Lossless Wireless Music Streaming for Any Speakers via AirPlay using Raspberry Pi

Software and Dev Software & Tools
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I have installed IQ audio HAT in my rasp pi and streaming music from my nas. I have installed volumio for this purpose.
The pi+hat is connected to my altec lansing Mx5021

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Most probably yes as the cheapest audiocast device would cost around 3k.

He is using YouTube music as a music player so that’s not feasible in his case.

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I did some more research and I found a product perfect for your use case. Its a bluetooth dac by fiio. Its supports ldac and aptx so it will be sufficient for your needs.

Youtube music streams music as 256kbps AAC and ldac supports 990kbps and the quality of fiio products is also very good. It is cheaper than DIY route too as it cost only 2k. Do have a look at it.

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@Heisen can also check this one - QCC5125 - Audio receiver for your speakers.
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Lossless-5-1-Bluetooth-decoder-hifi_1601286247918.html

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So AI says this.

  1. YouTube Music sends audio in a lossy format (AAC or Opus)
  2. Your phone decodes it to PCM
  3. Bluetooth re-encodes it using SBC / AAC / aptX / LDAC
  4. Your DAC decode it again

This is called transcoding (lossy → PCM → lossy).

The only advantage of AirPlay is that if the music we are playing is truly Lossless: 16-bit / 44.1 kHz (CD quality), it can transmit that to the DAC wirelessly in bit perfect form.

Any kind of bluetooth protocol add compression to this.

So in my case with youtube music my source is already lossy so airplay may not be worth it.

Streaming services that do give lossless 16-bit / 44.1 kHz (CD quality)

  • Apple Music
  • Amazon Music Unlimited
  • TIDAL
  • Qobuz
  • Deezer HiFi

Following streaming services are lossy

  • Spotify
  • Youtube Music
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Damnnn - Logitech Z623 THX 2.1 Desktop Speakers - Mint Condition - #5 by TheD4ddy

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Streaming Apple Music wirelessly to any device with Bit perfect - Lossless (High Res) mode is very hard or almost impossible. Apple offers 24-bit/192khz max.

For Apple Music, it is the best way to extract iOS → Wired DAC → Amp/Speaker.

For the offline file FLAC/ALAC to extract wirelessly via DLNA route, which is stored in NAS/Router Attached Storage/ SMB shared PC/Rpi.

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Wow! this reminded me of Volumio which I used a ton couple of years back😍.

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I’m not sure if lossless can truly be appreciated without earphones or headphones?

I remember not being able to tell the difference between 320kbps vbr and flac with desktop speakers.

With porta pros, yeah sure.

Where do you get lossless audio anyway these days? I used to encode CDs back in the day.

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True unless you have high fidelity studio monitors or 2 channel tower/bookshelf speaker setup with monoblock class A/B amplifier with toroidal transformer for each channel.

There are many sources for lossless 16bit and 24bit. Some of them already mentioned by @Heisen

You can buy digital records from Bandcamp,beatport, discogs, quboz, itunes.

For streaming the options are quboz, tidal, deezer, apple music, Amazon music

For vinyl and cds again there is Bandcamp, discogs, beatport, deejay

Tbh, it’s very hard to differentiate between 320 kbps cbr and lossless 16bit even on audiophile grade setup for most of the people. You can only identify differences if you have very sharp ears or with years of listening and testing stuff. The difference between 320 kbps vbr and lossless is still noticeable.

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Hi. Used ? Did you switch over to something better ? I find volumio fine, but is there something similar and better? I am using rpi with IQaudio Hat.

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Sadly, I stopped listening to music for a long time, I turned the raspberry pi I used with volumio into a private dns and jellyfin server recently.

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You will be able to tell the difference even with those. Your ears are just not trained enough. Once you start your Lossless journey and get used to it. In time, you will be able to hear the little nuances, details etc. You won’t be able to distinguish the sound stage with crappy devices but with source that can output full lossless , you will.
You will feel something is odd initially, the difference will be noticable but eventually with learnings you will.

Best cheap and reliable one in India is only Apple.
Then for downloading - Music / Podcasts / Radio • freemediaheckyeah

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I have bookmarked more posts in the last four months here on discourse than I ever did in four years of xenforo.

I love this place.

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