Home Theater Geeks 554 Transcript
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Scott Wilkinson [00:00:00]:
In this episode of Home Theater Geeks, I answer a question about streaming high-quality audio from an iPhone to a receiver. So stay tuned.
TWiT.tv [00:00:14]:
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Scott Wilkinson [00:00:19]:
This is TWiT. Hey there, Scott Wilkins. Hi, I'm Jim Jensen here, the Home Theater Geek. In this episode, I answer a question from Brett Wesley, who actually sent it to AVS Forum some years ago, but it's still relevant in my opinion, so I thought I'd share it with you. Here's his question. I am planning on purchasing a Denon AVR-X6500H receiver. And I want to stream my FLAC music files on my iPhone to the Denon receiver. I can either connect my Chromecast Audio to the receiver's optical input and stream it that way, or I can stream it via the built-in AirPlay 2 connection.
Scott Wilkinson [00:01:21]:
My questions are: One, which of the 2 methods would be higher fidelity? I want to use the highest fidelity of the 2, and also I'm thinking about using Tidal's premium service, which is called High, at 1411 kilobits per second. Are there any limitations with either Chromecast Audio or AirPlay 2 that would prevent me from enjoying Tidal's High full fidelity? Or should I just keep the standard, uh, service from Tidal at 320 kilobits for streaming? Well, thanks for the question, Brett. Um, it's a great question actually. And, uh, let me start by saying that the Chromecast Audio, which is a little device, um, little puck-shaped device that connects to, uh, your speakers or your AV receiver with a cable that it provides, comes with. And then it also has a USB port for power, but it's no longer available. But you can get one on eBay. I've seen them there for anywhere from $50 to $175. Uh, that's a wide price range.
Scott Wilkinson [00:02:43]:
I'm not quite sure why that is, but they are there. And certainly many people still have one that they got some years ago. Um, and as I said, it connects to the AVR via its optical cable, and it receives audio, uh, over Wi-Fi wirelessly from your phone, say. Now, both Chromecast Audio and AirPlay 2 can stream FLAC files, which is Free Lossless Audio Codec. And its name says what it does. It's lossless. So the audio information is compressed a little bit, but it is not— no information is thrown away, unlike, say, MP3, which throws away up to 90% of the audio information in a wireless audio stream. Uh, now it does so in a way that presumably isn't noticeable, but depending on how much it gets thrown away, yeah, it can be noticeable.
Scott Wilkinson [00:03:52]:
So FLAC files don't throw any information away, so they're the same as listening to a physical CD or more. Um, and both the Chromecast Audio and the AirPlay 2, as I said, support streaming FLAC files. With the Chromecast Audio, you do want to enable high dynamic range. It's one of the settings in the, in the app controls, and it defaults to off, so you want to turn it on to be able to do this. Now, what about the audio specs? Chromecast Audio tops out at 24 bits and 96 kHz sampling rate. AirPlay 2 can do no better than 24/48. Um, and but you have to be aware that if you're using Apple Music, it forces, uh, AirPlay 2 to downshift into a lossy format called AAC-256. Now that's still quite a high bitrate.
Scott Wilkinson [00:05:03]:
And even though you're losing some information, it's not a lot, and you might not notice the difference. But if you really want lossless, uh, then you want FLAC, and you're not going to get it from Apple Music. But you say you have FLAC files on your phone, so that shouldn't be a problem. So taking a look at those 2 specifications, the Chromecast Audio is a little better. Uh, $2,496 as opposed to AirPlay 2 at $2,448. Um, will you notice the difference? Probably not. Um, anyway, let's talk about the receiver. The AVR-X6500H from Denon, um, supported AirPlay 2.
Scott Wilkinson [00:05:51]:
It's discontinued now. Um, but it's been updated to the AVR-X6800H, um, which has 11.4 channels and has an MSRP of $3,800. That's a pretty expensive receiver, but 11.4 channels, you know, that's a lot. The X6500H had 11.2, so the newer one has 2 more subwoofer outputs. Uh, that being the primary difference as far as I can tell. Um, I looked at their specs and I couldn't find anything about this, but I assume that they both support up to 24/48 via AirPlay 2. They both support AirPlay 2. You can stream from your iPhone directly to the receiver, and I assume that they support the full Um, bitrate of AirPlay 2.
Scott Wilkinson [00:06:51]:
I don't know about 24/96 via optical from the Chromecast Audio. On the other hand, now that I'm thinking about it, it doesn't matter because the Chromecast Audio is feeding audio to the receiver through a wire, through a cable. So it doesn't matter whether it knows— it doesn't know what bitrate the audio is coming to the Chromecast over wireless from. It just— it'll just send that audio in a physical format. So you should get— be able to get 24/96 from your phone into the Chromecast Audio and thus into the receiver. Now you're right, Tidal offers a high, uh, tier, if you will, at 1,441 kilobits per second, which is CD lossless. It also offers a low setting of 320 kilobits per second, which is quite lossy. It also offers a max tier, which is 24 bits, 192 kilohertz sample rate.
Scott Wilkinson [00:08:00]:
Um, both the Chromecast Audio and AirPlay 2 can support the high tier but not the full max resolution. So technically Chromecast Audio is a bit better than AirPlay 2, just a bit. Will you hear the difference? Probably not, depending on your equipment and your environment. Unless you have a super quiet environment, I bet you won't hear the difference. So If you have a Chromecast Audio anyway, um, and your FLAC files go up to 24/96, sure, use that. Um, if they go up to 24/48 or if they're CD quality, either one will be identical and it won't matter. So I hope you enjoy all those great FLAC files. Now, if you have a question for me Send it along to htg@twit.tv, and I'll answer as many as I can right here on the show.
Scott Wilkinson [00:09:09]:
And if you have a theater you're proud of, send me some pics. I'd love to see them, and maybe we'll get you on the show to talk about it. Until next time, geek out! Geek out!
