updating a old setup

[clarityinlife]

hello thanks for reading,
first time post

i have a old hifi seperate system and want to move to purely streaming music from a iphone to my current speakers, i am looking at the best
way in terms of no loss of sound quality before it hits my ears.

I currently have a old Cambridge seprate system, azur 640a amp, and jamo d590 speakers floor speakers bi wired, and i think they are 200w.

I'd like introduce my apple iPhone as the primary and only source of music Streaming wirelessly.

I'm currently trying to understand the nature of the beast to make a informed decision as to which way forward.
I'm torn between scrapping the current amp for a amp with airplay and trying use what I have.

Ok so my issues 3 fold:
Questions

1. My Concerns is there loss of quality of music when sending over from a iPhone via wifi? Or Bluetooth?
As compared to direct from a CD player plugged direct into a amp. I read Bluetooth is worse. I would probably choose airplay,
i'm always going to stay with apple and itunes.
I read this is lossless!? is this true?

2. I read mp3 bit rate from iTunes is 256kps. And deezer my main music source 320.
I'm guessing this is not hd quality in terms of sound? Will a decent dac attached to my amp be overkill as the feed its given is not the best?

3. I have Apple TV. Which has digital audio optical out. i could look into going through Apple TV via airplay which could feed a new amp.
will I experience generation loss of apple tvs dacs ability or does it simply push the complete original digital signal on to the amp
that'll do the converting?

Any suggestions for decent buys to convert a old system into a streaming digital powerhouse would be appreciated.
Again would be using airplay and iphone as source of music and jamo speakers will definatly be staying as the output.
The middle part is undecided!

Many thanks

 

[iMark]

You already have the basics: amp/speakers + Apple TV.

All you need is a DAC to convert the digital signal from the ATV into analogue so you get sound out of the amp.

Probably the cheapest way to do this is to find a second hand Minidisc deck with optical in (almost all of them). Plenty of them about on the net at rock bottom prices. You would connect the ATV to the minidisc deck's optical in with an optical cable. Connect the playback on the deck to recorder or aux or line in on your amp with a stereo RCA cable. Then just hit the record button on the minidisc deck (without a disc inside) and you simply use the DAC in the minidisc recorder.

You could even use a minidisc deck with a broken transport mechanism for this. They're even cheaper. I don't know where you are located, but on Ebay UK there is a deck for sale for 23 pounds.

I have never tried Bluetooth for audio, but AirPlay works fine in our house.

This way you don't have to spend a lot of money to have a go at Airplay. You could always buy more expensive equiment later but I'm sure that the DAC in a minidisc recorder is more than good enough for your files.