The question I suppose is what MusicKit allows.
While it might allow a 3rd party app to control AppleMusic playback directly on a local Mac, iPhone or iPad, it may do little more than that. If may not allow ‘casting’ a stream the device is playing using anything other than Airplay or Bluetooth. If however it could access/generate some kind of URL to a hi-res/lossless stream that could be handed off to the 3rd party streamer to play that might work.
Maybe it’s already compiled with Swift, it would be transparent to the end user.
Hi @Simon-in-Suffolk et all,
Quite a hot subject this one. Lots of various questions. Will try and nail as many as possible:
Q: "Why does the transport stream influence audio quality - data is data"
A: If there are no playback synchronisation needs then within reason (aka - its a data rate that can reliably go over a typical home network) the above is true. As soon as any AV or multiroom synchronisation is added into the design then it starts to get a lot more complex. Primarily one device (typically the iPhone/iPad/control source) is clocking the audio out at one rate (for example, the audio clock might by 44.1006kHz with a slow drift on it and the playing device is playing it out at say 44.0999kHz. The system needs ability to ensure the playback rate is at the real rate and clocks samples out at the right time. On cheaper solutions sample rate conversion is used which has quite undesirable sound implications. In Naim devices we use hardware programmable fractional clock generators to track the Apple audio clock derived from PTP. This is still not as good as for example local UPnP playback or Roon where we lock the clocks into centre position and bypass all the fractional clock generation. On decent kit all these factors can knock a bit off the sound quality.
Q: Why not use Apple MusicKit
A: This is intended so apps & websites inside the Apple eco-system can have basic high level access to Apple Music tracks. They however, have no way to get at the physical music streams - a dedicated playback engine does that and hence keeping the licenced music streams secure. It is not a solution for standalone players.
Q: What about Amazon HD
A: Currently that generates a 16bit/44.1kHz ALAC stream in ‘legacy’ mode when using Airplay.
Q: So could Airplay2 be extended to support higher rates?
In theory yes, although Apple would have to roll new code out to Airplay2 devices to support it. There are a lot of complexities. For example:
From Naim’s side we are close Apple partners and all our kit has latest AIrplay2 tech built in and implemented in its higher quality form. If Apple require updates to expand higher sample rate playback beyond 44.1kHz then we’ll be one of the first to get it into the products.
Best wishes
Steve Harris
Software Director
Naim Audio Ltd.
I am afraid that this is the case, which makes it pointless to overcome the AirPlay2 restriction.
Thought that might be the case, shame, maybe they’ll have something else up their sleeves in the future.
Thanks for the explanation.
As ever Steve great breakdown and much of what I already thought.
So even if Apple fixed the issue with aac output, 16/44 files could still potentially sound better thru roon because of better clocking. Not to mention also being able to play hires files as well. Never bought into the bits are bits when dealing with audio.
What about Spotify Connect? Will that need a software update to handle lossless? And would that also have clocking issues? Would think since it’s fully handed over and playing within Naim, it would avoid AirPlay type issues.
Completely agree with this. I think Apple need to develop some sort of Apple Music Connect when it comes to streaming Hi-Res Lossless so Hi-Fi manufacturers would be able to integrate this into their devices. It would be a far more elegant solution than AirPlay in my opinion.
I think they already have this in their Homepods. They mention about it handing off the audio and being able to pick up control from another iPhone. The issue is it’s not lossless yet but will be updated soon. But assume they release that to 3rd party vendors and work in making that hires.
It’s called AirPort express and they stopped selling it some years ago. Still got 1 in operation and another on spare. 
(Though I doubt it could have done better then „lossless“.)
Yes, I have an older version and the last Express model they made.
I was thinking of a more basic device just for audio output at an even lower price point 
Surely someone has already asked, but the thread is very long to read everything 
Now that Apple Music has added the lossless format, will Naim integrate it into the App like Spotify, TIDAL and Qobuz?
No it’s not possible at this time. Apple offer no way to do this.
A few posts up you would have seen this.
To give you a summary of the discussion:
Aha; yeah, okay.
Well, if they made it as a dongle with SPDIF, enable as high-res as SPDIF (or maybe even Coax allows), … I guess Apple people would also pay a 100.
(Or hey allow the likes of Belkin, Yamaha or others to integrate this. They are really picky about selling high numbers if everything they design and deploy themselves")
Prerequisite is still, that AirPlay would seamlessly take the HighRes as well…
In 2012, I started streaming Apple Music with Airplay and an Airport Express after reading in stereophile.com that it supports lossless bit perfect streaming with ALAC. It seems that ALAC has been dropped with the introduction of AirPlay 2. Anyway, its analog output sounded terrible, TOSLink was ok.
With regards to your point 2, from what I’ve read, that’s a current limitation of the Apple Music app which should be updated later this year to support streaming via AirPlay 2 using ALAC 24bit/48Hz. Having said that, I would still like to see an Apple Music Connect type solution with full Hi-Res 24bit/192Hz support.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens over the next few months.
I do get the feeling that Apple rushed the launch of this to beat Spotify to their launch of lossless audio hence why there’s still so much ambiguity on so many things.
You can stream lossless files over AirPlay 1 or 2 at 16/44. What being talked about is the Apple Music subscription that just got lossless and hires. That currently is sending out acc streams regardless of what the setting is. The issue is with the app, not AirPlay.