Q: Noise during Airplay music playback

Hi,

I have the exact same issue. Im using a Marantz SR7005 as the AirPlay reciver hooked up to à pair of Monitor Audio RX8 speakers. The "clicking" is very clear on piano recordings. Play the same track on Spotify through my Mac mini is not an issue though. Same track, no clicking. It's quite annoying. But I guess AirPlay wasn't designed for high end speakers and amp's. It's not nearley as clear on low end speakers.

Is there any solution out there? Or do I have to abandon AirPlay?

Hello,

Just to be sure this is not a track issue : did you make sure the file you play through Airplay has no noise when you play it directly from the audio mini jack ?

A same audio track can be encoded very differently on Spotify than it is on, say, the iTunes store. You need to compare the exact same audio file with and without airplay to be sure.

Meanwhile, I wrote to Marantz U.S. and got this reply.

"

Hello Michael,

Unless there's a malfunction in the DAC or DSP of your unit, I would first make sure your Cat 5/ Cat 6 line running from the 603 to your router isn't paralleled with any power cables or wall circuits. If the cables are too close together or aren't shielded properly that can generate noise to the input stage of the 603. Also, do you use a power conditioner, upgraded power cables, etc... to suppress any noise coming in?

If the DAC or DSP were the issue you would also notice this problem on playback of Internet based servers such as Internet Radio (vTuner) or Pandora. I will try duplicating the issue here with the file you've attached, but I can tell you that no one else has reported this issue to warrant a firmware update.

If I'm not able to duplicate the issue, the best course of action would be to have your unit looked at by an authorized technician to evaluate for any physical malfunctions. I will let you know the results of my testing within the next 48 hours.

Thank you"

Unfortunately, I received another email a few days later saying that the U.S. tech service could not process my request because I live overseas....

This has nothing to do with airplay being high-end or not. Digital data should be transferred without corrupting it. The clicks are very different from the type of noise introduced by inferior encoding. Even a 128kbit mp3 should not have these clicks let alone an apple lossless file or a high bitrate mp3.

There is really no excuse for this speculating that "airplay is not designed for high-end". That's like saying "this hdmi cable was not designed for streaming that genre of movies". The transport of data is digital and should be without error. If the bandwidth is a problem than it shouldn't support the file format, but that's not an issue with audio these days since we're not talking about much data even with lossless. The data at the receiving end should be an exact copy of what is stored on disk.

No way! It's Apple's airplay fault 100%, i have connected id thousands of times directly to the A/V receiver with a cheap jack - RCA cable and there are no pops & cracks.

As said by someone before, it's most noticeable in piano tracks due to them being played at a much higher volume than normal pop/rock tracks.

I'm going to test the new Airplay mirroring in Mountain Lion as soon as i can and see if the noise is still there, as it is supposed to be a slightly different protocol than the pure Airplay for audio.

I've had the same problem.

Apple TV2 connected via HDMI to a Onkyo HT-RC 360 audio receiver. It seems that when the TV is on and the receiver is feeding the video from the ATV to the TV the sound disappears even if it's just the apple screen saver. But as soon as the receiver changes inputs, say to the DVD player, it comes back after a minute. I've tried with an optic cable. The problem persists.

Ethernet doesn't change anything either.

So Airplay at least for Atv and APexpress is currently broke on a software level and there is nothing we can do except revert APexpress back to a previous firmware? I have been dealing with this for going on 2 years... Apple please fix, it is software. If I play the exact same music through the remote app, no clicks or pops, the moment I use Airplay, clicks and pops. The people who say it isn't there are not listening to certain types of music over airplay, have lo-fi set up lol, or just cant hear then. It sounds almost exactly like "vinyl" pops. I have ruled out everything. Changed reveiver setups, optical vs hdmi vs 3.5mm, all Airplay has light pops and remote app doesn't so it can only be Airplay. A couple years ago I remember them starting after a firmware update....who would of thought... Apple please fix, you are like the largest most profitable company in the world, dont go the way of Microsoft...

I am not talking about home sharing but itunes match through the Atv.

I'd be interested to know if this problem persisted when you used airplay mirroring for mountain lion? I've had this problem using airplay on snow leopard and gave up using airplay. Before I dismantle my hifi setup, is there any improvement?

OK, I have the same thing, and I wish Apple would at least contribute here ...

I can hear occasional cracking noises / pops when playing songs via iTunes Airplay to my receiver.

Setup:

• PC, Windows 7
• iTunes 10.7.0.21
• Gigabit Ethernet (Intel Pro 1000 GT)
• Switches: Netgear + AVM Fritz
• Cat 6 cables all over
• Denon AVR-3313

Some findings:

• Cracks occur with mp3s as well as with Apple Lossless tracks
• Sometimes there seem to be more cracks while the "Remote" app is running on my iPhone, especially while setting the volume
• Cracks are not reproduceable: When I hear a crack and rewind to hear the same section again, there mostly is no crack where one was before
  --> The cracks do not stem from the audio material / files
• There are no cracks when using spdif
• There are no cracks when streaming directly from e.g. my iPhone (via WiFi)

To me it seems like a problem either with AirPlay or iTunes itself.

Any help is appreciated.

Never paid attention to the remote control app. I'll have to check.

I used to have an iPad retina and the cracks where also there. That was a deal breaker... sold it within the week.

I now use iTunes exclusively through SPDIF as well...

IMHO, this is an Apple TV/airplay issue, not an iTunes problem. I can play back any track perfectly when connecting directly to any computer (Mac or PC), regardless of whether I'm streaming over ethernet, wireless or directly from the computer. The minute I stream through any of my 3 Apple TVs, whether ethernet or wireless (they're all wired, but I tested both ethernet and wireless) the digital noise reappears, especially with piano music, and increases as volume increases.

It makes listening to music unbearable. My iTunes library is 90% lossless and of high quality. This is a bug Apple needs to fix. I'm wondering why I bought those Apple TVs...........I thought at first it was a huge bargain: $300 to equip every room with our library of music and video. Right now, it's no bargain.

I'm having the exact same problem. As a classical music lover, this is driving me nuts. It's especially noticable in soft passages in the music, when the volume is turned up high. When the dynamics increase, the little pops/clicks appear (they sound a bit like static noise, as someone stated earlier in this thread). It happens at irregular intervals. When you play pop music, the clicks will disappear (drown) in the music. But for true audiophiles who listen mainly to jazz and classical music this is a severe problem.

I have checked everything and it's definitely an airplay issue. My apple lossless files are 100% okay and play without any problem, except when streamed via airplay. Also, it makes no difference whether you use the analogue or the optical ouptut from the airport express.

I hope Apple will fix this (do they read this forum?). I hope it's a software issue in the streaming protocol. When it's the hardware that can't handle big, high quality files, we're lost.

I already filled a bug report with Apple. It seems that all of us are experiencing the same issue, specially noticeable during piano music. I encourage you to do the same and also fill a bug report! I don't know if they ever read this forums, i guess not.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html

Hope we can get this issue fixed soon!

I've tried playing a track from a Hi-Fi test CD:

Wide Sweep: 5 Hz - 22.05 KHz, L + R, -15 Db

The noise/distortion happens at exactly the same points in the track - every time!

This suggests that the problem occurs at certain frequencies.

Others possible explanations:

The problem might occur at certain volumes on the track.

I'm not sure whether the transfer rate changes through a track. If it does, the problem could be occurring at certain transfer rates.

hi Richard,

That's an interesting test and a very good method to reveal the problem! I've created a sine frequency sweep myself in Adobe Audition, from 20 Hz up to 20000 Hz with a duration of 25 seconds and a level of -6 dB.

When played through airplay, the clicks always start to appear after 4 seconds in the sweep, only to disappear at 23 seconds.

The clicks manifest themselves at different volume levels. To my ears, they make the same sound as when you change the volume in iTunes when streaming music through airplay. Only when you set the volume in iTunes extremely low, the clicks will disappear.

Apple engineers should use a frequency sweep to recreate the problem, as this is very revealing.

PS: file format isn't an issue here. I've converted the Apple Lossless file to MP3, and it makes no difference at all.