Apple Music High Res

Sorry to hear that. I can tell you that when I discovered eero years ago, it was a game changer for me. Prior to that, nothing worked consistently.

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In an ideal world. whether Apple will see this as a problem I am not sure. I suspect that they are currently developing AirPlay 3 which I would bet will have more positioning for lossless and spatial audio and possibly also with their headphone line.

I am just grateful that we have another option. I use Apple Music when I am out and about and to be honest it is probably 60% of my music listening. I would be very happy if AM was integrated into Roon, though, I understand that it is really unlikely that this will come to anything. The Qobuz and Tidal mobile experiences are less than stellar for me so being able to use one service that is aware of my longitudinal listening habit would be fantastic.

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I am exactly the same way and agree with your sentiment.

Qobuz and Tidal rarely work properly connecting with CarPlay . With Android Auto they are a little better but still bad . Apple and Spotify are awesome on both car platforms.

Downloading Qobuz music on a Android Digital Audio player is so bad I’ve given up trying to do it. Constantly hangs , doesn’t download the whole playlist , etc. Spotify and Apple downloads work great.

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This has been my experience also.

A post was split to a new topic: Downloading old purchased items from Apple are now HLS format

To expand on my reasoning:

I suspect the deliberate choice to use 256kbps instead of lossless delivery is a feature, not a bug, to enhance buffering for multi room playback, especially considering many consumers have really poor WiFi networks. If the company standpoint is that lossless superiority is not audible to the 98% majority, any means to reduce support calls about audio breaking up is advantageous. That actually makes perfect logical sense if one assumes quality degradation is inaudible, improved functionality becomes the primary factor that deserves optimization (by decreasing bitrate).

In WWDC 2017 it was presented that AirPlay2 enhanced buffering allows you to take out the trash (leave the WiFi network) without music being interrupted. At 256kbps I calculate this to allow for several minutes. With lossless compression, this duration may roughly become one third only, which would not be sufficient for taking out the trash. Audiophiles may ask why would they would want to take out the trash when they are enjoying the music, if you need to ask this question, this feature is not meant for you. :slight_smile:

Again I stress that this is my speculation only.

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Looks just like the Mytek Brooklyn Bridge.

A user replied to me with an interesting post on Apple Support Communities forum, where the Apple Music AirPlay issue is debated:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252848734?answerId=255437882022#255437882022

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Has anyone also noticed that new releases are often not available as lossless atm? I have a couple of new releases in my library, which are e.g. available as “Apple Digital Master”, but not as lossless. Most of the back catalogue of these labels is however available in lossless. Labels where I have experienced this so far are Nuclear Blast, Century Media, Peaceville, Metal Blade… No judgement here, I am just curios :upside_down_face:

It’s the Brooklyn DAC.

Instead of trying to ‘seduce the Big Apple’, perhaps Roon could/should work to work with other, smaller potential partners such as Pentatone, Linn and Channel Classics…?

I’d subscribe to Pentatone if I could stream via Roon.

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Can’t see Linn doing much punk music…

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Nah. Me neither! :crazy_face:

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I’m using Apple Music this morning to listen to some Dolby Atmos mixes. It sounds really good. I have almost a year to decide, but I’m guessing I will opt to keep Roon, Audirvana Studio, and Apple Music. I like having options and since Roon is paid for and Apple Music is free (from Verizon), it’s only a question of paying $70 for Audirvana Studio.

I’ve now got 120GB of Verizon hotspot data to feed this music habit when away from home and Roon.

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I think keeping your current subscriptions is a good choice.
I always ponder about myself, about how easy I spend on hardware, but how uneasy I get paying for a “software” subscription, which costs just a fraction.

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Well, hardware is tangible, software not. And subscribing to music? Stop paying, no music.

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Depends on what you value. I haven’t bought any albums in years. And especially with roon, where you can just so easily go down some rabbit hole with the music you’re listening just by reading the review and clicking on the links. I do miss actually going into a record store but find music discovery so much easier these days. Listen to all these albums I never got in the day and giving a lot of new releases a try. Back when Virgin Records was around, I’d have move around the store to the different listening stations to hear all the new music.

With streaming, sure you don’t own the music but you have access to millions of songs at once. And if you unsubscribe, the favorites will still be there if you rejoin. Can also transfer all info over to a competing service with Soundliz.

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I bought more than enough music on LP’s 60 years ago. I have no desire to own any music and, quite frankly, don’t want to own much of anything except my house, a car, and a few clothes, and I mean a few. I prefer to keep my money invested for my future, my wife’s future, and to leave to my kids and grandkids. We all have different ideas of how we want to live our lives and enjoy our music. There is no right or wrong way to go about it.

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I’ve been on a minimalist kick for a few years. Slowly getting there. My kids (grown) know not to buy me anything unless it’s something we can eat.

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