Yep, when you’re a trillion-dollar company, you’re not worrying much!
FYI: Airplay2 is 24bit 44.1Khz instead of 16bit, so you would still be able to enjoy the higher bitrate albeit at a reduced sample rate.
This is great news all round along with Spotify Hifi, hopefully it will get the younger generation more interested in sound quality- paving their way to being future Naim owners.
It is CAPABLE of that, but not enabled by Apple at this time.
According to this article:
the author writes:
This number is supported by the fact when I stream Amazon Music HD to my Airplay 2 capable speaker, the device capability changes to indeed 24-bit/44.1 kHz.
Oh to have the money of Amazon and Apple, to pivot so quickly in response to Spotify’s announcement
(Oh just to have their money full stop!!)
Does this mean I get a discount, or does it mean the basic service has risen in price?
I can’t remember the prices when I trialled it tbh. There were also Prime member discounts.
Though presumably Spotify are the only service Naim could currently integrate hi res natively?
We have native high-resolution Qobuz already. If/when TIDAL and Spotify offer high-res, we’d address that i’m sure… (and no, i’m not getting into an MQA discussion!)
Yes, sorry I meant only Spotify out of Apple/Amazon/Spotify. I already have Apple Music, Qobuz and Tidal subscriptions. Never used Spotify, by all accounts a good user experience though.
As noted previously, Amazon Music HD is on our wishlist, too.
Just checked and my previous 14.99 a month has been reduced to 9.99 from next payment date.
I’ve just seen that tvOS will be able to play hi-res audio, presumably over HDMI unless they open up the Airplay 2 specs.
The more options the merrier I suppose. As a consumer it does feel as though oligopolies may be approaching when it comes to streaming providers which may not be so good. Lowering prices across the board will be beneficial, especially if we find some services complementary due to different catalogues as more people will entertain more than a single subscription.
Certainly puts the ball in Spotify’s court re Spotify Hi-fi pricing, when that launches.
@Richard.Dane With the recent rumours about a planned lossless Apple Music to counter Spotify HiFi, it would be interesting to learn what resolution and audio formats are supported by Apple AirPlay 2 and especially on the Naim Unity family. There used to be a specification of AirPlay on the Apple website, but with the introduction of AirPlay 2 it vanished. As far as I remember, AirPlay 1 supports 16 Bit / 44.1 kHz and 24 Bit / 44 kHz with lossless ALAC and would be good for CD quality but not real High Res.
If Apple Music do release a 16/44.1 lossless stream AirPlay will be able to stream it.