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SonosChicago
Contributor I
February 25, 2025

Apple Music Lossless Cutouts and Skips

  • February 25, 2025
  • 66 replies
  • 3704 views

Hi. Is anyone else experiencing dropouts, skips, etc with Apple Music since Apple Music moved to Lossless? Before Lossless was introduced, I never had these issues. I have tried Amazon HD and Quboz in the past - both high-res services - and experienced the same behavior. Eventually my system will realize it’s not working and then downgrade back to non-Lossless music, but then it will try again 5 songs or so later. We really need a toggle in the app to downgrade to non-Lossless streaming for the systems that can’t handle it.

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    66 replies

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    AjTrek1
    AjTrek1
    July 22, 2025

    I’m not experiencing any of the such with Apple Lossless. The Apple music playing was started within the Sonos app as one of my streaming services. The Sonos speakers are Era 100 x 2 with Sub Mini. Could this issue be isolated to older Sonos speakers (i.e. Play 1, Play 5. Play 3 and/or Sonos One etc)?

    Also, Ive made no adjustments to my ASUS router bandwidth (lowering it) other than to enable QoS giving Audio/Video streaming top priority. Interestingly, others in the community have spoken against enabling QoS many times. Unless that can be construed as bandwidth manipulation 🤔

     

    Together Everyone Achieves More = T.E.A.M.
    craigski
    Local Superstar
    July 22, 2025

    I have 4x Ones and a Playbase, all using Sonos net. The Playbase is too dumb for lossless so if it’s included in playback, there are no issues.

    Which Sonos device is plugged into your router?

    dan v
    Lyricist II
    July 22, 2025

    I have 4x Ones and a Playbase, all using Sonos net. The Playbase is too dumb for lossless so if it’s included in playback, there are no issues.

    Which Sonos device is plugged into your router?

    The Playbase. 🤔

    craigski
    Local Superstar
    July 23, 2025

    As a test for a few days, I would try move a One to where the Playbase is, and swap the wired connection a One, move it away from the WiFi router and TV.. See if that improves lossless play back. If the One’s are setup as pair, connect the left one. 

      craigski
      Local Superstar
      July 23, 2025

      Another thought, is your WiFi router located near the playbase? As another test, I would take your phone with it connected to your home WiFi to the locations where the One’s are, and open browser on phone and go to fast.com, let it run speed test, and then click ‘show more info’, this will show download speed and latency for loaded connection in ms, and may provide a better connection than SonosNet from the playbase (especially if playbase located under TV and near WiFi router). But lets see how the One(s) perform with wired first.

        dan v
        Lyricist II
        July 23, 2025

        As a test for a few days, I would try move a One to where the Playbase is, and swap the wired connection a One, move it away from the WiFi router and TV.. See if that improves lossless play back. If the One’s are setup as pair, connect the left one. 

        Oh wow. As a quick and dirty, I committed some networking crimes to connect a One to Ethernet - and removed the bandwidth stuff - and lossless works!

        I’m genuinely surprised that omitting the wired unit from the Group breaks the underlying networking! haha! Ass-u-me etc, I guess. 🫠

        Thanks for the suggestion, craigski!

        Rapter94
        Lyricist I
        July 25, 2025

        Yes, many users have faced dropouts since Apple Music switched to Lossless. A toggle to switch back to non-Lossless streaming would be a helpful solution for affected systems. You can find more information on similar issues with multi-room audio and stability in this post. Hopefully, Apple adds this option soon.

         

        Moderator Note: This post is likely AI generated.

          SonosChicagoAuthor
          Contributor I
          July 26, 2025

          In case it’s of use to someone else. I’ve had some luck improving Apple Music playback by bandwidth limiting my speakers, forcing Sonos to request lower quality music.

          I have 4x Ones and a Playbase, all using Sonos net. The Playbase is too dumb for lossless so if it’s included in playback, there are no issues. The Ones on the other hand, will request lossless and then deliver choppy audio.

          I’ve experimented with limiting the bandwidth each speaker is allowed from my router (Asus guide - https://www.asus.com/support/faq/1013333/). I kept dropping the limit and found 1 Mb/s is pretty reliable and almost never requests lossless. I’ve had a buffering issue maybe once in two weeks? I suspect this works because the Sonos, itself, is choosing a worse quality stream as a fallback.

          Notes:

          • I appreciate this is a hack but it’s stopped me going mad.
          • There’s probably a more accurate figure to force the quality fallback - I’d be curious to know…
          • If you’re not using Sonos net, I expect this approach will only make your playback more unreliable. (presumably, Sonos net data is transferred between speakers directly, and as such, won’t be limited by the router. The limit should really only impact traffic between the speaker and Apple.)

          Thanks gang. Good luck!

          Hi Dan - just following up - this worked like a charm and seems to have fixed the skips. I had to go to 0.9 mb/s to stabilize and it eventually got there. Thanks for the hack! I’ll probably post this over on Reddit (and give you credit) if you haven’t since I know there are people struggling over there as well. Thanks again!

            jrguk
            Lyricist III
            August 10, 2025

            I sometimes experience drop out problems in audio, well that’s where I notice it first, and the cause has always ended up being WiFi channel congestion due to neighbouring networks.

            To fix it quickly I just restart the WiFi so that it selects a quieter channel when it reboots.

            Eventually I’ll get around to seeing if I can make it change channels without such a disruptive move, though I expect that might require buying different gear.

            Jbj415
            Contributor I
            August 15, 2025

            I just wanted to throw my experience into this thread. We sell/install a lot of Sonos products, primarily a mixture of Amps and Soundbars on each of our projects. This is absolutely an issue. We also have been told by dealer support and direct consumer support that this is a known issue, and that the client should use a different streaming service or use Airplay. (The issue does not replicate when using Airplay).

            Whenever I come here for support I always see responses that “don’t believe” what people say. It’s mind blowing. 

            And for the love of Christ it’s not a network issue.

            Thanks have a great day.

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