What happens when playing high res lossless music on an unsupported device? Does it jus play regular lossless quality or something in between or even worst quality?
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Apple Music What happens when playing high res lossless on HomePod?
- Thread starter Jt69yupper
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Neither HomePod nor HomePod mini currently supports lossless. It will use AAC. Apple says support for lossless is forthcoming.
I’m able to play lossless to my OG homepods connected to my Apple TV 4K. However I don’t think they can do High res lossless. There is no option to do high resolution lossless on my Apple TV 4K hooked up to my homepods. So I don’t believe the homepods will support it when it gets the audioOS 15 update.
It is streaming lossless (ALAC) to your iPhone and then the iPhone is transcoding to AAC then sending AAC 256kbps to your HomePod.
In terms of Apple Music, I think HomePod will directly get AAC version of the music from Apple Music, your iPhone doesn't event need to transcode anything.
HomePod /mini won't play lossless (ALAC) as of current, it doesn't understand the format, when you play your music on HomePod, it will request the AAC version from Apple Music. There will be a firmware update at some point this year which will introduce ALAC format to HomePod then you will be able to play lossless on your HomePod.