I currently use Airplay to a 4th gen AppleTV, from the Roon app on my iPhone. I use a HDMI audio extractor to connect the Apple TV to a DAC/Preamp (McIntosh C48).
I know that the Airplay protocol somehow doesn’t keep the integrity of the original audio file, but the convenience of just instantly pausing whatever apple TV is playing and listening to music while the album artwork appears on your TV is just great.
So my question is: is there any trick, hardware or software combination that would allow me to have both the artwork visualization and a lossless, untouched audio stream?
To add a more detailed description of my system, I’m currently storing lossless files in AIFF format (most of them at CD quality, but a few higher res files too) in an external LaCie RAID drive connected to a MacMini.
I think developing a remote app on ATV is possible and there’s a thread in this forum requesting that, either from Roonlab or a third party. But that will be an independent app which requires you to stop what you are currently watching and open the app to play the music, not “pausing whatever Apple TV is playing and listening to music”.
If you’re pursuing ATV to be an endpoint supporting RAAT, it’s not going to happen unless ATV can be jailbroken, yet nobody is working on jailbreaking ATV anymore.
In theory, it shouldn’t take much work from the developers of the current iOS Roon app.
The only downside I can see is people buying the ‘remote’ app and expecting it to play music via the Apple TV (assuming they don’t implement that as well, which they could).
I’d love the room interface on my TV when listening to music.