Need advice on an Airplay 2 network streamer

[Lvivske]

Need some help figuring out how to go about this getting a streamer for Apple Music / Airplay 2

My network library is all managed through iTunes / Apple Music, and I'd like to stream Lossless to my DAC/Amp from my computers

Do I need something like a Bluesound Node / Node 2i; Sonos Port? Or are there Bluetooth options that function better (ie, McIntosh Bluetooth)? Or should I go the Raspberry Pi route like some articles suggested while looking this up?

Not sure if it's worth a premium if my only objective is streaming and bypassing any internal DAC to my own, and have no experience with these brands or if they vary in quality

 

[prozonelayer]

I was about to ask the same question so I guess I'll piggyback on yours. The best options I've found are...

• https://www.belkin.com/us/speakers-...nect-audio-adapter-with-airplay-2/p/p-auz002/
• AirPort Express 802.11n (2nd Generation)
• Apple TV 2nd or 3rd gen

The Belkin seems like the most elegant and smallest solution. The AirPort Express supports Airplay 2 and has optical out and the Apple TVs that have optical out only support Airplay 1, but either of these devices you'd have to find used and they're a lot larger than I'd like.

I think I might end up getting the Belkin streamer, but if there are any other (preferably cheaper) options, I'd also love to hear about them.

 

[Lvivske]

I was about to ask the same question so I guess I'll piggyback on yours. The best options I've found are...

• https://www.belkin.com/us/speakers-...nect-audio-adapter-with-airplay-2/p/p-auz002/
• AirPort Express 802.11n (2nd Generation)
• Apple TV 2nd or 3rd gen

The Belkin seems like the most elegant and smallest solution. The AirPort Express supports Airplay 2 and has optical out and the Apple TVs that have optical out only support Airplay 1, but either of these devices you'd have to find used and they're a lot larger than I'd like.

I think I might end up getting the Belkin streamer, but if there are any other (preferably cheaper) options, I'd also love to hear about them.

thanks, I saw the Belkin after I made the thread, looks like its fully sold out at the moment

so far it's a broad range, $100 Belkin or $500 Bluesound/Sonos

As long as Belkin passes through the lossless audio perfectly then it seems like the best option so far

 

[Lvivske]

apparently Airplay 2 doesnt support Lossless but Airplay 1 does...(in a perverse glitchy way)

https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleMusic...l_apple_music_information_graphic_on_quality/

AirPlay 2 supports ALAC, it's just that Apple Music chooses to transcode ALAC from Apple's servers to AAC to send to AirPlay 2 receivers, for some reason.

If it's an AirPlay v1 receiver AppleMusic streams AAC from Apple's servers, transcodes that to ALAC and sends that to the AirPlay v1 receiver.

good grief...my device hunt just hit a big pothole

 

[prozonelayer]

apparently Airplay 2 doesnt support Lossless but Airplay 1 does...(in a perverse glitchy way)

https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleMusic...l_apple_music_information_graphic_on_quality/



good grief...my device hunt just hit a big pothole

Wow that's good to know, and also super annoying. I use a Chromecast Audio right now and wanted Airplay to do lossless Apple Music from my iPhone, looks like that's the only thing Airplay wont do lossless. Hopefully it's something they're working on, it makes no sense to me why this would not work when Tidal, PlexAmp, etc can all do lossless Airplay/Chromecast.

 

[Lvivske]

Wow that's good to know, and also super annoying. I use a Chromecast Audio right now and wanted Airplay to do lossless Apple Music from my iPhone, looks like that's the only thing Airplay wont do lossless. Hopefully it's something they're working on, it makes no sense to me why this would not work when Tidal, PlexAmp, etc can all do lossless Airplay/Chromecast.

yeah im still trying to dig into what the issues are, I tried airplay to a newer AppleTV in Lossless and everything looked kosher on my end, but a guy in the thread mentioned seeing the downsample to AAC in developer mode, which i hope isnt the case