Apple Music Lossless - Airplay

If you play it trough an Apple TV 4K to your Sonos, it can be done.

Thanks for the replies all.

So… if I were to purchase a DAC like this https://store.hiby.com/collections/amplifier/products/hiby-fc1

Plug it into my iPad or iPhone and then wire the DAC to my Sonos 5, would I get Lossless audio through my Sonos system?

Not as such. Since the DAC would output analog, which would then be redigitised by Sonos at 16bit/44.1kHz it could be argued that something might be lost in the process, in terms of THD+N. Certainly the transfer could never be bit-perfect, for obvious reasons. On the other hand such effects would quite possibly be inaudible.

Thanks for the reply

So what’s the best way to play Apple Lossless from Apple Music via my Sonos system. I’m guessing I need a wired connection into my Sonos 5, but is there anything else I need?

If it wasn’t already clear, as things stand you cannot play Apple Music Lossless directly on Sonos (i.e. digitally all the way). See https://support.sonos.com/s/article/3282

Your DAC→Line-In proposal is probably the nearest you’d get, since at least you wouldn’t involve lossy compression in the chain. But, like I said, going through a DAC and an ADC is not ideal.

To be frank, I think you’d probably be better off playing through the Sonos app (or indeed via Airplay) since despite it using 256kbps AAC you’d likely never notice the difference.

At launch, the Apple senior manager present said pretty much the same thing - about not noticing the difference between the two Apple formats.

What about Qobuz? Sonos supports 24bit 48kHz High Res if streamed trough the S2 app. If the sample rate of the original file is more, it will be reduced to 16bit 44,1 kHz, which is still High Res.

Also see https://support.sonos.com/s/article/1782?language=en_US

According to this article I assume that only works for streaming trough the S2 app and not trough the official Qobuz app while using Airplay2. Although my ears can't tell the difference TBH, I still wonder what happens when using Airplay2. Wil everything be downscaled to 16bit 44,1kHz?

I signed up for a free trial of Amazon Unlimited. To be honest, the difference between Apple Music playing via Airplay and Amazon Unlimited playing UHD through S2 was marginal at best, at least to my ears.

That said, playing the same song on vinyl, through Sonos sounds better than both, but that might be my bias.

Is it worth trying Qobuz? Is the quality better than Amazon?

You can always try Qobuz, there is one month free trial. We tried it, and did stick with it. We have a Qobus Studio Duo subscription. We think it’s more musical than Apple or Spotify, based on the choices Qobus makes in making their playlists.

We also have a subscription to Apple One, which includes Apple Music.

Qobuz is a bit more expensive, but the quality and choices they make in selecting music is worth it. Also worth mentioning is, that Qobuz is cooperating with Sonos to stream high res audio (only on S2). For that you need to make sure in your profile on Qobuz, under ‘my external services’, you have selected ‘High-Res 24-bit / up to 48 kHz’.