(Not) streaming Apple Lossless with Qute

Qute only support apple lossless from an iPod. It won't play streaming. Per naim, apple only license anyone to play the digital stream decrypted by their iPod, all other form are not legitimate and non official nor support/license by apple. So you need to find other ways to do it. Some choose airport express/Mac mini, some prefer to use a nas that transcode the apple file to wav on the fly. Both have their pros and cons so you need to pick your compromise.

It's perfectly possible for the purveyors of streaming clients to make them compatible with apple lossless files, I'm sure it's no more of a licensing issue than AAC or AIFF files, and whilst I'm not sure about the Qute specifically I've seen that other Naim streaming products do support those. I don't think apple lossless is such a niche format as to not warrant being supported. I reckon Naim should sort this out as there are a lot of potential customers for whom this will be the convenient lossless format of choice, just like the OP.

The simple answer is that Apple will not grant us a licence to decode Apple Lossless files on the player itself and say that they have not granted licences to anyone to date ...

Cheers

Phil

Thanks All

I'll try to have a look at the UPnP software on the NAS.  An alternative would be to 'mass' convert my ALAC files to something else and drop them onto the NAS.  Any recommendations for how to do this?  And preferably without losing too much more in the way of quality - so, what software, and to what type of file?

Gavin

I had this issue, I installed eyeconnect on my mac and then streamed from the mac not directly from my NAS drive.  Although I now have to have my computer switched on to stream it works fine!

Lee

I'm in the process of converting about 10000 Apple lossless files to flac. I am using XLD (free download) and it works a treat; each file takes a couple of seconds and you can set in preferences for it to make the copy back into the same folder. If you want to keep only the flac/wav whatever files then do a search (AFTER the conversion obviously) for m4a and delete them en masse.

Thanks DK2 - I'll look that up.

Gavin

Interestingly I'm going back the other direction

Bad news (at least on first glance).  XLD is a Mac tool - I'm PC.  Any others?

Gavin

Lhau - for what reason?

I use xld, convert a flac to apple lossless. Convert both to wav. Both wav have exact same file size. Run kdiff to compare the 2 waves, zero difference. Good, for once they don't do anything funny to the sound (um you can argue they consistently do the same funny thing to both files I guess......)

Gavin, Because my nas can transcode to wave on the fly. There is an app to enable iPhone to play files on the nas from anywhere which my family likes to use, and iPhone cannot play flac files even via that app(no transcoding there I guess)! Thus I have decided to convert them to applelossless, particularly now it is shown that they indeed can convert without any loss!

Which would make a good case for either AppleTV as a source with itunes server on NAS.

Jono

...except that AppleTV2, as well as AirPlay, (presently) re-samples to 48kHz–no good if your library is CD-DA sourced.

As far as the OP goes, EyeConnect would be a better solution, among other options.

David - thanks for the suggestion, but EyeConnect seems to be Mac software - I'm on a Windows 7 PC.

Gavin

Gavin, I think people on pc side use dbpoweramp though I have never used it. It is supposed to be good for your purpose. For upnp server, I heard people use "assets" though again you should check it out. As for ripnas, I have no idea. I skim through the website and note that it is supposed to be using "assets", but I'm not sure if the bundled version can transcode on the fly, perhaps you can email them to ask......

True regarding ATV2. The nice thing with the original is local storage/cache as well as streaming from server.

It is also PC/Mac independent which is useful.

David,

I also realise now that I drove past your offices last year in my way up to visit a supplier based just west of Fairmount on route 26. If I had planned it better I would I stopped in to visit. Have you visited the record shop in Fairmount that opens on Saturdays? It looked interesting but I was only visiting during the week.

Jono

Fair enough Phil, I guess that means Sonos are a bit naughty then!

As a side note, I converted the files to apple lossless, I noted two things: 1. The transcoded stream now says it's a 44.1khz LPCM16 instead of 44.1khz wave 2. Anything above 16/44 became silent, so I guess the transcoder does not support hires apple lossless. Sound wise is still another surprise, I quickly skim through a few tracks this morning and found the apple files sound a bit warmer but there seems to be less of a soundstage and details. Will give it a long listen tonight. Meanwhile, anyone has ideas why? Maybe the LPCM type is different and not as good as the wav transcode?

AssetUPNP from dbpoweramp works fine.

I just copied all my ALAC files from the iTunes library to my Ripnas library, changed setting there to transcode ALAC files to WAV and it worked without problems, cover art included

rgds Adi