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Airport Express wav file vs CD played thru iTunes

I just bought an Airport Express and have it connected to my Primaluna integrated without using an external DAC (for the time being).

When I stream a wav file from iTunes the sound quality is noticeably worse than the same track played on a CD through iTunes. The wav file sounds compressed and very muffled. I would expect the quality to be equal to the CD. I only did this as a test and don't expect to play CDs through iTunes on my laptop streaming to the AE.

Will an external DAC "correct" this problem? Or is the wav file encoder for iTunes the issue? Or maybe something else entirely?
arm

Showing 1 response by edo_musica

edo_musica
113 posts
 
Steve,

I guess I am a bit confused. I interpreted from Arm's first post that he was using the laptop with iTunes to play both the CD and the WAV file -which he compared. So wouldn't the AE's jitter apply to both media types, both are reaching the AE as a Apple lossless stream and then decoded there to analog?

Arm, please clarify if I have how you were playing the CD.

ed
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