Is AirPlay quality less than Apple Music

[whi5tler]

Hi all,

Just a recent observation but I've found that the quality of music played via Spotify and AirPlay is not as good as playing the same songs through Apple Music. Has anybody else experienced this? Is this something that I should expect?

Thanks!

 

[pd_forta]

Mine has the volume significantly lower when playing music via AirPlay compared to direct streaming. Not sure why.

 

[Bdub12]

Apple claims that they use machine learning to optimize the HomePod on songs from Apple Music. That being said, I'm often surprised at how good SiriusXM sounds when airplayed to my HomePod since the update.