Newsroom Update

Apple Music today announced the release of its 100 Best Albums of all time, a list crafted by Apple Music’s experts alongside industry professionals. Learn more >

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Eprom1 Author

Level 1

25 points

Lossless Audio: external DAC only getting 44kHz, not lossless.

Good news that Apple announced lossless audio. The question is only, when we will notice the advantage of lossless sources. In MacOS Big Sur, audio data is still routed through the MacOS mixer software. Thus, an external USB DAC only receives what 'Audio MIDI Setup' allows it to pass through.

By default this is 44kHz and it is either up- or downmixing all the time, so even if the mixer is configured for 192kHz, the DAC will not get the unmodified raw audio.

AFAIK, the only currently available way to bypass the OS and have a true lossless audio experience is the Audirvana App which bypasses the OS, but does not support Apple Music (at this time).

Does Apple plan a fix for this limitation? Without proper routing of audio data to an external DAC, there will be no lossless experience on Apple Music :-(

Mac mini 2018 or later

Posted on Jul 5, 2021 2:13 PM

Best reply

Marco Klobas

Level 6

8,255 points

Posted on Jul 6, 2021 8:54 AM

Leave a feedback suggesting Exclusive Mode for Music app on macOS:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/apple-music.html

View in context

Lossless Audio: external DAC only getting 44kHz, not lossless.

Similar questions