stats and the others I link.

All I am doing is trying to defend my work. I spent time writing an article and doing research, and you say I am hairbrained for writing it, with no facts or evidence. If anything, it seems you didn't understand my article. I'm not the only one who has had to correct you here.

I think your posts here come off as angry. It's just gadgets dude... Lighten up.

It's exactly what your doing get a mirror, I could not care less about my account on this site I'm just taking the mickey out of you and you're biting left right and centre with ad hominem attacks against me. NB: hairbrined is not an ad hominem.

Mate I know people who have been published in the New York Times, who work for the biggest tech giants in the world... Do I care at all about you, or your webste? No... Not at all, I do not even have any idea who you are yet you continue this and it's just doing nothing but proving how easily you will bite at someone else resulting in a real personal attack against me.

You got trolled...

and you still wont give up.

steve-p · Nov 12, 2012

The forced 48Khz upsampling has been bothering me ever since upgrading from the first ATV to ATV2 (and now ATV3). Much as I love the convenience of ATV, it has taken a backward step for listening to lossless CD-derived audio, although 5.1 movie soundtracks are spectacular. I haven't got round to looking at alternatives but anything which will receive Airplay at 44.1 and output digital audio would probably be ok. It's a question of the balance between convenience and quality though.

straluk · Feb 23, 2014

digital to analog

zhenya said:
The Airport Express carries bit perfect lossless audio no problem at 44.1khz, while the ATV up samples to 48khz; whether this is audible is entirely up to how well its implemented, probably not too big a deal in reality. In your described situation, the weakest part of the chain by far would be allowing the tv to do the d/a conversion and output the analog signal.

If you only care about audio, as someone who owns 4 Airport Expresses and 2 Apple TV's, the Expresses are far better for music. They turn on faster, and don't require a tv to manage settings.

What do you mean HD audio? Neither of these devices can carry real HD audio, but again, with the setup you are proposing it won't really matter.

Airport express it is then. Thank you bringing into my attention this device which lets you stream wireless from computer to audio setup (active studio monitors, amp and speakers etc). It even has optic which convinces me even more that transfer between it and audio setup is will be better than the method i am using now which is playing throgh 2RCA to audio jack cable.

What about digital to analog? What would you recomend here? I have amp+ 2 stereo speakers and don't know what to choose for this conversion

Thanks in advance

Apple TV sound quality concern.Studio Monitors through AirPlay

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