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Apple Music, Audiophiles and Streamers.

Super (audiophile) niche topic.


I want to thank Apple for single handedly turning me into an audiophile by introducing Hires streaming and Spatial Audio to its services.


I have since spent tens of thousands in pursuit of a "perfect" sound system, and as any audiophile knows, a signal free of electrical noise is a necessary step towards audio heaven.


The dilemma: a computer has a very "noisy" environment, and as a streaming source, it is less than ideal. We also know that Apple Music will only connect to 3rd party dedicated streamers via Airplay, which will compress any lossless signal. Also not ideal.


This is not the case with streaming services like Tidal, Qobuz and Amazon which allow you to login to your account on these streamers apps, unlike Apple which is sandboxing Apple Music into its ecosystem for wired playback and potentially turning away audiophiles.


Curious to know how others are using Apple Music in their audiophile rig.



iMac Pro

Posted on Jan 2, 2023 5:14 PM

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44 replies

Aug 2, 2023 11:19 AM in response to Dudedelux

8/2/23 Update:


FiiO R7 and Eversolo DMP-A6 are using Apple Music natively via an Android interface and DO NOT CHANGE THE SAMPLE RATE.


The Eversolo has and HDMI out for multi-channel playback, but here is however no support for Dolby. ;(


You can currently only get Dolby out from Apple TV or from a silicon chip device with a dongle, unless you have the Mac Studio.



Aug 9, 2023 2:32 PM in response to Dudedelux

All these hoops to jump through to get what other services offer out of the box. ****, I cannot even get lossless from my Sonos setup unless I use the music app on my Apple TV, the Sonos app just outputs AAC 256! Same on my streamer/hi-if setup. It renders lossless almost pointless on Apple Music let alone hi-res.


I only have Apple Music as I get it free through my mobile plan, no way I’d pay for it right now. On my hifi setup I use Qobuz and get full 24/192. It just works and sounds great.

Aug 20, 2023 11:51 AM in response to Arsenal74

I have a question to those that have been using a Mac Mini as a streamer. Set up is a 2014 Mac Mini 2 TB to a Micromega MyDac into a SR7008 Marantz. Sound seems really good to fantastic through Martin Logan speakers. I'm using Apple Music. When I try to add in Homepods in other parts of the house the sound will cut off for a second connecting to Homepods. When the music resumes on the main system theres a very discernible difference in the sound. A little bit of , through a tin can, change in the sound. Has anyone else experienced this and does anyone know what the @#&% causes it? Is there a fix?

Sep 4, 2023 10:23 AM in response to Dudedelux

I play music from my MacBook Pro to my stereo using a cable that is USB-C to USB-B which is plugged into USB-B connection on my DAC. It is true that Apple Music will not change the bit and sample rate. To do that you need a free piece of software called LossLess Switcher https://github.com/vincentneo/LosslessSwitcher. There is a few millisecond pause as it changes the rate (eg. 16/44 to 24/192). Works seamlessly and now allows you to listen to all of Apple Music hi-res tracks. It has a clean open and airy sound stage. Sound is excellent and defined. I also stream Tidal through Audirvana which is also hi-res and very clean sounding. Apple Music and Tidal hi-res both sound excellent but different. Apple Music has an open and airy sound stage that is wide and behind the speakers, while Tidal's sound stage isn't as wide but has slightly cleaner and more forward sound in its presentation.

Sep 21, 2023 1:52 PM in response to Dudedelux

The Apple Music hi-res lossless option made me curious how this would sound, especially the 24bit/192khz part only to find out you need cabled devices and dac’s to be able to play it. I didn’t want to spend thousands on amp, dac, speakers to find out how it sounds and whether there’s an audiophile hidden inside me. After spending hours on internet searching for a cheap yet decent hi-res audio setup to satisfy my curiosity, I found out that a usb-dongle dac/amp connected with a pair of iem’s via an iPhone/iPad is a cheap way to. I’ve now bought a Fiio ka5 dac/amp with a pair of Aful Performer5 iem’s. And it is a revelation! I’ve been playing 24bit/192khz songs via an iPhone SE 2nd gen and this for less than 350€. I found that my Airpods 3gen played quite well and with a decent bass punch but when I now switch to them after having listened to my “hi-res” setup for a while, they kinda sound like crap. Not that they are crap, my new setup is just so much better. Now I’m starting to think about a hifi setup with amplifier, network streamer, good speakers and subwoofer so go the audiophile way. When checking out the streamers, I disappointingly realised Apple Music is always missing on the list of integrated apps. only Airplay2 is possible but then this is not really lossless. I’ve recently stopped my Deezer subscription to go the Apple way and was planning on going for Apple One, but for sure I will hold of on this for now and might have to skip my Apple Music sub as well and go for Tidal or so, which would be a shame as Apple Music does offer the 24bit/192khz but you just can’t play it on serious hardware. I think that Apple is missing out here, why do the other music streaming apps all seems be to be available and not Apple Music??

Sep 21, 2023 2:37 PM in response to spawn350

Whoa hold on. I had no intention of insulting your intelligence. I’m sorry if it came off that way. I just hadn’t heard of any Apple authorized companies that were actually doing high res AM. Some say they “work with Apple” and they’re just really doing AAC.

So again I apologize if what I said or how I said it came off as an insult.

Apple Music, Audiophiles and Streamers.

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