Adding AptX

[Barnaby]

Hi there, I have an annual Apple Music sub ( NB I won't be changing that until November for better or worse! ) Hegel H160 amp, Cambridge MXN10 streamer, a macbook air, iphone, ipad, mac mini. I use all of these in one combination or another to listen to music. I would ideally like to stream in a way that would allow me to listen to Hi Res or at least CD quality music wirelessly.

I know airplay 2 messes this up but I wonder if I could use AptX HD or adaptive to solve my issue? Could I add one or more of the below products and connect it to my Macbook, iPad or phone and streamer or amp as appropriate?

Maybe this or how about this or even this

What do you say?

 

[Vincent Kars]

Indeed Airplay 2 uses AAC most of the time. Don't think aptX HD is an improvement

The Well-Tempered Computer

 

[Barnaby]

That's a pity. Ithought the newer versions of AptX did hi res. Hmm 🙂

 

[Vincent Kars]

There ain't such thing as a newer version of aptX HD. There is a new product explicitly labeled aptX Lossless. Maybe you can find a transmitter and a receiver supporting this protocol.

 

[Barnaby]

Right ho. I have read a bit about this now and it seems if I can use the aptx version you mention kit it should be possible. OTOH I’m not sure I’m that motivated to chase down a rabbit hole though and apparently it might involve dealing with bugs and a massive amount of more bandwidth etc so I probably not worth the effort

 

[PieterG]

I don't believe bluetooth currently supports lossless cd quality, let alone hi-res. The closest you can get is aptX lossless with a Snapdragon chipset, as Vincent says. It offers 1.2Mbps bandwidth in ideal conditions and will use lossy compression if the signal quality is insufficient.

LDAC (990kbps) and aptX adaptive (860kbps) are more commonly supported, and provide 24bit/96kHz compressed (lossy) with good quality. I personally use this only when ethernet/wifi is not available. In side by side comparison, bluetooth sound doesn't have the same sparkle, but for normal listening it's absolutely fine.

If you want the best quality stream from cd or hi-res source, try to use cabled network or at least good wifi. That ensures playback without compression or downsampling. Your Cambridge streamer is perfectly capable of all that. The H160 should also accept USB input from a pc, and network input from a DLNA media server (or an app stream).

 

[Barnaby]

Thank you @PieterG I’ve pretty much decided to use an older MacBook connected to the H160 via USB. Alternative listening on my Topping DX5II in the living room or bedroom is also great. Other times I’m not really likely to be concentrating enough to bother about sound quality above an acceptable level.

 

[PieterG]

I’ve pretty much decided to use an older MacBook connected to the H160 via USB. Alternative listening on my Topping DX5II in the living room or bedroom is also great.

MacBook to USB input will give your amp a better source signal to work with.

If your Topping and Hegel are physically connected, you will theoretically have better resolution and lower distortion by using the DAC to process the source and send it to your Hegel on an analog input. The H160 has an older single AKM chip, while the Topping has a Sabre chip per channel. Even if you don't use it that way, it might be fun to test if you hear any difference...