ARC/Carplay vs Apple Music

In the car, I have my Roon Playlist copied over to apple music.

All my Roon files are FLAC HQ rips, however, Apple Music sounds clearly better.

Anyone else do a comparison?

How do you know Apple Music is playing the exact same version or release?

Are they both playing the same quality of files to begin with?

What’s are arcs streaming settings original, cd, balanced or bandwidth optimised. What’s Apple Music streaming at?

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All good questions.

defiantly not the same version or release, but there’s 1000s of songs Im basing the quality on.

I now changed arc streaming form Automatically pick best quality to be Original Format. Maybe the files were optimized anyway. Hopefully, that has some effect.

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Automatic tends to air on caution and transcode to opus.

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Continuing CrystalGipsy’s suggestion:
I’ve found the opposite to be true - Apple Music often sounds worse.
Most of my FLAC rips are from the original CD release as to my ears many, if not most, remastered versions sound worse than the one before it (Loudness Wars).
That said many people prefer the remastered versions and/or perceive louder as sounding better and that’s fine.
Usually the version on streaming services is the most recent mastering so as suggested it’s quite possible the versions you’re hearing on Apple Music are not the same as your CD rips or your ARC settings are having an effect.

Edit: Posted before I saw OP’s response :woman_shrugging:

I thought the Roon Arc sounded better than Apple Music. But not significantly. Also I will Apple Music is more reliable with CarPlay and such.

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