What I mean is sitting down for an hour with a drink, and just listening, I did this the other day and listened to Roger Waters Dark side of the Moon Redux and found all sorts of stuff in the background you would never have heard if you just played it.

This then got me to thinking why do ‘modern’ albums sound so bad I concluded it was because they were designed to be played, that being the case why put the effort in of putting subtle background stuff in? When all artists want to do is make money and the average punter just wants to play it.

Do we have a 2 tier music society now?

Good to hear what others think

Like many as an iPhone/iPad owner I use Apple Music extensively and prefer it over Tidal & Qobuz, although I do use the former.  Therefore, I’ve spent a lot of time finding work arounds to play Apple Music in my systems at the best quality possible given the limitation on native support. 

If you don’t own an Android based streamer like Eversolo, WiiM then you may find this list of connection methods useful in your Cambridge setup.  If you have other workarounds then please add to the comments.

So my Apple streaming methods with Cambridge are:

• Apple TV HDMI via Arcam AVR 30 RCA L/R pre-out to Cambridge in Home Theatre Bypass (PCM 24 bit 48KHz either stereo or ATMOS).

• iPad/iPhone USB-C to Cambridge USB Audio In (Hi-Res Lossless 24bit 192Khz).

• SONOS Port connected to Cambridge via digital passthrough: SONOS has native Apple Music support (lossless 24 Bit 48Khz).

• PC Windows 11 Apple music app, supports CD quality to any AirPlay 2 device, including Cambridge. (ALAC Lossless 16bit 44.1Khz).  

• Airplay 2 for multi-room, but it is lossy AAC unless using Windows 11 App.
  
  Lysoniq App Lysoniq — Premium Apple Music Client for Audiophiles | Hi-Res Remote Control is a useful control app for USB streaming from iPad.

It’s a bit of a mess and these are all work arounds. 

Like others I wish Apple would just update Airplay to support hi-res lossless (AirPlay 2 was limited to lossy AAC to provide stable multi-room support over wifi, but wifi has moved on significantly since it was released) or make their API available to hifi manufacturers like Cambridge. 

Hope this is of use to someone in the community, but any other workarounds please post as I'm open to other novel solutions.

When controlling Azur 851N, there is a red dot on the bell on the Stream magic screen, which I tried to remove by restarting, updating, hard reset. Unsuccessfully. When I touch it, the Android application crashes. My phone is Samsung S23 Ultra.

Regards: János

use case:

• I listen to music with input source is deezer/spotify —> I turn off the Evo 150se.. (so far so good)

• Children want to watch a movie, turn on TV, ARC TV channel turns on home theater amplifier; Home theater (trigger output) turns on Evo 150se (trigger input).

  —> Issue: the audio source still deezer/spotify not AUX1 (pass-throughout). So no front Left/Right sound as AUX1 must be selected as audio source input with Home-theater use case.

The live album, recorded at Hyde Park in 2018 comes pretty cllose…

While Spotify connect with other devices properly.

No issue with Qobuz.