Has anyone had issues playing "Apple Lossless Audio" using an ATV2?

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Has anyone had issues playing "Apple Lossless Audio" using an ATV2?

I have been using Apple TV for some time now. Works great so I decided to rip my cd collection to "apple lossless". Once I finished ripping 400 cd's I started using my new music files. I hear pops, and cracks on different songs and this is just unacceptable. Apple claims that it supports these files. I decided to test the new music files and go back to the old hookup using an Asus XONAR Essence ST audio card. Using iTunes and this audio card it works perfectly. Has anyone else ran into this problem? Apple TV works great and I would love to use it for my music..... 😐

Apple TV 2 hooked to AV Receiver (HDMI)

other setup

Windows 7 64 bit

6 gig of RAM

720 gig HD

Asus XONAR audio card

hooked to same receiver using RCA

Posted on Mar 29, 2015 11:17 AM

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Answer 1

Alley_Cat

Level 7

20,548 points

Mar 29, 2015 12:28 PM in response to Buddy783064

Can't say I've experienced that. How are you playing the music on AppleTV?

Via Computers icon Music submenu would be best. You can of course use AppleTV as an Airplay speaker from iTunes - if you are doing this and AppleTv is connecting via wifi try using the Computers menu instead - Airplay streams can be affected by poor wifi or interference, I once had an Airport Express with dropouts/clicks from the audio port due to interference.

Another consideration would be what AppleTV does to audio - unfortunately it seems to change the sample rate from 44.1 kHz to 48 kHz which I'd rather it didn't do.

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Answer 2

Buddy783064 Author

Level 1

0 points

Mar 29, 2015 1:18 PM in response to Alley_Cat

Hi Alley_Cat,

thanks for giving me the advice, so I checked my settings in airplay and it was on. Not sure why, but it was so I have turned that off. Right now I am testing to see if this works better. I was playing music files from (computer/Music/Genre/Rock/All/play. I also have noticed on my receiver that it is playing at PCM 48 kHz.

Thank You, cheers

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Answer 3

Alley_Cat

Level 7

20,548 points

Mar 29, 2015 3:01 PM in response to Buddy783064

I'd expect it to play correctly if you were accessing from Computers icon submenus - this access method 'pulls' the file across the network for playback, whereas Airplay from iTunes to AppleTV pushes the currently playing audio as a stream (so any audio enhancements in iTunes get added to this stream) which I think is more prone to problems with network interference.

I'm not sure why you should be getting these clips and pops if playing through Computers icon - don't suppose you've altered volume levels of tracks in iTunes itself or normalised the rips? Not that it should really matter.

In AppleTVs settings make sure that you turn Sound Check off as it usually makes things sound worse.

Audio output can also be set to Auto or 16 bit for HDMI audio - might be worth checking if one setting or another helps.

Also do try a different HDMI lead if possible, check all connections inc speaker terminals (once had weird dropouts due to a loose cable intermittently shorting).

If you have a spare optical cable you could try audio out via that too - both that and HDMI audio are active at the same time - just to try to see if it's an HDMI related issue or if it's the PCM being output that's wrong irrespective of output type.

Good luck with it.

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