Will lossless audio work via Airplay 2 and my receiver?

Thank you very much for your documentation.

I’ve already observed an inconsistent behavior when AirPlay is involved. I’ll share your gathered informations on other forums where we’re following and debating this issue.

Suddenly today I tried playback streaming Apple Music lossless with AirPlay from iPad to my receiver (AirPlay 1) and the “lossless” icon stayed on! If they really fixed it so that iOS/iPadOS can send at least 44/16 through AirPlay, this is the best scenario listening lossless audio for me. Unfortunately my Pioneer AVR doesn’t show quality information for AirPlay but at least the iPad icon keeps visible and the song doesn’t seem to re-buffering at output switching

psideras wrote:

Suddenly today I tried playback streaming Apple Music lossless with AirPlay from iPad to my receiver (AirPlay 1) and the “lossless” icon stayed on!

Be aware that it is not clear that the icon on means that you are getting lossless.

I agree it’s confusing. I tried this experiment. Setup was AirPod Pro Max wireless connection to current iPad Pro. Click settings, music, audio quality. Turn off lossless audio. Open Apple Music app. Play a lossless song. No lossless logo. Close Music App. Back to setup and turn lossless audio back on. Open music app and play the same song. Logo is back. Clicking on the logo shows data rate. Given this setup the logo seems to working fine.

I Think, there is a misunderstanding. Airplay transmit an ( in this case) audio archive. The protocol can use ALAC or AAC or MP3 archives. Home pod and Home pod mini, receive from Apple Music the archive in AAC. Now, Apple Music receive the archive from de server in AAC ( traditional), lossless ( 16/44, 16/48 or 24/48). The protocol it use to transmit the archive via airplay TO HOMEPOD OR HOME POD MINI is AAC but it is going to be corrected later this year. If you have another airplay speaker, if you want lossless audio, turn on Lossless in the settings and use airplay. The archive that the speaker receive is ALAC up to 24/48. The the speaker DAC do the rest. If you digitalize CD to ALAC 16/44, and use Apple Music, the soft transmit ALAC 16/44 as always. IPad and IPhone handles the the different rates better than Mac ( in MAC you need to change the MIDI settings) or use Audirvana ( for local audio, not lossless Apple Music ). At the end, try to enjoy the music!!!

PD sorry for my bad English.

I have a Yamaha receiver RXV4A with the Music Cast app. They state it supports hi res streaming? I know it supports AP1 &2. So the way I understand it is, through airplay it will not be lossless. If I want lossless I need to connect my iPad via USB ? This seems more complicated than it needs to be. Thanks.

Hi Less, what is your setup you are trying to use? If it’s the Matranz and Sonos, I doubt you’ll hear a difference between the 44.1 transmission cap via AirPlay 2 and true hiRes at 192. if you however have a capable amp and a decent pair of speakers, it makes a world off difference.

My Lyngdorf amp is showing me the incoming Bitrate. I can’t get airplay over 44.1!

This is the main reason why I have left the Apple Music eco-system… as Apple these days is more busy in gating their systems than actually bringing user centric. My strong dislike for Apple Music started, when I noticed that in a iTunes auto-update, it overwrote all ALAC files I had from about 600 ripped albums (that I gave away) into their frigging compressed format!! Now just to force you into their eco-system they don’t support any streaming protocols they don’t own and can’t capitalise, hence being useless for HiRes streaming.

Thus I switched to Tidal and have Roon as a home Server on which I now store ripped CD‘s… and with Tidal connect, if the amp supports, it connects directly and lossless 192 and above happens without any issues.

added benefit is that if more people realise there are other option (even Googlecast which is free, offers double the Bitrate whilst streaming) that Apple might rethink to get their patchy music offering back on Track as it ain’t 2004 anymore and the rest of the world moved…

Catching up with the comments concerning Apple Music Lossless and AirPlay. 🤔 So it appears Apple Music lossless is converted to the standard AAC over AirPlay although it’s very hard to find out what’s actually being streamed. Interestingly Amazon Music gives music quality, device capability and what it’s currently playing so on my iPad ‘it states’ a 24/96khz track plays at 24/48khz FLAC. If it’s to be believed it’s achieving the equivalent of Apple Lossless although not HiRes as limited by iPad.

In my case, when I activate the lossless resolution with streaming by WIFI, Airplay stream in lossless ( no AAC), up to 24/48. If you have a Home Pod or Home pod mini, it convert in AAC ( later this year is going to update the homepod with lossless audio).

According to the current Apple Music AirPlay behavior, being Apple TV 3rd generation an AirPlay 1 device, you'll get a lossless ALAC 44.1 kHz stream.

The output won't be bit perfect, though, due to the already mentioned upsampling, which is an alteration. Some purists would even argue that the upsampling process means losing the "losslessness"...

Thanks for your documentation. It sounds like all of your testing was done streaming through Apple Music? I've heard that local lossless tracks will always be played as lossless on all Apple Music apps: macOS, iOS, iPadOS. Not sure if there is a difference here between a track downloaded from Apple Music vs. a locally ripped lossless track.

Hopefully this all get's sorted out when HomePod gets lossless, as HomePod uses Airplay.

You can stream hi res audio (>16/44.1) to your Apple TV from your local files on your Mac or pc (itunes needs to be open) using homesharing (Apple TV “computers” app), rather than airplay. In this case data is pulled rather than pushed, and utilises a DNLA-like protocol rather than Airplay. It can pull 24/192 audio.

Interesting, I don't have Apple TV but it sounds like the old Airport Express option. I thought I read that local files on iPad/iPhone come through as lossless over Airplay—it's only the streaming function that forces lossy AAC over Airplay (or without Apple TV as in your setup.) More searching researching to do...

Yes, as best as I can tell, if you have an ALAC file that you've ripped yourself, then Apple Music will preserve the lossless format when sending it to an AirPlay 2 receiver. I've only tested this from a Mac because there isn't a good way to get an ALAC to my phone without turning off cloud syncing, which I haven't wanted to do.

Out of all of these replies, has anyone actually checked the input stream reported by the receiver? I know DENON has this capability, and I’m sure others do as well. I’ll check mine later when I’m streaming lossless tracks via AirPlay 2. In any case, Apple needs to sort this out. It’s really unusual for them to launch a new feature with so much inconsistency and lack of transparency around how it works.