Yes, my experience is similar. I do sense that my usb to OPPO DAC delivers AAC, ALAC, and AIFF from iTunes with greater definition and less smearing than my wireless PC to Airport Express connection via S/PDIF to Pre-Pro, when playing music at life-like volume. At any rate, yeah, AAC satisfies. No more hi-res purchases for me other than multi-channel SACD.
Great to hear people being rational and not chasing the phantom hi-res gains saving money in process. Can always appreciate down to earth people in this forum.
Until recently I did not distinguish AAC via Airport Express to Pre-Pro from AAC via usb DAC to Pre-Pro; but, one evening I was playing some Dance music at about 80 db via Airport Express and out of curiosity I wanted to see if switching to usb DAC means to music would sound different. It did. I'd describe it as not smudged as the Airport Express route seemed to be. I perceive this had something to do with a 20 year old DAC doing the processing vs my OPPO's DAC doing it. At any rate, I then compared and contrasted AAC, ALAC, and AIFF of same music in iTunes Library via OPPO DAC to Pre-Pro, which did not produce results which I could discern as being different, in any manner that different could be discerned So, it appears, I'll keep plowing along with Apple Music, since there seems now to be no point to hi-res downloads. If technology improves for me to hear a better performance from hi-res ALAC or other I suppose I might re-visit hi-res. BTW, I still buy multi-channel SACDs, not for the impression that the overall sound is in any way better; but, because some do add breadth and depth giving me a feeling of having a great seat at a live performance of the music.
AAC, ALAC, and AIFF do sound like each other, processed by OPPO DAC and they sound like each other when processed by Pre-Pro's DAP; and thus, I no longer have interest in buying hi-res downloads when I cannot distinguish them from AAC downloads of same. What sounds different is Airport Express to Pre-Pro's DAP vs. OPPO-205 DAC to Pre-Pro's analog input. In this scenario at high volume with volume matching, I can distinguish the OPPO DAC means to music as being divergent from the Airport Express to Pre-Pro DAP means. And, I prefer the OPPO means, since it does not seemed smeared as does music processed by Pre-Pro's DAP (Sony TA-E9000ES).
My second generation Airport Express is not set to output analog. Instead, I send 16/44.1 optical S/PDIF from it to pre-pro, whereby pre-pro does digital to analog conversion; therefore the this vs. that is between 20 year old Sony TA-E9000ES DAP and OPPO-205's DAC. At high volume I can distinguish divergence between these digital to analog converters, the music sounding as if it was smeared from the Sony. At lower volume I can not discern one means to the music sounds better than the other. I have not used the Airport Express recently to do digital to analog conversion. In fact it's probably been 6 years since I've used Airport Express to do digital to audio conversion (not enough RCA's on my pre-pro); plus, sending digital from Airport Express allows me to record streams to DAT without DAT Recorder doing an analog to digital conversion.
Yes, you understand correctly in spite of my poor communication. At some point I may re-visit analog output from Airport Express and then I could compare and contrast Airport Express DAC to OPPO's. At any rate, bottleneck is indeed my 20 year old Sony's DAP. This pre-pro also does not have HDMI input and a few other contemporary features I'd like to have. Nevertheless, with the OPPO, as well as Airport Express connected to the old Sony, it delivers stereo that sounds pretty nice. For multi-channel I have connected my OPPO to another 20 year old multi-channel analog preamplifier, a Sony TA-P9000ES. Using the OPPO's multi-channel bass management I'm still real happy with this preamp too.
