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UKBeast

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 21, 2010
626
54
Turkey
I bought bowers and wilkins a7, can I play 24/96 alac files without downsampling through airplay from macbook pro itunes ?
 
From wiki.

The streams are transcoded using the Apple Lossless codec with 44100 Hz and 2 channels ....
 
From wiki.

The streams are transcoded using the Apple Lossless codec with 44100 Hz and 2 channels ....

itunes is technically playing 24/96 alac files or pretending to be playing ?

Is it the lack of airplay transmission trough wifi network that downgrades the quality ?

anything else I can do to use it as 24/96 ? usb connection or digital audio etc ?
 
Does anyone know the answer ?

iTunes is playing 24/96. For your Mac to output at 24/96, go to MIDI settings and change the output settings.

As for AirPlay, iTunes takes a 24/96 file and transcodes it (in real-time) into an ALAC 16/44 file and then sends it to your AirPlay device.

So iTunes DOES support 24bit, while AirPlay does NOT (yet). Still, it's full 16/44 lossless, which isn't bad at all.

Interestingly, Home Sharing does allow 24bit playback, so the technology definitely isn't the limiting factor in Apple's decision to limit AirPlay bit depth and sample rate.
 
Interestingly, Home Sharing does allow 24bit playback, so the technology definitely isn't the limiting factor in Apple's decision to limit AirPlay bit depth and sample rate.

home sharing sends the raw file, airplay* sends an audio stream.

it makes the airplay receivers easier/cheaper to build as they only have to deal with 1 predetermined file type.

*audio works this way
*video airplay sends the raw stream.
*airplay mirroring is closer to audio as it has to encode the screen on the fly.
usb connection or digital audio etc ?

Does anyone know the answer ?

I present to you a little known document called THE MANUAL

the a7 supports both USB and optical in.
for optical from your mac you need a mini-TOSlink to mini-TOSlink cable.
for USB you will need a USB A to USB B cable (normal USB cable)

----
and a little side rant.
complaining "does anyone know the answer" 2 1/2 hours after the original post is kinda rude.
if you want immediate answers, i suggest a little known site on the web called google
 
home sharing sends the raw file, airplay* sends an audio stream.

it makes the airplay receivers easier/cheaper to build as they only have to deal with 1 predetermined file type.

*audio works this way
*video airplay sends the raw stream.
*airplay mirroring is closer to audio as it has to encode the screen on the fly.

Makes perfect sense. Do you know what Home Sharing does with the audio track of a movie? Say I have a high-bit AAC audio track on a 1080p movie. Does Home Sharing transcode the audio at all, or is it pass-through as well?
 
Makes perfect sense. Do you know what Home Sharing does with the audio track of a movie? Say I have a high-bit AAC audio track on a 1080p movie. Does Home Sharing transcode the audio at all, or is it pass-through as well?

home sharing lets other devices share the library, so all it does is send out the raw file.
 
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