Here's the issue for real audiophiles:
Airplay is a badly compromised system for hifi audio. First, it is limited to 16bit 44kHz. Even Chromecast Audio goes up 24bit 96kHz. If you're happy with CD quality audio then Airplay is....OK, but audio has come a long way in the past 10 years so let me ask you are you happy with your 1080p TV or do you want 4K? Why then would you compromise on audio?
Second issue is Airplay wants to control the clocking of the musical stream. Taking control of the clocking away from the end devise is a compromise. This gets complicated so Google the term, "RAAT and clock ownership" to read some discussions about why Airplay's scheme for managing clocking is not ideal.
When you start to go over $1,000 for audio components, you're near the price range where quality should really matter. A much better way to go about this is to buy devises that are roon ready. NAD is doing this as well as ELAC, Bluesound, Creek, Naim, Krell, PS Audio, and many more. What a roon ready device does is integrate with the roon player (kicks iTunes in the butt) and allows for all audio formats including FLAC up to 32bit 384kHz, DSD up to 512, and Master Quality Authentication MQA files), It allows for the endpoint to own its own clock, allows for multi room audio. It is a far better system if you really care about music.
It seems Denon and Merantz could easily updated their devices to be roon ready if they go through the process. At that point their receivers could be considered by more serious audiophiles.
