Will lossless audio work via Airplay 2 and my receiver?

 SONOS suggests connecting to SONOS speakers through Airplay protocol to play Hi-Resolution Lossless. SONY walkman supports Hi-Resolution music many years ago.

This is the only reason why I did not renew my subscription after trial. Am happier with an alternate service via a upnp/dlna app controller streaming full Hi-Res to my Hifi system in the meantime.

Your statement at best is currently misleading and incorrect..

The latest evidences show that Music app handles AirPlay 1 and 2 differently with Apple Music.

As I assumed in my "cheat sheet", AirPlay 1 provides ALAC, AirPlay 2 AAC. The reason is still debated.

Basically "older" protocol and devices using it are getting lossless CD quality, newer not. We'll see, when Apple will update the HomePod family (which are AirPlay 2) to support lossless, whether AirPlay 2 handling in general will change as well or not.

Probably a new post here but here are my thoughts. I subbed to Tidal some years ago. That was streamed via Express ii, to Arcam FMJ, pre and power amps, biwired and bi-amped into 3 way Mission 782 floor standers. Probably not reference, but not too terrible.

Compared to Spotify, Tidal had what I can only describe as ‘sparkle’. My opinion at the time was that Spotify’s 320kbps sounded dull, flat, two dimensional, call it what you like. Tidal provided more zip by a fair margin. Decided I couldn’t afford it after 6 months and went back to Spotify.

Fast forward April this year bought 2 x Homepods as discontinuation was announced, initially to improve TV audio via Apple TV. My opinion is these are truly ‘smart’ speakers. Not much use for the weather forecast in Acapulco, but for sheer musical entertainment, they’re knockout. They’re testament to Apple research and development (and sometimes rather wonky marketing). I’m upset when I hear people refer to them as ‘low end’ - they’re anything but, a wonderful piece of technical innovation and engineering.

I can stream to the Homepods, the 782s and the Zepplelin via AP 2 and compare and contrast. That’s another story.

But my point is that whether or not I’m listening to lossless or AAC, the quality of both Amazon HD and Apple Music is outstanding at half the price of Tidal. My opinion is Apple Music is possibly a more refined sound to Amazon, which has a slightly ‘rough edge’ in comparison. Source is important, but other factors are important too. And the biggest factor by far is whether the music sounds great to you and you enjoy what you’re hearing.

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.

Thank you Marco, i've been looking for this answer since AM launched hi-rez lossless.

Till now no one explained this as clear and understandable as you!! Really appreciate.

This explains why technically hi-rez provides better bit rate vs. my CD ripped local files, and still ripped file sounds better while I play same song via same DAC. At the end, AirPlay doesn't support hi-rez lossless.... bitter truth it is.

For the time being I'll keep AM as my music source since the price performance ratio is reasonable for a 6ppl usage.

Maybe can really enjoy hi-rez only when AirPlay supports higher bit-rate streaming... Just not sure whether this is the plan for Apple.

If streaming from a Mac via Airplay 2 to an Airport Express but with everything connected by ethernet (not WiFi), does the desktop Apple Music app still force convert any streamed music (not local files) to AAC even if preferences are set to lossless?

And if using another Mac desktop app like Idagio that streams lossless 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC files, is the Airport Express still going to resample that to 48kHz (rather than just play it at 44.1kHz) and therefore not be bit perfect?

Apple TV has a fixed output set on 48 kHz.

The 44.1 kHz will be upsampled to 48.kHz in your case.

Besides, Apple Music lossless is available on Apple TV 4K only.