One of Apple Music’s best features is it supports lossless audio. However, being able to listen to lossless tracks isn’t as straight forward as just turning on the “lossless” toggle. The reality is you’ll need special hardware that can support lossless audio. The good news is the Sonos Arc can technically play Apple Music Lossless. The bad news is that it’s not completely straight forward.
Here is what you need to get Apple Music Lossless working with the Sonos Arc:
What you need to get Apple Music working on the Sonos Arc
Apple TV 4k
You’ll need an Apple TV which has the Apple Music app to play lossless audio to the Sonos. The Apple TV 4K supports Apple Music Lossless. Older generations and non 4k versions do not.
You can turn on Lossless on the Apple TV by going to settings > apps > Apple Music and turning on the lossless toggle.
HDMI eARC
The next thing you’ll need to get lossless working is a TV that supports eARC. eARC passes the audio signal from the Apple TV directly through to the Sonos Arc. Without eARC the audio feed gets processed by the TV and it would only output a lower compressed signal.
Does Apple Music Lossless Work with Airplay
No. The Airplay standard doesn’t support lossless formats. If you Airplay music from your iPhone to the Arc with won’t be lossless.
Does the Sonos App play music in Lossless
The Sonos app can play Apple Music. As far as I can tell this also doesn’t support lossless audio. I’ll update this post if this ever changes.
So at the moment, unfortunately the only way to take advantage of Apple Music lossless on Sonos devices is by using the Apple TV 4K.