Apple will be supporting three levels of Lossless audio. I believe these will be CD quality (16-bit/44.1kHz), Apple Music Lossless (24-bit/48kHz), and Hi-Res Lossless (up to 24-bit/192kHz).
I was curious if…
Shairport Sync supports higher audio streams than what Apple has had to date.
If there is a way to see on the RopieeeXL setup what the current playing stream quality is.
I really like how Roon shows the audio path the whole way, and would love if you could validate the same for other streams.
Airplay for audio doesn’t support higher than 44.1 so that’s all you get regardless of the incoming stream source resolution. Apple Music only send out aac for any AirPlay 2 client so you don’t even get lossless to start with when using an Airplay 2 client.
To get Apple Music lossless audio, you need to use a wired iPhone, iPad, or Mac running the Apple Music app. For high resolution Apple Music lossless, you need to attach a DAC. When I say wired, I mean wired headphones, etc.