Sonos support for Apple Music's Lossless Audio

What is clear is that at least publicly Sonos is not interested in this topic as other manufacturers. And why should they be as their target audience isn’t. If sound quality is your priority then look to other manufacturers with tidal and qubuz. If like  me you want the best sound quality but the convenience options and UI of Sonos and Apple Music then will need patience for hardware to catch up with content. With lossless and hi res emblazoned on Apple Music content and due to become fully available by end of year surely only matter of time before hardware comes to market. Up to Sonos if they participate. Content market has changed. Will Sonos?  Meanwhile USB cable is way to go. 

Streaming Apple Music from MacBook Air (Big Sur 11.4) using AirPlay to a Sonos One Gen 1 appears to be streaming in lossless, at least from what the Music App reports, and there is a slight audible difference when changing between standard and lossless. 

Not sure if there’s any way to see from Sonos’ perspective the bitrate of the track that’s currently playing?

Thanks but then isn’t that just the output from Apple Music and not necessarly the input into Sonos as I’m reading Airplay is only currently tramitting at AAC ? Don’t think Sonos shows what is playing Guess would need to play over Airplay to a device that show what is actually playing eg via Connect or Port to a Dac/ device which shows what rate is being played.    

A Connect or Port would output digitally at 24/44.1, whatever the source content.

Airplay uses ALAC according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPlay#Protocols. Clocking the bitrate I measured around 500-550kbps which sounds about right for losslessly compressed 16/44.1 or 16/48. It’s a bit less than typical FLAC 16/44.1 stereo content, but that might be explained by a cleverer compression algorithm for ALAC, maybe using mid/side encoding.

Thanks that would explain why my dac always shows 44lhz from Connect what ever I throw at it. Still don’t really understand what th current rate on Airplay is to be honest and what it will be and what currently Airplay does and will play on Sonos speakers. Apple only says that only playing AAC on Airplay to HomePod and that is what other manufacturers are saying but there will be upgrade to allow HomePod to play lossless so presume will come to Sonos at some point 
 

Curious what get via USB cable when arrives. HiFi dealer not convinced so recommended basic USB cable so not significant investment. 

I’ve found that (i) starting a stream on and iOS device or Mac via Apple Music and then (ii) sending that stream via Airplay to one Sonos device (in my case, the Beam in my living room), and then (iii) grouping the living room Beam with other Sonos devices in the house with the Sonos app works well.  (Once I’ve used it a bit more, I hope to be able to add “and reliably.”)

Songs that are lossless are indicated as lossless in Apple Music as they play, at 24bit/44.1Khz, and on the Sonos app the entire “group” states “Started from Airplay.”

I’m using both Airplay (for the first stream to my Beam) and Sonos (to group and play music on all other devices in the group) because when I used just Airplay to connect to all devices, the connection was unstable (and just stopped, randomly, as Airplay tends to do).  Grouping devices through Sonos seems much quicker and more stable than using Airplay to send to multiple devices.

As a further experiment, I have a Libratone Zipp (1st Gen), which was upgraded to Airplay 2.  So, for kicks, I added that device to the Airplay stream (so (i) Airplay is sending from my MacBook to the living room Beam and the Libratone Zipp, and (ii) Sonos is then grouping the Airplay stream from my Beam with Sonos speakers in a few other rooms).  Shockingly, it worked -- for a few minutes -- then the Libratone Airplay connection dropped.

Bottom line:  I think I have Apple Music lossless (24/44.1) working on Sonos devices all around the house. Apple Music is reporting that the stream is lossless, and it all sounds great.  But really, who knows? ;-). I’ll run this all day and report back if it stops working.

I’ve also had success using this method over multiple days. However, when you tap the lossless badge on the Apple Music app on the track page it will display whatever the maximum bit depth and sampling rate is available for the particular track (if you have high res lossless enabled in Apple Music settings). This means that if a song is available on Apple Music in 24 bit, 192 kHz, for example, it will display that. Obviously that is not being transmitted to the Sonos speaker over Airplay 2 in that format so I still cannot tell what happens in that scenario — is it 16 bit, 24 bit, 44.1 kHz, 48 kHz, etc.? I agree it sounds phenomenal and I do believe I hear a big difference in fidelity than with the 256 AAC going with the native Sonos app for Apple Music, so I guess I should not care, but I am just really curious if I am getting CD quality or higher. Hoping for confirmation and/or official support for 24 bit, 48 kHz over Airplay 2 soon!

Thanks as I’m curious. That is what I’m doing as well. But from what I’ve read Airplay only currently goes up to 16 bit 44KHZ in theory but is currently downsampling to AAC on its own Home pod according to Apple and is also currently only playing as AAC on Airplay according to another manufacturer whatever the Apple app says.

I understand Airplay will play at 16/44 when iOS 15 is released. I prefer the direct Apple app interface but using Sonos is more stable so would be good if Apple and Sonos eventually allow 24/48 on Sonos. So currently only way to get lossless on Apple is via wired lightning connection up to 24/48 or via the camera kit adapter and USB to a suitably equipped DAC beyond 24/48. Accordingly,  lossless is not currently available on Sonos until Airplay software updated to 16/44.  Apple and Sonos will need to work togther to go beyond 16/44. Presumably Apple will look to upgrage Airplay at some point and also partner with maunfacturers as would be strange to offer content without the hardware to easily play it. Hopefully Sonos will partners at least up to 24/48. Meanwhile I will just play more of my music direct from Apple Music to DACs via USB until Sonos hopefully get on board with the market transition by the music streaming service providers. Just as Sonos wsa born out of new technology developments it will Kodak if it doesn’t adapt. 

Interesting. Thanks. I was a true believer but maybe it is all in my head... Could have sworn playing lossless on Apple Music app and then switching to Airplay to Sonos produced a fuller soundstage than native Apple Music app. This now suggests that I’m listening to the same thing if Airplay is downsampling to lossy 256 AAC right? Bummer I’m not even getting CD quality. Maybe because the source file starts as high res before the Airplay downsample it still produces a better sound compared to a file that comes off Apple’s servers as lossy to begin with? I think someone else was (passionately) making that point too. 

According to a number of articles published in the last few days Airplay to HomePod does work for lossless, if done in a certain way:

https://9to5mac.com/2021/06/09/ios-14-6-airplay-lossless-homepod/

I’m hoping that when I send via Airplay to my Beam, it’s working the same way and I’m actually getting lossless.