Spotify built in VS airplay

[tohusebo]

Hello, and thank you all for your amazing work! I am building my own system with a tpa 3116 board, 6n3 6z4 preamp and a raspberry pi with the hifiberry dac +. I am planning a project update in the diy section later this week. Its so much fun! Anyways, back to what I am wondering about. Is it just in my head, or is there a difference in audio quality when playing from the built in spotify vs playing over airplay? I cant stop feeling that the built in player gives me better audio..

[tjukkola]

You're probably right. I've heard that AirPlay isn't that good quality. I noticed clear difference between optical or usb connection to my dac and that via AirPlay.

[tohusebo]

Ah, good to know i´m not the only one Maybe a stupid question, but why? I thought airplay was in Apple Lossless format?

[tjukkola]

One was blaming iPad for loss of quality when using airplay. I'll test if there's difference between iPhone and MacBookPro. What's your device?

[tohusebo]

I see. I have used an iPhone. Will also try with an iPad and from itunes. Will also try playing a FLAC over airplay and localy on the Rpi to see if that makes a difference.