Streaming lossless audio quality

[gus6464]

Today my wife bought an apple airport express and I have a question about the audio quality of streamed music. We have a pc in the bedroom that has all of our music collection ripped in either apple lossless or flac. Will the audio quality of the music degrade even though it is lossless when we stream it over the wireless network?

 

[BMXTRIX]

In theory, no. In reality, you will be limited by some of the DACs which are included within the componentry you are purchasing. That is, cheap gear combined with great audio = cheap audio. But, it is still cheap GOOD audio. So, it is nothing like an MP3 which would be cheap bad audio.

It is also possible for some of the data to potentially be lost, but that is highly unlikely with the reliability of most networks these days. So, I expect that what you will hear will be a fair shot better than MP3 and as far as I know there is not one extra bit of compression that takes for the Airport. It simply streams the lossless audio from point 'A' to point 'B'.

 

[MDS]

If it is lossless it is the same quality as the original, just compressed into a smaller size. Upon decoding, you will get back the original.

Wireless streaming can affect the 'quality' only if the stream is interrupted or can't be streamed at the required data rate. Interruptions can be caused by interference from devices operating near the same frequency such as microwaves or cordless phones or if there is a lot of traffic on the network (not usually the case in a home environment).

 

[gus6464]

Ahh ok and also right now I am just using an acoustic research rca to miniplug cable that I bought for 10 bucks at best buy earlier. It is a pretty thick cable with gold plated connectors but I am wondering if buying a miniplug to toslink cable will help anything as the airport express audio port can also do optical.