Nah. Every response to a post has to be in context with the topic that is being discussed. Nothing would make sense in these discussions if that wasn’t the case.
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@streamy68 streamy, I know bit-perfect music and video are two completely separate things, but, when you mention things like lossless audio having higher demands on Airplay, please understand that, as of today, right now, I can Airplay a full 4K movie with Dolby Vision from a phone to my TV in an instant.
The main issue is whether or not the music will be bit-perfect, certainly not whether lossless audio will be an appreciably greater strain on networks.
Good for you that it plays so well. With me, normally I need to wait for quite a few seconds until the movie starts. Then, after all is nicely buffered it works well for movies. But in audio, this is a different beast, at least in my use case. I choose minutes, after minutes, and when going through new music appearing on streaming services, on Fridays, even few seconds after few seconds that I switch program/album/track. AirPlay movie streaming is not on par with such a user behavior. Look how youth looks at Instagram, imagine how buffering would kill their user experience.
Roon users want to have shorter select to play times than 1s, according to complaints that filled the Roon 1.8 feedback thread. AirPlay 4K video streaming does not give this to me. Check, when you freshly start a movie jump for 1h forward. How long does it take until it plays? With my slow, rural internet, it takes time, and on my phone, haven’t tried 4K as it makes little sense.
@streamy68 If you are talking about having “slow rural internet”, why would your 1s play time streaming lossless audio via Roon not be the exact same 1s play time streaming Apple music on your home network?
Would they not be utilizing the exact same connection?
I do not stream hires from internet for this reason. And by the way I care about my network infrastructure more than I guess the average Apple user does.
Do you stream lossless audio around your home via Roon?
And how fast does your 4K video start when not buffered?
If you download the content to your device it only has to cast it to the end device side stepping the streaming.
Apple Music by default downloads anything you add to your library meaning the user experience will presumably be quite good in that scenario.
The new option will allow you to set a global option as to what quality you want, it downloads in the background when you add to your library. When you go to cast it, it plays without buffering.
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Yes, in this scenario the experience should be good.
Looks like Bluesound have already confirmed what we suspected:
Airplay will support full high res.
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Ok, this is great news, but, now I’m well & truly confused. Isn’t the Airplay protocol itself limited to 24/48 max? Even with the Bluesound acting as an external DAC, I wonder how Airplay 2 can possibly support bit-rates/sample-rates it is currently incapable of supporting, unless Apple has been artificially gimping its output for years?
I would assume Apple never increased the audio limit because they had no need for it (AAC being their chosen format / redbook ALAC).
Given that as you pointed out you can throw 4K films at it, it was never an issue of bandwidth. They just didn’t have a use for it, until now.
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Slightly confused. The Apple account mentions USB DACs, in other words hardwired from a source such as a PC to a DAC. Specs for Air Play seem to be the same as for Bluetooth, maxing at 48kHz stereo. Is this incorrect?
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Some thoughts on today’s announcement from Apple.
What was missing from today’s announcement is the device story beyond Spacial Audio. Extensions to existing lines, new hardware? Apple makes money from devices. Services sweeten the deal and seal the lock-in. I feel there’s more to come from this story.
Apple TV+; you can get it on almost all new TVs, pucks and sticks, gives me some hope we might see Apple partnering with 3rd party vendors to offer their services on their devices. It would be great if Apple expands the the MFi Program to support lossless and hi-res streaming. We might get more information at WWDC next month.
Since the beginning of 2012 Apple’s been asking for hi-res masters. It’s possible Apple may have quite a good catalog of hi-res music. They also appear to care about the quality of the masters it receives.
To take best advantage of our latest encoders, use only 24-bit sources and send us the highest-resolution master file possible, appropriate to the medium and the project. Don’t upsample files to a higher resolution than their original format. Upsampling won’t recover or add information to an audio file. Similarly, don’t “bit-pad” or recapture 16-bit files in 24-bit.
Source: https://www.apple.com/itunes/docs/apple-digital-masters.pdf
The power of the bundle. Apple’s bundle includes lossless and hi-res music, TV, games, news, fitness and extra iCloud storage for 5 people (USD 29.95) - at 4 cents less than Tidal’s Family HiFi pcm. Tidal now looks very expensive.
When Spotify launches, I feel it’s nailed on they will match Apple’s pricing. In the short to medium term I feel they have an advantage with audiophiles. Connect is good and because almost every streaming device has it, we can try it with almost no effort or cost. The only caveat here is how quickly device manufacturers will make the necessary changes to support Spotify lossless.
MQA looks a bit lonelier today.
That was true, it seems given what Bluenode has said, Apple is now removing Airplay’s limit and it will stream at full high res (assuming the device you are streaming to has a dac that supports 192/24).
Not sure I understand the benefit of Spotify connect if Airplay supports high res but I totally agree that Tidal looks like a terrible deal.
I see Amazon, Apple and Spotify promising CD. I don’t yet see a serious attempt at high resolution. Amazon’s “high res” is erratic and a problem. The Apple version doesn’t appear any better defined so far. It remains to be seen whether either of them sees the high resolution market as a worthwhile target. Atmos has a different audience and purpose. The cluster of Tidal, Qobuz, and Roon deal in high resolution, better sound, and integration targeted to audiophile needs. I don’t think they need worry just yet.
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That’s the question. I’m doubtful.
Apple has been collecting high res files since 2012 (Tom improve the transfer to AAC). The assumption is they may have the largest available high res library of all the streaming providers but I haven’t seen any numbers so far.
Which is fair enough, Apple hasn’t confirmed anything and one manufacturer is not enough to confirm a serious change to airplay.
Just suggesting if it is in fact the case, that’s pretty compelling given Airplay is in a lot of devices, including HiFi streamers.