I think that I have finally come up with a solution for streaming Apple Music to Sonos that is a fully lossless playback chain.

When I stream Apple Lossless from my iPhone to an Apple TV 4K, the Apple TV consistently shows that it is playing either lossless or hi-res audio. I attached the Apple TV to an HDMI splitter with a digital display that gives you information on the audio and video streams, and the Apple TV puts out a fixed 24/48 over HDMI.

Using an AmazonBasics HDMI Audio Extractor, I can output the audio over SPDIF. I haven't been able to find tech specs on the audio extractor, but if it can handle 4K video, I assume it can handle 2-channel 24/48 audio.

Right now I am running SPDIF into a Sonos Amp via the Sonos optical to HDMI Arc adapter. For as kludgy a solution as this is, it sounds pretty good, and I am able to stream from Apple Music to the Apple TV 4K without routing the signal through a TV.

I assume that everything is getting resampled to 24/48 and I am routing HDMI to optical SPDIF to HDMI Arc, but I think I finally confidently have a lossless playback chain from Apple Music to Sonos.

That should work. A very niche solution though.    Curious what Apple will do. They always specified hi res content from providers. The implementation of lossless and hi res on Apple Music is excellent. It sounds really good and I much prefer the Apple UI and alogoriths are excellent having trialled all other streaming services My radio station and new music really. Sound like personally created for me. 
 

But all other services are better integrated with other manufacturers hardware. Given their reluctance to share API then AirPlay upgrade is my guess. 

Living with Apple Music lossless 

i don’t want to listen to lossy files anymore on hifi  don’t notice difference listening on Sonos or out and about

24 bit recordings bit sound better than 16 but on hifi beyond that not convinced

 Bits might be bits but in practice Sonos is not a good enough source for good hifi    Playing Apple Music lossless files from iPhone rather than via Sonos has been difference between wanting to listen occasionally and at every opportunity  Sonos for everyday use round house absolutely  For focused listening to hi fi  just no  I was really missing out big time using Sonos as hi fi source  

so in conclusion I think whether Sonos get Apple Music lossless is irrelevant  it isn’t revealing enough  Most of my casual listening will be on Sonos but for a hifi streamer I will be looking elsewhere given the dramatic sound quality difference  

I finally got to listen to spatial audio on an IPhone+airpods pro, and that led me to do some reading on this new feature that led me to the linked interview with the head of Apple Services/Music, Eddy Cue.

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/06/08/eddy-cue-spatial-audio-interview/

His comments seem spot on with respect to how - in his opinion - lossless cannot be distinguished from AAC lossy by over 98% of people including him, in a blind test. And where it can, in another interview, he notes that it takes very high quality headphones and a special 1 to 2 percent of people with the right ears - I suppose because otherwise room acoustics will wash away any very minute audible difference. So much for running after just more bits and bytes then…

His comments on spatial audio also seem to tally with my listening to comparison samples available on Apple Music - the difference is very audible and to an extent that I can see it surviving without headphones, as long as all the right kit is used downstream, in a domestic environment.

Now whether that different sound will be preferred to what is the existing presentation of stereo music as a sound stage in front of the listener will be a personal preference, and I am sure there are some that will not want to listen to music where it feels that one is standing on stage in the middle of the band. Others might prefer that new experience.

So although he uses HDTV as an analogy for how vast the difference is with spatial audio, no one that watches HDTV then ends up preferring the standard version. To that extent, the analogy may fail.

Yes I would fully agree there is no way I can hear the difference between lossless and lossy on Sonos and regular headphones/earbuds  or outside 

 I have a very high quality headphone set up and moving to lossless and hi res is a subtle difference in sound quality which makes a dramatic difference in listening pleasure. It just sounds way less compressed and more lifelike but only with high quality headphones. I just skip the few remaining lossy filed and replace with lossless versions as they are now so disappointing in comparison. It may well be that the dramatic improvement in  listening pleasure is also due to moving away from Sonos as the source as it simply isn’t a good enough source for quality hifi. But I would completely agree that it is a niche market currently so I can see why Sonos and Apple Music are not bothered about it. It is a shame though given the dramatic difference in listening pleasure.it really is a wow experience and a pity more people don’t get the opportunity to hear it  

i would also agree the Dolby Atmos sounds more distinctly different but I’ve switched it off as to me sounds very forced and distorted and much prefer the high res versions of the files but that may well be different on other headphones more specifically designed for Dolby atoms. 

Further to the above:

I agree with the Apple Music head, Eddy Cue, when he goes on record to say that there is no audible sound quality difference/gain in lossless v AAC lossy, except for the rare 1 or 2 percent of people with golden ears, when listening via high quality headphones. Based on my experience with audiophile - as in expensive - kit first, and then on Sonos which replaced it. And headphones are a product that isn't in the Sonos portfolio at this time, it must be noted.

Given that, this entire thread including its title is just white noise that masks the signal of what the thread really should be about - What will it take for Sonos to do spatial audio such that it is heard in a typical domestic environment in the manner it is designed to be heard?

This is going to much more than more bits and bytes and will have to include hardware that is delivering the sound into the room. I can't see the latest Sonos One, stereo paired, doing spatial audio successfully. Or even the 5 pair, for example.

I have no exposure to Sonos TV products, so I can't answer the question if that present hardware, if supplied and capable of playing spatial audio streams, are capable of delivering the spatial audio experience in the manner heard on the AirPods pro, to the room they are in. But that seems to be the important question to ask/discuss, instead of getting distracted by mere lossless audio and how to persuade Sonos to play it. All THAT will achieve is more of a burden on the home WiFi network.

There is no way I have golden ears. Just a very transparent headphone set up but absolutely true it is not a mass market product so 98pc probably will have never heard such a system so will never know how much better a proper hifi system with lossless can sound and frankly. probably don’t Care.

 I certainly was not aware what a dramatic difference it could make until I treated myself to a Hi-Fi headphone set up during lockdown and only then when I switched to lossless and a better quality source than Sonos  it probably is only 1-2pc of the market at most though. It is not the Sonos mass market for sure and I accept that lossless can’t be appreciated on Somos and I need to look elsewhere for a better quality source than Sonos for hifi listening. 

What remains hilarious is that how many of the 2% still claim to hear differences from lossless even while using loudspeakers ( as opposed to headphones)  in their homes to do so - never mind how proper HiFi the speakers or the rest of their system may even genuinely be.

The hilarious bit is that the man putting out lossless via his service says there is no difference to be heard on even such systems. Even by the 2%.

Now only if a equally placed purveyor of Hi Res audio, the other snake oil, was to say this….

On Lossless, a copy/paste from the net:

QUOTE:

“The reality of lossless is: if you take 100 people and you take a stereo song in lossless and you take a song that’s been in Apple Music that’s compressed, I don’t know if it’s 99 or 98 can’t tell the difference. You can tell somebody, ‘Oh, you’re listening to a lossless gsong],’ and they tell you, ‘Oh, wow. That sounds incredible.’ They’re just saying it because you told them it’s lossless and it sounds like the right thing to say, but you just can’t tell.”

— Eddy Cue, Apple’s SVP of Services (including Apple Music), on the reality of “lossless” digital music.

I’m sure this is all true — and in listening to the new lossless files for a few days, my ears believe it to be true as well (when I can get the streams to work, that is) — but it’s still amusing/surprising to hear Cue frame it this way at the launch of Apple’s offering.

:UNQUOTE

Let the games begin...

Absolutely to be honest I can hear no difference between lossy and lossless on my mid range hifi speakers system, mass market headphones/earbuds or using Sonos.  They are simply not transparent enough.
 

I can completely believe  that 98pc of the public are listening on mass market music devices and therefore can not tell the difference beitreten lossy and lissless. I most certainly can’t.
 

Transparent hi end hifi headphone are something else though. I can hear details I never knew was there before and there the effect is stunning.  CD quality was originally. chosen for a reason   Of course people only have a limited hearing range and no one in hifi claims otherwise so the arguments against hifi are spurious.  It is how natural it sounds within human hearing range that matters. Here
you should listen to manufacturers whete Sonos freely admits that it is not hifi.it is an excellent lifestyle product.  The sound is highly processed and distorted which sounds good on Sonos speakers which most people are satisfied with but it is not  hifi which is fair enough because it is not designed sold or marketed as hifi so I can see why they see the whole lossless and hi res spurious as it is for the mass market who are not interested in hifi  

I

Begs the Question… Why did we just obsolete our old Sonos kit and upgrade to S2 if no one will be able to hear the difference ?

Maybe time to dig out those old Play 5’s and downgrade everything to S1

I feel an email coming on to Sonos support…...

Hi Res on Sonos is much more a marketing check the box thing; S2 is meant to allow other advances, probably more for the sound for TV side of things. 

I can’t hear the difference between ALAC lossless and AAC lossy files on Sonos equipment let alone Hi-Res so suspect it is just marketing whcih is still relevant given tthe move of the main music streamer services to hi-res. Personally it needs some hign end equipment before I can hear the difference between lossy and lossless.24 bit files do sound better on hifi but suspect they are just better original recordings and i can’t hear the difference with hi res sample rates on hifi. So personally don’t see any benefit between lossy and lossless on Sonos let alone hi res but dramatic improvement in listening pleasure on hifi. My conclusion is it just isn’t relevant on Sonos from a listening poin tof view because it isn’t hifi but that is absolutely no criticism of Sonos because it doesn’t claim to be hifi. .   . 

Nothing is ever Sonos’s responsibility. Not SMB 1, not the bugs in Alexa control, not the Roam battery life debacle. 
 

So of course we need to “ask Apple.”

As long as you remember to set the bit output in the midi app then you should be in better shape this way. But, I don't know if Sonos outputs lossless (cd quality) as standard when using Apple Music. Apple may get round to making AM better to implement after iOS15 and Music Kit roll out.

You could be right. But, my understanding is all the audio manufacturers have their hands tied and must wait for Apple. 

Equipment is nice and all that, but the mastering of the file and your listening setup (room, how you are listening e.g. doing housework and its on in in the background) is a lot more important. Crappy mastering makes hi-res sound meh, great mastering can make cd quality awesome (I used to be a member to B&W Society of Sound and the mastering on those albums was just fantastic so cd quality sounded fab). Great speakers sound poor in a room with lots of surfaces that reflect sound etc. or big floor standers with no room to breathe etc. sound bad too. I do agree hi-res is a bit of a gimmick, there is so little true hi-res content, i.e. content mastered in the studio in that file format. Lossless (i.e. CD quality) is a much bigger deal here, Apple offering that at no cost is a great deal for consumers, like if you care go nuts and play that, if not then be happy and stick with AAC.

I agree with the hi res view; note though that the head of the Apple division that is putting out lossless is on record as saying that it sounds no better than AAC from the same master in a blind test. Which is perhaps why they are not charging extra for lossless…?

On the other hand, I hear that the lossless streams play louder than AAC, all other thing being the same. So why Apple also needs to resort to this louder sounds better chestnut of a trick is a bit of a mystery.

I’m not sure what all the fuss is here.  Unless you’re an audiophile that spends $1000s on high end headphones and equipment your ears will never hear the difference.   I plugged my $350 Bose headphones directly into my iPhone 12 Pro Max and turned the HD on in Apple Music and compared all my favorite songs to the same on Spotify and could not notice a difference.    The other thing at play here is that unless the streaming service gets the studio master direct from the recording company this is all a moot point here.  
 

Also, let’s not forget that the bandwidth HD audio takes up.  Most cable and cell providers don’t give you truly unlimited data except on their highest end plans and playing audio in HD in addition to the 4K streaming you already do will eat it up so much faster.   

You don’t need to spend thousands to enjoy the sound difference, but to your point you do need to make some investment to appreciate the details. Case in point the DAC in most smart phones is tbh crap as it’s not a priority for manufacturers, so not surprised you may not hear a difference. You are bang on with the actual master of the file though, some hi-res is poorly mastered by technicians and therefore sound bad.

also totally right with bandwidth, lossless is a luxury for this with unlimited plans and home WiFi to use it. If you want lossless then best to download if you can.

One of the alleged reasons that Apple can likely offer this at no price difference is that apparently Apple requires content that is to be included in Apple Music and also required content in iTunes to come in a “hi-res” master format. So, they already have all the content.

I don’t agree that they just play louder than AAC streams, one part of having music through a wired connection is that bass etc is just more pronounced delivered that way when using a decent DAC (ie not the one in the iPhone and most other phones).

Why would Apple, who offer both streams, themselves say that lossless sounds no different from AAC? In blind tests?

I don't agree with this, and my past includes what most people would classify as excellent audio equipment. And sources that included plenty of lossless and lossy rips from the same CD. I have heard no difference. 

The head of Apple Music is just the latest to hew to this opinion. You may of course be hearing things that even he, the provider of the service, and his team, do not.

And while I am disenchanted with Sonos corporate behaviour and the availability of equally good options to have decided to replace my Sonos kit once the hardware dies in future with those options, I certainly have not changed my mind about my assessment of Sonos as good quality hifi - once it is set up with the same care as such kit. Sonos kit is designed and built to very high standards and often to better standards than visible in HiFi brands such as NAD. It is sold at lower price points because the scale of manufacture for Sonos is orders of magnitude larger than available to many HiFi makers, and that gives Sonos a massive advantage in cost structures. In addition, the design is such that no money is wasted on expensive fripperies like heavy cabinets, speaker enclosures or backlit VU meters, that do nothing to enhance sound quality delivered, but pander only to senses other than the organs of hearing, the ears.

This lossy/lossless thing - or the lack thereof - where Apple Music is concerned is giving Sonos user unnecessary grief, but that isn't because Sonos is not good enough to show up the difference. There is no controlled blind test on record that does this either, with any kind of kit.

Sigh. I refuse to waste more words.