Sonos support for Apple Music's Lossless Audio

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 

Roon sends video streams to multiple endputs in sync?  The point was that if you can stream 4k video, than you can stream hires audio.  My counterpoint was that it having to play the stream at multiple endpoints in sync was a big factor.

My point is that Roon manages to send large audio files in sync to multiple end points with no issues. 

Ok, great.  Doesn’t change my point though in comparison to video streaming vs audio streaming in a multiroom settings.

I don’t know much about the Roon, but I would guess that they use a much larger buffer than Sonos does.  And they can get away with that since they don’t stream any ‘live’ sources from an aux input or TV.  That would make the job a lot easier, I would think.

This is news to me and interesting, and it prompted me to open this thread:

https://en.community.sonos.com/advanced-setups-229000/stable-wireless-streaming-distribution-of-hd-music-6858832

Lossless recordings definitely play louder & clearer vs music streamed from Apple Music, don’t be deceived.
 The difference is much more noticeable in my car when comparing a CD track vs apple, Spotify & Deezer. Apple Music is objectively the worse. 

Quite possible; but don’t confuse clearer as distinct from louder. Louder always sounds clearer, plus it has all the sound quality traits so beloved of audiophiles. And louder was therefore a trick taught to stereo salesmen in the days of brick and mortar stores.

The same effect can be had by bumping the volume control a tad to the right.

I just ordered a (discontinued) Apple AirPort Express from eBay for $30. I plan to connect the analog out from the AirPort Express to the analog in on my Sonos Port. That should allow me to stream lossless Apple Music to every Sonos endpoint.

I still have my old iPhone 7, which I plan to wipe and use to stream Apple Music to the AirPort Express. I don’t think the DAC in the AirPort Express is the greatest and the resolution will be limited to CD quality, but that’s my solution for now. I’m not convinced it will sound any better than AAC played through the Sonos app, but it’s worth $30 to find out.

I also have a Meridian Explorer² DAC/headphone amp that handles signals up to 24/192. I can connect it directly to my phone using the USB camera kit. That setup could also be connected to the Port, but I will probably only use it for headphone listening.

I do have an Apple TV 4K connected to a Sonos Arc + Sub + Play:1 surround pair. I hope that there are some good Dolby Atmos titles to try out.

It won’t sound any better but not for the reasons you think. It has nothing to do with DAC quality. What you will be able to do though is use the Apple Music native app to play on Sonos. The downside is that your iDevice will be eating battery charge all the time that music is playing.

I have a couple of AEX units in a drawer, but it is the last bit that is stopping me from using them for this. It was easier for me to start using Spotify instead to meet my preference for a native app, which I find to be better than the interface inside the Sonos controller.