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deezer hifi and airplay?

  • 7 December 2019
  • 23 replies
  • 6509 views

Hello, if I use my iPhone to play music from Deezer app and a hifi subscription, and redirect the music (normally FAC format)  via airplay to my audio system (old system, with an airplay receiver), is the sound will be degradated ? Or is it a valid option ?

Is Deezer  hifi (launched on my iPhone) is compatible with airplay ?

 

i really try to find a wireless solution with good quality, and by using my existing audio system…

 

thank you for your help

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Best answer by Rudi 16 May 2020, 16:38

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Userlevel 7
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Hi there @marilyne DELL'amico 

Not at the moment. Not even AirPlay 2 enables streaming FLAC for a third Music provider like us. You can cast to other devices via Chromecast, for example (and we're preparing a new integration).

For example, FLAC on the new Homepod is only available with Airplay 2 for Apple Music. Thank you for your support and understanding :thumbsup_tone2:

Thank you, but not sure to understand. What about a solution like the ok to receiver? It enables to receive via airplay, cd quality no ? Like chromecast ?

Userlevel 7
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Thanks for coming back @marilyne DELL'amico. All I can say, to be certain, is that Airplay won't stream in FLAC from a Deezer account, yet.

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Thanks for coming back @marilyne DELL'amico. All I can say, to be certain, is that Airplay won't stream in FLAC from a Deezer account, yet.

 

Rudi, I’ve been reading a lot about this recently, and can’t understand it. Are you saying that a) Tidal & Amazon HD (as fellow third parties) won’t stream in CD quality over AirPlay? and b) Deezer Hi-Fi will only work with native apps like MusicCast or HEOS?

My understanding was that Airplay converts to ALAC from FLAC, but that was still a lossless conversion. Tidal & Amazon say their services work in lossless via AirPlay. Is Deezer different to this? Have you not developed the FLAC to ALAC conversion, is that it? Airplay is by far the main way I listen to music at home, and Tidal appears to have no problem with it. I’ve not tried Amazon yet, but their website clearly states that HD will work over AirPlay.

Also, I’ve questioned this in other threads I know, but it’s just bizarre that you can’t have more than one profile with Hi-Fi (just two will do), and that I can’t actually subscribe to it anyway with my BMW OE Premium subscription. I don’t want either the cost or inconvenience of subscribing to multiple services, but presently Deezer can’t actually accommodate my not-that-outlandish requirements.

Lastly, will Hi-Fi work with CarPlay?

Thanks

Rob

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Hi there @marilyne DELL'amico 

Not at the moment. Not even AirPlay 2 enables streaming FLAC for a third Music provider like us. You can cast to other devices via Chromecast, for example (and we're preparing a new integration).

For example, FLAC on the new Homepod is only available with Airplay 2 for Apple Music. Thank you for your support and understanding :thumbsup_tone2:

Hi @Rudi

 Please can you substantiate this claim, as it quite patently can’t be true if Tidal & Amazon HD work at CD resolution via AirPlay (which they both categorically claim they do). Airplay automatically converts to ALAC from FLAC, so I don’t understand why Deezer can’t do this when other third party providers can. As Apple don’t supply a Hi-fi tier subscription to Apple Music, it also doesn’t make sense why they would restrict this. 
 

Thank you. 
 

Rob

 

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@Rudi Can we have a response & update on this, please? I’d really appreciate an explanation as to why you believe Deezer Hi-Fi couldn’t work over AirPlay while Tidal, Amazon HD & Qobuz all categorically state that 16 bit CD quality FLAC music up to 48khz (note not 24 bit ‘Hi Res’ material, though I think that’s pretty niche) will. Note also this has nothing to do with AirPlay 2.

All four (I believe) use FLAC, all four are third parties to Apple, AirPlay converts to ALAC internally…. please can you explain Deezer’s stance? Or does this only apply to 24 bit / 360 Reality Audio?

If you can confirm this, get it sorted if it is true & I think you’d get a much bigger take up. I’d certainly be first in line (apart from the fact that I can’t subscribe to it as a BMW Online Entertainment subscriber - another ludicrous restriction)!

 

Thank you,

Rob

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Hi there Rob @Viewtiful Bob,

Thank you for your comments and for your patience.

I'll need to confirm that with the team. At the time when I wrote that reply, I had personally contacted the Product Manager responsible for the integration and AirPlay (not AirPlay 2) had those specs. It was confirmed on an Apple page for the integration, I remember reading it. Otherwise, I wouldn't have said it :sweat:

I agree with you that we can get a much bigger take-up. So bear with me while I get more details. We've worked on improvements to our Siri integration, and I can see this as a step forward this year :thumbsup_tone2:

Hi,

Not having Airplay for hifi streaming is horrible. 
 

what is the update? 
 

I have both Chromecast and Musicast and they are just terrible. (Equally) 
 

Thanks 

Userlevel 7
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I've asked our devs about more info on this (AirPlay and HiFi) - we'll let you know once we've heard back, thank you for your support @KP50 :wink:

Thank you. Look forward to hearing about update on Airplay. 
 

 

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Hey @KP50 @Viewtiful Bob 

Our devs came back to us with more info on this:

It is true that HiFi users can stream their songs in FLAC format to an AirPlay speaker without loss of quality. iOS converts the decoded audio data to ALAC, which is the Apple equivalent of FLAC and is a lossless compression format.

About AirPlay 2, it consists mostly of 2 improvements compared to AirPlay:

  • multiroom audio, which allows playing synchronously the same song on multiple speakers, it is supported by Deezer app
  • fast streaming, which increases playback control reactivity and reduces the chance to face audio drops, this feature is not currently implemented in Deezer app

AirPlay 2 does not improve audio quality, the original version of AirPlay already offers CD-quality audio (16 bit 44.1/48 kHz).

In sum, you're right and the information previously provided wasn't correct. Once we have more concrete details, I'll be sharing them here in the community :v_tone2:

Thank you for the information about converting HIFI to ALAC using AirPlay. 
 

 

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Thank you for keeping tabs with me on this @KP50 it's great for the community and for our devs to be in tune with everyone as well :vulcan_tone2:

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Hey @KP50 @Viewtiful Bob 

Our devs came back to us with more info on this:

It is true that HiFi users can stream their songs in FLAC format to an AirPlay speaker without loss of quality. iOS converts the decoded audio data to ALAC, which is the Apple equivalent of FLAC and is a lossless compression format.

About AirPlay 2, it consists mostly of 2 improvements compared to AirPlay:

  • multiroom audio, which allows playing synchronously the same song on multiple speakers, it is supported by Deezer app
  • fast streaming, which increases playback control reactivity and reduces the chance to face audio drops, this feature is not currently implemented in Deezer app

AirPlay 2 does not improve audio quality, the original version of AirPlay already offers CD-quality audio (16 bit 44.1/48 kHz).

In sum, you're right and the information previously provided wasn't correct. Once we have more concrete details, I'll be sharing them here in the community :v_tone2:

Hi @Rudi 

Thats great news, thank you for looking into it & confirming. I’m glad I was right - doesn’t happen often! I’ll take a cut for all the extra subscriptions you’ll get now 😁

Now I’m free of the shackles of the BMW subscription & I know it’ll work on Airplay I will try out Hi-Fi. (presumably Master / 24 bit will automatically downsample to CD quality?)

 

Then the only thing I need is Hi-Fi and Family in a combined subscription! Or even better, the option for two profiles (like the ‘couple’ plan Spotify offer). Why not make the plans modular like that so you can customise what you do want & what you don’t want? That would be a good unique selling point if I could have Hi-Fi and two profiles (who needs six, exactly?) 😉

Cheers

Rob

 

 

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Hello everyone,

Great thread. I have been myself advocating for a full AirPlay 2 support within Deezer here 

 and there https://fr.deezercommunity.com/la-boite-a-idees-36/compatibilite-deezer-avec-airplay-2-27534...

It would be a great feature to improve the Deezer experience with enhanced audio buffering, especially if a Family/Hifi (HiRes?) plan is coming…

Indeed, I think even with the correction of @Rudi , there is still a misunderstanding of what AirPlay 2 is capable. My understanding is that it no longer converts to ALAC but the music stream/file is sent as is to the Speakers. Basically, it now supports a variety of audio formats, various bit depths and various sampling rate (including 48 kHz). See below.

 

Can’t wait for @dev to implement this!

 

You can read it all at the 2017 (!!!) WWDC session: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/509/

Hi there, i’m a new user and I have some questions for my Hi-Fi plan:

  1. AirPlay: can I stream in Hi-Fi quality with my DENON?
  2. CarPlay: I connect the iPhone in the car with USB, the quality are Hi-Fi?
  3. This morning when I play a song after 30 sec. skip the track, whats the problem? (the track is “Forever Young - Alphaville” from his album)

Thanks!

Userlevel 4
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@Rudi Quick follow up.

I’ve read here: https://devialetchat.com/Thread-Apple-Music-Hi-res?pid=102346#pid102346 that there may be limitation in the way AirPlay 2 has to be integrated in speakers, as far as codec and bitrate/samples are concerned and that only aac and ALAC, 16bit and 44,1/48kHz are currently supported without conversion.

I don’t have access to the MFI documentation quoted though. Maybe you do on Deezer side.

Best,

Здравствуйте. Проблема с подпиской. Активировал hi fi russia из подписок в настройках айфон 12 мини, но в приложении пишет бесплатная версия подписки и качество звука не изменятся

Userlevel 7
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Hey @jeremybonan thanks for the detail! I've forwarded your comments to the relevant teams here at Deezer - but they're super busy doubling their efforts these months to fix more bugs. We need to hang in here before we know more about AirPlay 2 and how it works with our service.

Hi @Anatoliy777 

You need to check this here:

 

If I buy an Airplay 2 capable amplifier, can I stream Deezer Hifi (16.44.1) from MacOs Macbook and also iOS iPhone, without any extra device?

@Ironback Jack 

Yes, that's exactly how it works.

@Ironback Jack

Yes, that's exactly how it works.

Thank you Dee-Kirk…                          So am I sending audio data from MacOs/ iOs to the Airplay 2 Amplifier, or am I ‘telling’ the amplifier to retrieve that data itself? Many thanks

 

@Ironback Jack 

You send the audio from your Mac or iOS device. If you run out of battery there, the data transfer also ends.

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