Passthrough content on OS26 - Good news for Apple TV and Apple Music users?

[sachinchavan 15865]

Can technically adept FMs such as @mbhangui explain what this could enable for us audiophiles? Also, without AirPlay supporting lossless transmission, how does one benefit from this with a streamer that takes AirPlay content from the Apple TV or iPhone?

Passthrough audio is finally on the way to Apple TV, iPhone, and more​

Passthrough audio is finally on the way to Apple TV

We've confirmed at WWDC that tvOS 26 is getting passthrough audio, which could allow a higher quality listening experience by disabling audio preprocessing on the Apple TV hardware, before hand-off to a sound system.

appleinsider.com

 

[mbhangui]

Can technically adept FMs such as @mbhangui explain what this could enable for us audiophiles? Also, without AirPlay supporting lossless transmission, how does one benefit from this with a streamer that takes AirPlay content from the Apple TV or iPhone?

Passthrough audio is finally on the way to Apple TV, iPhone, and more​

Passthrough audio is finally on the way to Apple TV

We've confirmed at WWDC that tvOS 26 is getting passthrough audio, which could allow a higher quality listening experience by disabling audio preprocessing on the Apple TV hardware, before hand-off to a sound system.

appleinsider.com

The benefit of this would be when you play apps like netflix, apple music, etc on the apple tv, the audio will be passed directly to the device connected on the HDMI cable.

Remember that the new appletv 4k have removed the optical out. So, you will require a dac with HDMI input. So by a remote chance if you have a high quality DAC with HDMI input you can take advantage of it.

Nothing changes with airplay. It will continue to suck.

 

[DB1989]

Can technically adept FMs such as @mbhangui explain what this could enable for us audiophiles? Also, without AirPlay supporting lossless transmission, how does one benefit from this with a streamer that takes AirPlay content from the Apple TV or iPhone?

Its always good to have the passthrough option, or for that matter more options in general, but i'm unsure whether it would be of advantage per se cuz I quite like the pre-processing applied by Apple - the top end isn't as refined as my streamers such as the Eversolo A8 & Ifi Zen Stream but there's this intangible depth to musical notes which i can't quite quantify yet qualitatively in adequate measure and that is the hook that has me returning back to hear content through it. It also seems to do spatial cues a bit better than the streamers to boot.

The benefit of this would be when you play apps like netflix, apple music, etc on the apple tv, the audio will be passed directly to the device connected on the HDMI cable.

Remember that the new appletv 4k have removed the optical out. So, you will require a dac with HDMI input.

Don't necessarily need a DAC with an HDMI input as there are other ways to milk that cat - some DDCs, including the Eversolo A8, allow HDMI audio to be sent through IIS (i2s) to any DAC that sports said input. I've deployed the Eversolo in conjunction with the Gustard R26 to good effect but can't with the RME ADI-2 DAC FS as its restricted to only USB, Coaxial and Toslink.

So by a remote chance if you have a high quality DAC with HDMI input you can take advantage of it.

Does the Eversolo A8 count as a high quality DAC?