On 8/6/12 7:36 PM, pippin wrote:
Bluetooth Audio uses it's own codecs to encode and decode the audio before and after the transmission and these can be VERY lossy.
From what I understand, there are also issues with digital fidelity when using AirPlay. Audio-only AirPlay streams are encoded using Apple Lossless for transmission, regardless of the original source format.
So, the AirPlay receiver should get the same bitstream that the sender's DAC would see. But, at least in the case of the AppleTV device, there are only digital audio outputs (optical) and that output only supports 48kHz. So, all 44.1kHz audio is resampled to 48kHz before output. And, you need an outboard DAC or you will be relying on the DAC in your receiver/amp.
I don't know what the other AirPlay receivers are doing as far as transmission encoding, internal decoding, resampling and D/A conversion, but I'd want to see these details before committing to a solution like this for my main system.
I do own an AppleTV, and occasionally stream audio and video from an iPhone or iPad for playback, but this is mainly just for convenience in playing back something I've found on the web. Most of these sources are *far* from pristine. They do sound better through the big system than they do on the device outputs (excepting headphones), but I wouldn't consider this as a solution for regular audio playback.
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