Does anyone know if Airplay is capable of streaming music in Apple lossless format without any loss of sound quality? Or will it compress it like Bluetooth does?
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Airplay Quality
- Thread starter mpaquette
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I have read in numerous places that Airplay actually uses the Apple Lossless codec so any audio you play using it would be uncompressed. It doesn't really need to be compressed like bluetooth does because Airplay uses Wifi so there's much more bandwidth to work with.
Airplay does not modify the source. so you get what the source is. Yes it will play apple lossless.
Afaik iTunes is not trancoding (which would be required of course to modify the source). I can't guarantee it but some folks that should know tell me thats the case.
Hammie
macrumors 68000
AudioCore is doing the transcoding based on the settings in the Audio MIDI Setup. Keep in mind that EVERYTHING will be either up sampled or downsampled based on the setting. You either need a third party driver for an external DAC or another piece of software such as Pure Magic or Decible.
However, keep in mind that AppleTV support a max sample rate if 44.1kHz on the ATV1 and 48kHz on ATV2.
I have removed my AppleTV from my music stream and only use my AppleTV1 for movies and TV shows.
My music setup is a Mac Mini with Pure Music connected to an Iomega MiniMax 2TB HDD via firewire. I then connect my Mac Mini to an external M2Tech Young DAC via USB. This DAC will support audio files up to 32-bit/384kHz and is connected to my Onkyo Pre-amp via RCA cables. All cables in this setup are AudioQuest Cinnamon or King Cobra.
The response I got over at AVS indicates that Apple TV 2 would convert my 16/44.1 ALAC files to 48 khz. I guess there is some debate as to whether or not this affects the sound quality. Thread here if you're interested.
Hammie's set up is a lot more refined that mine is. I ditched my Anthem pre/pro and amp about 2 years ago and have been using a Denon 4810 as my AVR. All of my sources connect to it via HDMI and then HDMI out to my plasma. I really was set on selling my mini since it rarely gets used for anything except some ALAC playback through iTunes maybe 1-2x a month. Now I'm not so sure if I'll sell it.
Hammie's set up is a lot more refined that mine is. I ditched my Anthem pre/pro and amp about 2 years ago and have been using a Denon 4810 as my AVR. All of my sources connect to it via HDMI and then HDMI out to my plasma. I really was set on selling my mini since it rarely gets used for anything except some ALAC playback through iTunes maybe 1-2x a month. Now I'm not so sure if I'll sell it.
Hammie
macrumors 68000
This is why I stopped using my Apple TV for music. I have a lot of hi-res music files (24/96kHz and above) and hated to think that I was not getting my money worth by having the Apple TV down sampling.
IMO, the minor up sampling is not a big issue and probably has no discernible sound impact. As a matter of fact, many DACs are offering up sampling capabilities for ALL files to 24/96kHz or 24/192kHz. I prefer to play them at their native resolution. Just my personal preference and opinion. YMMV.