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

Rest assured that anything that is passed through the mixer of the OS is degraded a bit.

Qobuz, Tidal, Amazon Music HD… they all have no bit-accurate mode either in their own apps. Because bypassing the OS is a difficult task, and only sound enthusiasts with expensive DACs hear the difference.

If You want bit-accurate output, You‘ll have to use Audirvana or Jriver and live with the few streaming services they support.

There is a difference between „Exclusive Mode“ and bit-accurate pass-through. Exclusive Mode just allows the app itself to use the OS routines exclusively, preventing other apps from interfering with the mixer, while Qobuz / Tidal / Amazon Music are playing.

It is a small improvement, but it‘s still not lossless and hence not replacing paid software like Audirvana or Jriver.

Qobuz e.g. temporarily switches the OS MIDI settings so that Your DAC will show the correct bitrate. Amazon Music, in exclusive mode, stays with the bitrate that is configured in the OS settings. I haven‘t used Tidal for a while because MQA is not lossless anyway, but their exclusive mode will do the same and uses OS routines to transport the stream.

The term „losless“ and „exclusive“ are often used buzzwords and you need to dig deep into technical details to find our what you actually get.

Again, the question is, do You really notice a difference. And that totally depends on Your equipment (DAC, Speakers etc.). For most people, app-exclusive mode should be fair enough. But You cannot tell unless You have heard the same on Audirvana or Jriver which are bit-accurate and do a comparison on Your own equipment.

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.

As long as the data is passed through the OS routines, it‘s not bit-accurate. Esp. when the OS-based volume control is still functional.

If you search for „WASAPI vs. ASIO“ you will find a similar discussion for Microsoft Windows Systems on the web. It‘s a different OS but the caveats are the same.

I have not tried roon myself, but people complaining that it might not be bit-accurate either under the hood keep me from trying it at the moment. Do a web search for „Audirvana vs roon“ if you wish to dig deeper.

However, I have never seen complaints about Audirvana, so I will stick with it for now. In case Apple will ever decide to implement a bit-accurate feature in Apple Music in future, I will do a side-by-side comparison with some hi-res audio and post it here.

I observed that  Music via AirPlay 2 can be used with- our without using the built-in mixer in MacOS:

Open Music, click on the AirPlay Symbol in the top right corner and then chose a wireless AirPlay 2 Device for direct output instead of the audio path via the computer.

The MacOS master volume and all mixer controls will become inactive and the audio stream is not even visible in Audio MIDI Setup (which is a good sign).

Unfortunately, my AirPlay 2 Speaker used for testing does not have a bitrate display, thus I cannot verify whether or not the stream is converted in transit. Anybody reading this can possibly verify and post his/her observation here?

PS: this "direct" mode cannot be enabled on AirPods/Pro.

PPS: The external Airplay 2-compatible amplifier will expose its own volume control, which is a bit laggy over a WiFi network. Under some circumstances, the volume was suddenly set to 100% (!) Seems to be a bug in the Music App.

I really like Apple Music.

However, the missing exclusive mode im macOS for the USB digital out is very, very disappointing.

☹️

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?