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Trust your ears. If it sounds different to you, then go with what you think sounds best. There's an article written about how some are afraid to get into this hobby because of all the voodoo around.
https://www.soundstageaccess.com/index.p...h-in-audio
Just enjoy the music and forget about the specs.
Lifetime Roon, Mac mini, int. SSD, ext. HDD, tv as monitor, key board and track pad on bean bag as remote,Devialet 200, Od'A #097, Blue jeans speaker cable,
Dynaudio C1 MkII.
Jim Smith's GBS.
Northern NSW Australia.
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The expert pro CI are Airplay 2 compatible.
This being said, to my knowledge and reading the specs of Airplay vs Airplay 2 there is no difference from audio capabilities perspective, just the multi room capability that Airplay 2 is bringing.
Sure Airplay is limited to 48kHz and 24bits, but that’s really up to you to decide it is a problem for you.
Personally I’m using Roon RAAT when using my macintosh as a source and Airplay when using my phone or my iPad as the source to listen to Apple Music.
I have never been able to tell the difference between RAAT, Devialet’s Air and Apple’s Airplay, despite having done several A/B/C testing by having the same source through the 3 means and switching from one to the other.
I did the same with high res material that I on the fly and in parallel reduced to 44/16, and yet again was not able to find a difference, letting me think that on my system and with my ears and my brain, I don’t need high res as a format, but for the better masters which is often the case.
Therefore, everything is always reduced to 44/16 in my music library because I don’t see the point to spend 2 to 6 times the disk space for no differences to me.
That may also explain, or at least it is consistent with my inability to make a difference between RAAT, Air and Airplay.
Jean-Marie
MacBook Air M2 -> RAAT/Air -> WiFi -> PLC -> Ethernet -> Devialet 220pro with Core Infinity (upgraded from 120) -> AperturA Armonia
France
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Thanks to both of you, that's really helpful and thanks for doing th A/B/C testing for me. My ears are pretty good, though they are probably fading now, (musical family and into Hifi for nearly 40 years) – so everything aways sounds a little wrong in areas, and it sounds slightly different on different days – lots of the change is in my head though. I also have posh acoustic guitars and they sound really different from day to day - but then there's live wood, humidity etc.
I guess it's listening practicality vs the last 5% of quality. Sit back and enjoy the music! My impression is the Devialet does a pretty good job from some pretty not so good masters.
James
