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Good evening everyone, for a long while I’ve researched how JRiver can blend Hi Res Digital with the Apple Ecosystem of iTunes (Apple Music) to ultimately let me interface with HomePods, a Cambridge Audio Azur 851N, Cambridge Audio CXN and (DLNA), whatever!

Bear with me this was a journey!

A month ago I accidentally purchased a Hi Res file is AIFF. After researching AIFF I came to realize the benefits. FLAC is uncompressed on playback. AIFF is archive quality uncompressed digital with metadata.  And another bonus, AIFF is completely 100% compatible with the Apple Ecosystem and my Cambridge Audio Azur 851N and CXN.

Now I only purchase AIFF from ProStudio Masters in Canada. I converted all my Hi Res FLAC to AIFF using Media Human. While increasing dial footprint by 25%, disk is cheap, get over it!

Then a couple of weekends back I added Airfoil to my MAC Mini mid-2014 (Catalina OS), added a Zone called Airfoil to MC 25, no modifications, and voila, whole home audio from MC 25 to HomePods, (4), a Marantz SR6012 and even my Cambridge Audio Streamers. OMG!  Flawless!

Now I enjoy MC on the Cambridge Media Streamers for critical listening and the benefit of whole home audio distribution for background listening.

Awesome!  Try it, you will love it!  Flawless for 3 weeks now!

[Library Eye]

I don't have audiophile gear, but I do use JRiver and Airfoil on a Mac and stream to one or two Airplay devices while also sending audio over wired optical output to an AV receiver.

Indeed, it works! I have to add a slight delay under Advanced Speaker Options to time the Airplay devices with the wired device, but unlike when I have tried under Airfoil for Windows going to same Airplay devices and unlike when I have tried Airfoil for Mac going to Chromecast device, once I find right delay and set it, I never have to adjust it. 

Airfoil downsamples any higher res audio to 16 bit 44.1 kHz redbook standard for the audio sent over WiFi, but the audio sent simultaneously via the optical cable will remain hi-res (say, for instance, it's 24 bit 88.2 kHz - it will get to wired receiver that way, as long as I have JRiver set correctly).

If the reason you are going with AIFF over FLAC is because you want all your files to be able to play in either JRiver or iTunes, since Airplay (which Airfoil relies on) uses Apple Lossless audio codec at  16 bit 44.1 kHz, you really should be able to gain back most of your file size savings if wanted by going not with AIFF instead of FLAC but with ALAC from your FLACS. ALAC is just a little bigger than FLAC, for whatever reason. I have XLD for transcoding files and find it even easier and more Mac-like than Media Human.