DAC doesn't show the correct quality information with Apple Music on MacOS

Possible reasons:

• HiRes Pass-Thru is only perceivable if you have audio hardware that comes with a purchase price in the four- to five-digit range. That's far beyond what most customers are willing to pay. Apple Music is designed to be an on-the-go service for prosumer listeners who are happy with their AirPods. It is not intended for people who buy an Esoteric DAC to hook their B&W Nautilus speakers on to.
• Apple does not want to ruin the business of companies like Audirvana, JRiver, qobuz, Tidal and others, who pioneered HiRes Audio over a decade ago already.

Your second bullet point is so inaccurate I can't help but empathize with Android/Windows users' distaste for Apple fans (I'm an Apple fan).

Don't be so naive. Apple is a publicly traded company. This means quarter over quarter growth is obligatory in every single product and service category. Apple has their growth down to a science and they always monetize every single feature beyond what any analyst at JP Morgan or Goldman Sachs could ever expect.

Apple Music Exclusive mode will be no different and will surely launch alongside a product that Apple wants you to buy.

Apple, fix this.

I am using Roon, connected to Qobuz, and NOT Apple Music, because of the lack of Exclusive Mode in Apple Music on my Mac. Why can't I have both?

Yes, u are right, thanks

Super helpful answer. But do you know what happens if music file is 48 or 96? Does it degrade the sample when upsampling?

Based on research using Apple's about lossless audio page and Darko's video,

• iPhone lighting max is 24/48, so therefore it only plays Apple "Lossless"
• AirPlay max is 24/48
• MacOS is subject to up/down sampling at user's whim via Audio MIDI Setup.
• iPad with USB-C can play up to 24/192, and therefore Apple "Hi-Res Lossless"
• AppleTV 4K over HDMI max is 24/48

It seems except MacOS, all other devices play bit-perfect up to their max, and one would assume downsample at higher rates. My thread on same here

My screenshots of Qobuz and Tidal MacOS apps don't show the full picture - what also happens is that whatever is coming from the stream library is then passed through unresampled to the external DAC (and yes, I'm not talking about MQA here - that's a whole different bag of hurt). The Qobuz screenshot shows a Hires song streaming in, through Qobuz app, to my external DAC, at 192k/24. The external App also shows the same data rate. You are correct, Qobuz is controlling Apple Midi and switching the rate to match the source, but the result is the same - no resampling.

It should be trivial for Apple Music to at least do the same.

I also have Roon (similar in some respects to Audirvana and JRiver), which is my preferred way to play Qobuz and Tidal sources. It provides a setting to take exclusive control of the external USB DAC, which is what I'm hoping Apple will implement for their Apple Music player, without which their lossless music offering remains incomplete.

All I am asking from Apple is for them to make it seamless for me to stream their lossless music in a bit perfect fashion to my DAC equipment. I cannot do that with Apple Music right now, because I have to fiddle with Apple Midi to set the rates equal to stop it from doing a resample.