[jarcher]

This I assume can be both on this circle + Apple Core, but thought I'd place here for potentially wider reach.  Please move if necessary.

Until now I've only used Airplay as an occasional convenience / non-serious method to play back music.  But with the recent purchase of a Marantz AV7005 w/ built in Airplay, I'm wondering if this is a worthwhile method to playback music from itunes I have on a Mac or i-devices.  Unfortunately the built in ethernet network + USB function on the AV7005 doesn't seem to support apple lossless, which is what most of my music is encoded with. 

At this point I'd usually just dust off some stand alone DAC, feed it w/ a squeeze box, and be done.  But the idea of bypassing so many stages by doing the Airplay to the Marantz's internal DAC seems compelling.  An initial quick listen w/ Airplay also seems compelling.

SO : does anyone out there have experience with receiver / processor's with Airplay, and if so, what are their impressions about sound quality?  I've googled about, but not found much re: sound quality.  One claimed Airplay is uncompressed.  Another that it converts all streamed audio content to apple lossless.  Anyone have more concrete information / evidence about how Airplay works?

I guess using the ol ears as the arbiter is the best way to go about it, but sure would appreciate some comments / advise before devoting too much more time to it.  Otherwise, it'll be time spent re-coverting apple lossless to FLAC so the AV7005 can read over ethernet or USB.

Thanks!

[jarcher]

Any thoughts at all about airplay sound quality or links to more information about the technical details to better understand how it works?

[DS-21]

SO : does anyone out there have experience with receiver / processor's with Airplay, and if so, what are their impressions about sound quality?  I've googled about, but not found much re: sound quality.  One claimed Airplay is uncompressed.  Another that it converts all streamed audio content to apple lossless.  Anyone have more concrete information / evidence about how Airplay works?

AirPlay is bit perfect, and thus any "sonic differences" heard are a simple matter of listener delusion/audiophool nervosa, etc.

See JA's review of the ur-Airport Express.

[srb]

AirPlay is bit perfect, and thus any "sonic differences" heard are a simple matter of listener delusion/audiophool nervosa, etc.

Airplay software may be bit perfect, but all Airplay hardware is not.  The Apple TV upsamples to 16/48.
 
But let's say you have an Airport Express which is bit perfect.  Jitter must be an irrelevant spec and any amount is acceptable, no matter how great.  I will have to figure out what other electronic phenomena makes my direct optical connection to a DAC sound better than using the Airport Express' optical connection.
 
Steve

[jarcher]

Good point Steve.  Wondering how good the Marantz AV7005 is as airplay hardware.  Just the idea of avoiding a lot of conversions / losses w/ standalone streamer, then standalone DAC, analog cables, etc when you can "magically" pass the data wireless-ly to the DAC.

Guess option #2 is a USB hard drive to the Marantz.......though user interfaces tend to be clunkier than what you can do on the PC / itunes / iremote / etc end. USB is not without it's problems as well.

[jparkhur]

You can easily hear the difference between Airplay/Apple Airport Express and a basic cd player combo.  I use AE for the outside speakers and had been using it for two channel ease of use.  I have stopped that because it is too difficult to listen to the 16/44 output of the AE.   -Jon

[jarcher]

I stopped using Airport Express as well - but mostly because of the crumby optical vs deficiencies of airplay.  Did have stuttering problems w/ AEX, but honestly I think that was the fault of the PC processor being taxed / w other operations vs deficiency  of airplay.