Gapless doesn't work with Apple Music with RS151

#1

Unless someone at HiFi Rose can give me the right answer, I’ll unfortunately have to return my new RS151 because it stops consistently at each attacca (with no break) between movements or songs when using Apple Music and their Gapless audio setting.

When I contacted MoFi Tech Support (their distributor) they confirmed the problem after testing it. While I could try another streaming service, I shouldn’t have to since Apple Music with lossless audio is part of the HiFi Rose package.

Examples:

  1. Marvin Gaye: What’s going on: God Is Love - Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology): There’s a unwanted break between these songs.

  2. Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring - It breaks after every movement and eventually doesn’t start up again after ending at the end of the track. FYI: This great ballet score is in 2 large Parts. Each one has multiple movements that are played attacca. As we know, putting unwanted breaks between the movements ruins the musical experience and wasn’t what Stravinsky was after.

  3. On several occasions the RS151 has stopped in the middle of tracks until I had to push play again.

  4. On 3 occasions the streamer shut off completely on its own and I needed to push the on button 2 or 3 times to get it going again. I checked the connection and that wasn’t the problem.

  5. Others have mentioned the same or similar problems on the internet with their reviews of both the 150b and the RS151.

Please advise.

Thanks!

#2

@Mission-Man-53

Apple Music, unlike Tidal and Qobuz, uses Android Player and thus does not have the gapless feature.

#3

Then why do you include Apple Music in your HIFI Rose? Making unnecessary breaks in the music is unforgivable.

#4

@Mission-Man-53

Due to popular demand from our users, we have decided to add Apple Music.
We plan to release an update with a fix if we can provide a solution to this issue in the future.

#5

Please blame Apple Music for this issue as Apple will not share their proprietary streams with any third party vendors. Rose tried to satisfy an ask from its customer base and was only given an API to use. Unfortunately, when this API is used, you are not getting lossless audio from Apple as it’s limited to AAC 256/kpbs. Other vendors offer Apple Music as well but they are using the native Android app developed by Apple. There’s no guarantee that those will work in the future as Android is updated and Apple redevelops their app. It may stop working with those streamers as well. The only way I know you can get gapless and lossless playback is to use an Apple device. When you use AirPlay and an iPad, you will get CD quality lossless and gapless playback. If you want higher resolution than CD quality lossless, you will need some sort of Apple device hard-wired to the streamer.

I have a very high-end system and refuse to listen to AAC on it. The only Apple products I’ve ever owned are an iPod and iPads so I personally have never been hellbent on using Apple Music. I took advantage of the 60-day trial of Roon through HiFi Rose and have decided to opt for a lifetime subscription. Roon Radio helps me find new music. I’m a current Apple Music subscriber and am cancelling my subscription when it expires in June. Apple is much too restrictive. For my purposes, subscribing to Tidal and Roon coupled with my personal music library beats using Apple Music.

Everyone blames Rose for not having gapless audio on their Apple app. The source of the issue is Apple not HiFi Rose.

2 Likes
#6

I am nearing the end of my three month free trial of Apple Music and I will not be renewing it.

The Apple Lossless / High Res debate populates the forums of seemingly many, if not all, HIFI forums, with the most common question being “ what resolution is my unit receiving when I stream Apple Music via Airplay?”. It was a question I also asked. Bottom line is that for the majority, as @macnet427 said in his excellent post, the best we get is AAC/256kbps.

In my experience the Apple mantra of “ it just works” is a myth as far as High res / lossless audio is concerned. If you want it, go ahead and plug a cable into your iPhone / iPad, connect with an external DAC and finally plug anothe cable from your external DAC into your unit. 21st century ?

Others advise that if you are using AirPlay 1 then you can receive CD quality ( but not high Rez ) but if you are using AirPlay 2 you cannot. If true, how crazy is that ?

The entire saga of Apple Music lossless & high resolution is a masterpiece of confusion and I say this as a long time Apple fan boy. They make some great products but this ain’t one of them for those outside the Apple garden wall.
To repeat what @macnet427 concluded, this is an Apple issue, not HiFi Rose.

1 Like
#7

Roseann:

Great. Thanks. I’m please that you’ll be doing the update.

While I also use Tidal and I’ve tried the others, I believe that Apple Music should still a player because of their large library where you can easily find recordings not available on Tidal and especially Qobuz. I also believe that if you’re going to include Apple Music, Gapless should work. Yet I also agree that Apple needs to upgrade their sound quality so HD audio can easily and correctly be played through streamers like the RS151. So, while the other streaming devices are typically ignoring Apple for this reasons mentioned here, it’s good that you’ll be working with them. Then maybe Apple will get their act together and join the high end audio community.