Interesting. Thanks
I wrote this just last week !
Just 1 week later we already have different Airplay2 behaviour
Good things to come next year I reckon.
If only the iPhone display is mirrored and the sound does not even come from the iPhone WiFi / Airplay 2, but only from the wired latest MacBook models directly from the cloud, that is poor handling of Hi-Res information, to put it mildly.
Itās not the customerās fault, but Apple should be clearer about what works when on which device with which technical basics. It seems to me that very little is possible without current and large Homepods and Macbooks. No high-resolution music should be sold, but especially new technology. Preferably from the speaker to the Mac to the iPhone. If only one part is missing, the currently given away Apple Music may fail in the highest quality level.
Make sure you really emphasise to whoever wants to reproduce this, that they need a way for their DAC to confirm the bit perfectness, not just a DAC showing matching sample rate with Audio MIDI.
Its very clear to me that you understand what Iāve tested here and the results I got but I can imagine a lot of misunderstanding by some others.
This is interesting @dabassgoesboomboom, nice work.
That said this is a little unfair.
Itās fairer to say that Jimmyās glass remains empty, yours is an optimistic take
As far as I know AirPlay (either 1 or 2) is per se bit perfect capable.
The bit perfect problem arose specifically with Apple Music and its Music app where the streamed tracks are somehow altered by Music app before being sent to an AirPlay receiver or even directly to a DAC via a Lighting adapter.
If the RME ADI-2 DAC test doesnāt involve Appleās Music app, then yes, it confirms that the AirPlay session to Monterey is bit perfect. Unfortunately the Apple Music issue persist.
Yes all that is known - but the big difference here is PCM192kHz playing bit perfectly over AirPlayā¦ specifically iOS to macOS as Airplay Receiver.
Iām not claiming all forms of Airplay are now hi-res (Iām sure someone would jump in with that soon).
And I made no claims that anything has changed with Apple Music.
This is about Airplay behaving differently to before with this new macOS feature.
A small but good step for Airplayā¦
The hi-res thing is definitely interesting and worth to be explored.
Iāll ask Chris (Audiophile Style) who owns a Berkeley Audio Design DAC that offer a bit perfect check to verify the hi-res AirPlay.
Well this means Airplay is no longer limited to 44.1/48kHz - in this particular use.
The thing we all want is to Airplay from an iPad to an Airplay streamer or networked DAC/speakers up to PCM192k (from any iOS app, not even just Apple Music !).
And weāre not there yet but this is an important step to getting there I reckon.
I donāt know how robust his bit perfect testing is (compared to RMEās own test files at different sample rates) but regardless what he gets, this is what I get:
24 bit 192kHz RME test file on iPhone ā Airplay (wifi, no cables!) ā macOS ā USB to TOSlink converter ā RME ADI-2 DAC
And btw, just to be clear:
Iām not planning to use this feature at all for music listening, as it is right now.
I was just more interested in this seemingly new hi-res support in this particular Airplay useā¦ optimistic about where this will end up next year.
Iām done testing for now. Back to enjoying the music using normal playback methods !
As far as I understand Apple Music was not involved in your test. If you subscribe to AM, it would to be interesting to do the test again ā does a hi-res file on AM play as a hi-res file through Airplay from iPad to Mac (connected via DAC to USB)? Or does AM still downsample to 256 AAC? My streamer indicates 192 kHz, but that may be due to the fact that Iāve set MIDI to 192 ā doesnāt tell me all that much about whether upsampling is involved or not (after all, you can upsample 256 AAC as much as you want, in the end itās still lossless).
Sorry: should read ā LOSSY.
Yeah the whole issue has been with Apple Music and Airplay 2. Apple Music will be lossless at cd quality when streaming to streamer with older Airplay. Whatās new here is showing that using 3rd party app, youāre able to send hires over Airplay at least to a Mac. So shows Airplay is capable of hires. None of this shows Apple Music itself has been fixed.
Nothing to indicate it was broken, so nothing to fix. I would say itās a chosen feature, for reasons already discussed.
I sort of get that in that there is nothing on their site that says lossless works over Airplay 2. But in this modern world where wireless should have no issues, seems weird. Roon sends hires 192k files wireless has no issues. You can stream a 4K movie from your phone to the tv with no issues. Now is it actually 4K at that point, Iām not sure.
Well, Iām into my AM trial, itās learning my tastes, and I have to say (within the known limitations) āit just worksā! I havenāt fired up my Roon core for a couple of weeks (as they canāt be fāed with energy saving measures, it can stay off). Roon sounds better, but I canāt always be bothered with the drama, and AM works in the car. Change my mind!!!
Apple on mobile devices works great. I like Qobuz but it has become very buggy in Roon. I switched to Tidal for now and TIdal works great on mobile devices and has lossless TIdal connect on many of my devices.
You are right about the drama.