[PROBLEM] AirPay 1/2 doesn't seem to outputting lossless

[paraatha]

Hello!

I know this has been discussed extensively on this forum and elsewhere but I haven't gotten any sufficiently resolving answers anywhere. The consensus seems to be that setting the Airplay receiver as the system output on a Mac allows for transmission in ALAC, and I was operating under this assumption for the longest time. But I could always hear the reduction in bitrate when compared to local Flac files, which shouldn't be the case for 16/44.4 files.

I checked my network monitor, and AirplayXPCHelper is only uploading at up to 140 KB/s. If this is the streaming speed, it is extremely unlikely to be lossless.

Is Shairport on moode compiled with the --with-alac flag? Does anyone know any more about getting lossless working with Shairport?

This is a really important use-case for me.  Sorry if this question has been beaten to death, I just need a more knowledgeable other to hold my hand with this a little bit.

[Nutul]

Hello!

I know this has been discussed extensively on this forum and elsewhere but I haven't gotten any sufficiently resolving answers anywhere. The consensus seems to be that setting the Airplay receiver as the system output on a Mac allows for transmission in ALAC, and I was operating under this assumption for the longest time. But I could always hear the reduction in bitrate when compared to local Flac files, which shouldn't be the case for 16/44.4 files.

I checked my network monitor, and AirplayXPCHelper is only uploading at up to 140 KB/s. If this is the streaming speed, it is extremely unlikely to be lossless.

Is Shairport on moode compiled with the --with-alac flag? Does anyone know any more about getting lossless working with Shairport?

This is a really important use-case for me.  Sorry if this question has been beaten to death, I just need a more knowledgeable other to hold my hand with this a little bit.

I have read on another forum, where AirPlay 2 is also under scrutiny, the following:

Yes, AirPlay (1 and 2) does support lossless, it's actually Apple that is limiting it to AAC with AirPlay 2 to focus on one of it's intended purpose: multi-device listening with Apple Music. It want to save bandwidth, but they should give us options to bypass but knowing Apple if they give you something you have to do it their way.

It could be not, but also there, people is complaining about seeing AAC only, and at low bitrates; looks too coincidental to me...

If I get some time I can try some tests later on.

[paraatha]

Hello!

I know this has been discussed extensively on this forum and elsewhere but I haven't gotten any sufficiently resolving answers anywhere. The consensus seems to be that setting the Airplay receiver as the system output on a Mac allows for transmission in ALAC, and I was operating under this assumption for the longest time. But I could always hear the reduction in bitrate when compared to local Flac files, which shouldn't be the case for 16/44.4 files.

I checked my network monitor, and AirplayXPCHelper is only uploading at up to 140 KB/s. If this is the streaming speed, it is extremely unlikely to be lossless.

Is Shairport on moode compiled with the --with-alac flag? Does anyone know any more about getting lossless working with Shairport?

This is a really important use-case for me.  Sorry if this question has been beaten to death, I just need a more knowledgeable other to hold my hand with this a little bit.

I have read on another forum, where AirPlay 2 is also under scrutiny, the following:

Yes, AirPlay (1 and 2) does support lossless, it's actually Apple that is limiting it to AAC with AirPlay 2 to focus on one of it's intended purpose: multi-device listening with Apple Music. It want to save bandwidth, but they should give us options to bypass but knowing Apple if they give you something you have to do it their way.

It could be not, but also there, people is complaining about seeing AAC only, and at low bitrates; looks too coincidental to me...

If I get some time I can try some tests later on.

This is really awful, because I can't be procuring my own FLAC files for everything, especially playlists! It gets so expensive and time consuming. Do you have any suggestions for lossless wireless audio streaming from MacOS? If only Airplay worked with lossless there would be truly nothing like it in the world.

[Nutul]

Hello!

I know this has been discussed extensively on this forum and elsewhere but I haven't gotten any sufficiently resolving answers anywhere. The consensus seems to be that setting the Airplay receiver as the system output on a Mac allows for transmission in ALAC, and I was operating under this assumption for the longest time. But I could always hear the reduction in bitrate when compared to local Flac files, which shouldn't be the case for 16/44.4 files.

I checked my network monitor, and AirplayXPCHelper is only uploading at up to 140 KB/s. If this is the streaming speed, it is extremely unlikely to be lossless.

Is Shairport on moode compiled with the --with-alac flag? Does anyone know any more about getting lossless working with Shairport?

This is a really important use-case for me.  Sorry if this question has been beaten to death, I just need a more knowledgeable other to hold my hand with this a little bit.

I have read on another forum, where AirPlay 2 is also under scrutiny, the following:

Yes, AirPlay (1 and 2) does support lossless, it's actually Apple that is limiting it to AAC with AirPlay 2 to focus on one of it's intended purpose: multi-device listening with Apple Music. It want to save bandwidth, but they should give us options to bypass but knowing Apple if they give you something you have to do it their way.

It could be not, but also there, people is complaining about seeing AAC only, and at low bitrates; looks too coincidental to me...

If I get some time I can try some tests later on.

This is really awful, because I can't be procuring my own FLAC files for everything, especially playlists! It gets so expensive and time consuming. Do you have any suggestions for lossless wireless audio streaming from MacOS? If only Airplay worked with lossless there would be truly nothing like it in the world.

Are the files on the Mac? Share a folder, mount it in moOde, index the library and play from there...
If you want to stream whatever FROM the Mac to the Pi I cannot help much... maybe go the Roon way (moOde can be a Roon endpoint)?

[paraatha]

Roon is prohibitively expensive and a major use-case for me is playing high quality mixes off of mixcloud and YouTube, for which I was so far using airplay. I basically want wireless system audio output at 16/44.4 (which Airplay is supposed to be capable of). :/

[Nutul]

Roon is prohibitively expensive and a major use-case for me is playing high quality mixes off of mixcloud and YouTube, for which I was so far using airplay. I basically want wireless system audio output at 16/44.4 (which Airplay is supposed to be capable of). :/

It should... anyway YouTube won't stream at 16/44.1 (don't know about mixcloud...), but mp3, at 320 if you are lucky... so having AirPlay lossless kind of makes no sense...

I thought you had lossless local files

[paraatha]

Hello!

I know this has been discussed extensively on this forum and elsewhere but I haven't gotten any sufficiently resolving answers anywhere. The consensus seems to be that setting the Airplay receiver as the system output on a Mac allows for transmission in ALAC, and I was operating under this assumption for the longest time. But I could always hear the reduction in bitrate when compared to local Flac files, which shouldn't be the case for 16/44.4 files.

I checked my network monitor, and AirplayXPCHelper is only uploading at up to 140 KB/s. If this is the streaming speed, it is extremely unlikely to be lossless.

Is Shairport on moode compiled with the --with-alac flag? Does anyone know any more about getting lossless working with Shairport?

This is a really important use-case for me.  Sorry if this question has been beaten to death, I just need a more knowledgeable other to hold my hand with this a little bit.

I have read on another forum, where AirPlay 2 is also under scrutiny, the following:

Yes, AirPlay (1 and 2) does support lossless, it's actually Apple that is limiting it to AAC with AirPlay 2 to focus on one of it's intended purpose: multi-device listening with Apple Music. It want to save bandwidth, but they should give us options to bypass but knowing Apple if they give you something you have to do it their way.

It could be not, but also there, people is complaining about seeing AAC only, and at low bitrates; looks too coincidental to me...

If I get some time I can try some tests later on.

This is really awful, because I can't be procuring my own FLAC files for everything, especially playlists! It gets so expensive and time consuming. Do you have any suggestions for lossless wireless audio streaming from MacOS? If only Airplay worked with lossless there would be truly nothing like it in the world.

Are the files on the Mac? Share a folder, mount it in moOde, index the library and play from there...
If you want to stream whatever FROM the Mac to the Pi I cannot help much... maybe go the Roon way (moOde can be a Roon endpoint)?

Roon is prohibitively expensive and a major use-case for me is playing high quality mixes off of mixcloud and YouTube, for which I was so far using airplay. I basically want wireless system audio output at 16/44.4 (which Airplay is supposed to be capable of). :/

It should... anyway YouTube won't stream at 16/44.1 (don't know about mixcloud...), but mp3, at 320 if you are lucky... so having AirPlay lossless kind of makes no sense...

I thought you had lossless local files

I have lossless through Apple Music lossless! But this can be mitigated by obtaining FLACs, except for radios and playlists.

[Nutul]

I have lossless through Apple Music lossless! But this can be mitigated by obtaining FLACs, except for radios and playlists.

Then with FLACs you are OK.

The radios... it depends on their stream (moOde has a lot of them, and you can also add your own, provided you know the stream-link, of course) so you can configure them directly in moOde and play them locally.

For the playlists... here I don't get you... where are the tracks of the playlist?

[Always_In_The_Moode]

The other day, I experimented with Apple Music streaming via AirPlay to Moode. I found that it sounded quite 'thin', as if something was missing.

When I streamed Apple Music lossless via my DAP directly to the sound system, it was a lot better.

I will use AirPlay for the rare occasions I need wireless convenience as I do with Bluetooth, not when I want to sit down and immerse myself in enjoyable listening sessions when quality absolutely matters to me.

If AirPlay was essentially nothing more than an AAC stream, then my observations would make complete sense.

[paraatha]

I have lossless through Apple Music lossless! But this can be mitigated by obtaining FLACs, except for radios and playlists.

Then with FLACs you are OK.

The radios... it depends on their stream (moOde has a lot of them, and you can also add your own, provided you know the stream-link, of course) so you can configure them directly in moOde and play them locally.

For the playlists... here I don't get you... where are the tracks of the playlist?

They're on Apple Music... AM streams lossless ALAC from the Apple Music app. This makes everything very convenient for me, it's like having lossless Spotify. That's where all my playlists are.

The playlists within the app are a huge part of my music discovery process, it's mainly how I find new music – through Apple Music and Spotify playlists. Having this process be lossless would be a dream come true.