Sonos support for Apple Music's Lossless Audio

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153 replies

R

Im merely repeating another manufacturer technical team. So i ripped all my CDs onto iTunes a ALAC files and then Sonos cleverly automatically picks them up in my library and there should play at16/44 directly on Sonos. But they would only stream on Sonos via AirPlay from Apple Music on my Apple device as AAC.

I’ve been looking at the other manufacturer’s board, and I think you’re right -- it’s annoying and disappointing that Apple Music doesn’t even stream via Airplay in CD-quality.  (I’m still trying to reconcile the many posts over the last few days that suggest you can use Airplay to get lossless Apple Music on the HomePod.)

Here’s another question:  If I have an Apple TV hooked up to a television with an attached Sonos beam, I should be able to get some lossless format (at least 16/44.1) on the Beam, right?  And if I use Sonos (not Airplay, but Sonos) to create a group with other Sonos devices, does Sonos, at least, send the lossless format to the other Sonos devices?

S
Userlevel 1
Badge +1

Do you have a source for this info? Would be good to know if that’s happening. It would seem possible as surely the bit rate required is still below Airplaying 4K video across your network, which Airplay 2 was upgraded to do last September. It doesn’t fit the smallprint of Apple Music Lossless though.

 

Can you airplay 4k video to multiple endpoints at the same time and have them play in sync?  My guess is that you can’t.  When streaming a video to a single source, you have the luxary of using a rather huge buffer to allow for changes in transmission speeds etc.  Even then, you can temporarily stop the stream when the buffer runs empty and restart without issue.  That is not the case with multiroom audio.  While the amount of data is much smaller, you can’t have as large of a buffer, and you have to have all the device coordinate to play in sync.  If one of the endpoints losing the connection, you can’t just pause everything to let it catch up, it has to stop playing and rejoin everything else, etc.

 

In short, you need to have a much more solid network to do multiroom audio in an acceptable way then you do to stream a video to a single source. 

Roon manage it quite well 

W
Userlevel 5
Badge +9

I have the latest APPLE TV 4K connected to my LG TV and getting Dolby Atmos from the APPLE TV+, iTunes Movies, Netflix and Tidal contents. So just wonder if this means I can enjoy the Spatial Audio from Apple Music as well? 

Yes. See my post:

 

Thanks! Yes I have tried last night and it’s phenomenal!! Filled the room and more interesting is when I grouped the speakers in the other rooms, I could feel it’s much better than before! :)

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