[Ioanast]

Hello guys! I wanted to open this thread in "Computer Audio",
but I read "Help" threads must open here, so, this is my "help me" matter:

I have used Roon and Tidal for a long time, but after a lot of changes in my set-up,
I recently decided to turn to just Apple Music. Why?
For a lot of reasons, and most of all, at the time I seek simplicity in everything
and that goes also with my headphone system too.

I use as a source a MacBook Air M2, with SONOMA 14.4.1,
connected through USB to my beloved Chord Hugo TT2.
So, the chain is Apple Music ----> MacBook Air USB output ----> input USB Chord Hugo TT2.
Everything plays excellent, except one thing:

The sampling rate of every playing file is not automatically changing,
so I have to open Audio Midi and change the sampling rate for files with 96khz, 192khz etc.
Most of my playing files are being streamed directly from Apple Music, and plus these,
I also have imported a lot of AIFF high sample recordings of my own into the Music Library.

In an effort to avoid this annoying sample rate changing, I downloaded Audirvana.
I have used Audirvana and Pure Music some years ago, with Pure Music to be more balanced sound in my ears.
At this time, Pure Music has been left behind and Audirvana seems to be a more modern option.
Indeed I was impressed with the new interface and the features.
Automatic rate changing, and re-sampling with 2 great codes, everything fine.
What's the problem?
When synchronizing Audirvana with my Apple Music Library, only my 100 AIFF songs were recognized.
From 10.000 songs embedded in library, not even one was recognized by Audirvana.
And a pop-up window explains: "Not songs files, or DRM protected files recognized etc."

Contacted Audirvana guys, they say "download the songs" and Audirvana will recognize them.
I download a batch to try it, but had no luck. Same result.
So, I search into Music Library folders to see what's happening,
and to my surprise, I see all the downloads from Apple are not AIFF files any more.
Not ALAC, not anything. They have an extension .movpkg
.movpkg ???

It seems Apple has put severe protection to the Music Library.
So, even when I download the files (and not only stream) Audirvana cannot play them.

Is there anyone here mates, that has faced the same situation?
Audirvana to play Apple Music?
Does anybody knows what is happening with these extensions?
Has somebody found any work around to this matter?
Any help is welcome, any knowledge that you can offer would be very helpful to me.
Thank you all mates!!!

 

[BS5711]

I don’t have an answer for you but downloads from any streaming service are intended to be played only through the streaming service app so that you can’t save them elsewhere and use them as you are aiming to do. They are essentially the property of the service not the user so they obviously don’t want you joining for a month to download all your songs then cancelling your subscription. Hence the protection indicated by the file extension and why you can’t see the files.

I don’t use Roon so I don’t know how that works with Tidal and downloads.

UAPP can stream Tidal for example but doesn’t allow downloads because of the file protection on the downloads.

A simple way to get automatic switching on Apple Music is by downloading ‘Lossless Switcher’ which changes the MIDI for you and works with streaming and downloads.

Of course you don’t have the other features of you current app.

The only way I know of to end up with unprotected downloads off a streaming service is to use certain apps that essentially just record the song to FLAC or other options but that requires playing the song at an increased rate but a larger number of songs will still take days. I have never tried because it seems highly impractical except for perhaps a small playlist and seems questionable in respect of possibly legalities and definitely ethics.

 

[matthia]

Audirvana to play Apple Music?

Did you post your problem on the Audirvana Community Forum?
https://community.audirvana.com
Did you consider to change from Apple Music to Qobuz or Tidal?

 

[Ioanast]

I don’t have an answer for you but downloads from any streaming service are intended to be played only through the streaming service app so that you can’t save them elsewhere and use them as you are aiming to do. They are essentially the property of the service not the user so they obviously don’t want you joining for a month to download all your songs then cancelling your subscription. Hence the protection indicated by the file extension and why you can’t see the files.

I don’t use Roon so I don’t know how that works with Tidal and downloads.

UAPP can stream Tidal for example but doesn’t allow downloads because of the file protection on the downloads.

A simple way to get automatic switching on Apple Music is by downloading ‘Lossless Switcher’ which changes the MIDI for you and works with streaming and downloads.

Of course you don’t have the other features of you current app.

The only way I know of to end up with unprotected downloads off a streaming service is to use certain apps that essentially just record the song to FLAC or other options but that requires playing the song at an increased rate but a larger number of songs will still take days. I have never tried because it seems highly impractical except for perhaps a small playlist and seems questionable in respect of possibly legalities and definitely ethics.

Dear BS5711, thank you very much for your detailed reply.
Of course every platform owns its songs, and have paid for it, but we also pay for it, I don't have Apple Music for free.
I remember back in the days of iTunes, I downloaded the songs in aiff or alac and everything was fine.
Somewhere in my drawers I have a disk with some dozens songs from this era.

I have used Audirvana 3.5 (and beyond) in the past, with no problem.
But anyway, I understand all that you say, you are very right in everything.
It seems all that I want, in a very simple explain, is to stream Apple Music through Audirvana.
Audirvana Studio offers Tidal, Qobuz and HIRESaudio streaming, but not Apple Music.
Strangely though, Audirvana is based upon the iTunes/Music app for apple users to play,
but as it seems, it can play only local downloaded files from any local library or else,
except files downloaded from Apple.
I thank you so much for all the other options, I will keep them in mind.
At the time being, I want to keep everything simple, as simpler as it gets.
I will try Audirvana support or community and see what's next. I will keep you informed.
Cheers mate!!!

 

[Ioanast]

Did you post your problem on the Audirvana Community Forum?
https://community.audirvana.com
Did you consider to change from Apple Music to Qobuz or Tidal?

Dear Mat, thank you very much my friend.
Yes, I will try the community, but I have already contacted the Audirvana support because I want an official reply at first.
I have used Tidal for many years, Roon too, I paid a lot of money for them,
before I suddenly one day realized that we all pay for hi res music files
but the 95% we get of all Tidal etc. is classic 16bits-44,1khz at the most.
I don't think it deserves all this pain really, not minding all this hi-end audiophilia hysteria of more and more khz.
I lived a long time inside these platforms, and bought a lot of devices to support them.
I am at a phase where I want out for a little. I will return back, I'm sure. That's all.
Really thanks mate, I will keep you informed.

 

[moneypit]

The Lossless Switcher is a little annoying as it doesn't change the rate until the song has already started playing which causes the audio to stop temporarily. At least that happens with my setup. I still use it as there is no other auto switcher available for Apple Music.

 

[BS5711]

The Lossless Switcher is a little annoying as it doesn't change the rate until the song has already started playing which causes the audio to stop temporarily. At least that happens with my setup. I still use it as there is no other auto switcher available for Apple Music.

That is unfortunately correct but it only has a pause when it detects a change in the file type so is generally not a big deal unless you have a playlist with a lot of mixed file types.

If you had a playlist made up of say 10 albums all of 16/44.1 and you had previously played a 24/192 track it would switch at the start of the playlist then stay at that setting for the rest of the playlist with no pauses.

 

[Ioanast]

Hello again my friends!
I still am waiting for Audirvana support for some official respond. I searched the Community though and here is what I found:

.movpkg is a protected streaming format Apple uses to both deliver and store lossless tracks.
You should only attempt to play them from within the Apple Music app which will handle the DRM.
These files should only appear within the Apple Music subfolder within your media folder, and are normal.

It’s a format for Apple Music files stored for offline playback (and also movies/tv shows in Apple TV)
It is designed to stop people from copying the downloaded files and playing in something else and keeping.

As Apple would jump on any official converters with a lawsuit I would think the only converters are likely to be found on torrenting sites or GitHub.
I think the Apple files will also be encrypted making it difficult.
Apple will not sell lossless/hir res in the music store only as part of Apple Music so for them it keeps subscribers locked in to the Apple Music ecosystem.

 

[Ioanast]

It seems I was very naive to even think of playing Apple Music files through Audirvana, as I used to do long ago.
I have read of a work around, about changing some settings in the download quality inside Music app.
I will try and keep you informed. Cheers mates!!

 

[Ioanast]

Audirvana support sent its detailed reply, I have to say "very well done" and "many thanks" to the support guys, excellent and detailed reply.
I summarize above the most important parts:

Some tracks can't be played outside of iTunes (they are thus skipped in Audirvana):

The DRM-protected tracks (usually files ending with .m4p), due to the copy protection mechanism, like the ones coming from Apple Music

The iCloud/iTunes Match tracks, using an iTunes-specific protocol for retrieving the audio data.
To get them to play in Audirvana, you need to download all the songs you want to play through Audirvana into your computer library by clicking the cloud icon present showing the album is in the cloud, not the library.

The tracks in a Home Sharing library, for the same reason (using an Apple non-public sharing protocol).

You can sync a library of files stored or purchased in Apple Music, but not temporary downloads.

Streaming services are not allowed by majors to give access to this feature to third party software via their API, and therefore Apple applies DRMs.

You can listen to streaming in HD in Audirvāna through Qobuz or Tidal, but not offline.

 

[Ioanast]

However, there is a workaround if you use the Home Sharing Library:

If you are using this, there is a workaround that consists of sharing the audio files on the server (to be able to access them from the Finder on the client's Mac),
and then importing the track files in iTunes, or just adding the shared folder to the synchronized list in the Library page of Audirvana preferences.
This way, a standard file-sharing protocol is used, and Audirvana can access the audio files.

 

[Ioanast]

I also tried -as advised from the Community- another workaround for Audirvana to play Apple files.

In Apple Music settings, you go to the Playback window, then down to the Audio Quality buttons.
At the choice Download, you choose High Quality AAC 256Kbps.
So now, when you download songs inside Music Library, you find files with .m4p extension.
Some of them are DRM protected, some not, so Audirvana can recognize and play them.
Of course these are not lossless audio files, it depends how much audio quality you are seeking for.

As for me, I will keep my older Audirvana 3.5 edition, just to play an old personal library full of .aiff songs when I feel like to.

I want to thank BS5711, matthia, and moneypit, for their help and advise.
I may try Lossless Switcher some time, I just want to keep things simple for now.
Cheers mates!!!