ChipotleCoyote

I personally tend toward "Atmos-agnostic" -- I have never had any luck hearing "binaural stereo" on headphones as anything other than "stereo," and my impression of most of the Atmos recordings I heard on Apple Music is that they're the audio equivalent of most 3D movies, e.g., conversions from 2D to 3D after the fact. I'll add the caveat that I was using a five-channel setup with no height speakers and a somewhat motley collection of speakers, with the main left/right speakers far and away the best in the system, although they were all equalized with Dirac Live. Anyway, the multichannel music certainly didn't sound bad on this system, it's just that the recordings rarely made what I thought was a compelling case for their multichannel-ness. On the flip side, I remember Roxy Music's Avalon and Toy Matinee's self-titled album in their multichannel releases from the SACD/DVD-Audio days, and they were pretty damn amazing. Anyway, I'm going to take gentle exception to this: See, the thing is, if you're going to stereotype people who really are "willing to spend $60,000++" on audio equipment, those people are almost certainly in "2CH luddite land". Those of us over here in Atmos-capable land are likely using A/V receivers that cost us under $2K -- maybe $5K, if we went all out with Rotel, NAD, Arcam, or the like -- and give us solid amplification, high-bitrate DACs, the whole shebang, as well as room correction software the luddites probably don't have. The dilemma for "hi fi" has for years been that mass market stuff has, well, actually gotten pretty good. The $200 no-name special at Best Buy might suck, but the $1000 name-you-actually-know special a few shelves down? Connect it to some decent speakers, place them well, run the built-in room correction, and it's going to be great. And definitely not $60K. And it's going to support multi-channel music.

Emotiva and Peachtree were also on my list, actually, even though I don’t think they have equipment with HDMI ARC support. (I know that’s an esoteric desire in two-channel systems.) Black Ice I hadn’t heard of, I don’t think, but they look interesting. The Marantz I was specifically looking at is the 40n, which seems to have a lot of positive buzz and ticks off a lot of boxes. I had a Marantz home theatre receiver years ago and liked it, so this may give me some unwarranted warm fuzzy feelings about them. :) The Peachtree GaN 1 and Bluesound Node bundle is intriguing, though (and currently about $300 less than the 40n). I’ll admit I’m still tempted by a LS50WII and subwoofer combo, even though I know that’s in part the allure of the completely new.

That's certainly possible, and I know there's no immutable law that says a $3K amp must be matched with speakers of equal or greater cost. There are a few integrated amps that seem like they would match my criteria and price range (NAD C399 and M10, Cambridge Audio Evo 150, maybe Marantz 40n or even the Bluesound PowerNode), and there's the option of a dedicated streamer like the Bluesound Node feeding into a non-streaming integrated amp or separates. I have heard the KEF LS50WIIs now, both with and without a subwoofer, and do really like them, although of course that's in a dealer's listening room. Some of the other options seem like they might be harder to audition short of ordering from Crutchfield and taking advantage of their return window. (Well, Best Buy will have the Marantz but not in a good demo environment, and the nearest Cambridge Audio dealer appears to be about ten hours away.)

I’m not sure if I need literally all the options, but I’m specifically looking for something that can take sound from the TV—so preferably HDMI eARC for the control/convenience aspect, although optical in would work—and supports Apple AirPlay, as well as having some way to stream from a local music library. So I’d have to be getting a decent streamer source component with an active system like the Genelecs, and that and an integrated amp (or an integrated amp with good streaming capability) with passive speakers. I admit I don’t really like the look of the Genelec monitors, but I haven’t had a chance to hear them. It’s still a consideration. I’m aware the LS50s don’t have as low bass response, and that if I went this route there’s a good chance that I’d be looking for a subwoofer. I confess that I’m afraid that if I spend $3K+ on a new integrated amp (or some kind of amp/streamer combo), I will be tempted to buy better passive speakers to go along with it and end up spending even more money than I would even on a LS50WII and KC62 combo, so going with the LS50WIIs might remove a level of temptation. :)

This is sort of a long shot, but here goes... Last year I made a cross-country move to a new home, and for various reasons I don’t have the space for the 5-channel audio system I’ve been using, a hodgepodge of two Monitor Audio Silver RX6s, two old Radio Shack Optimus LX5s as surrounds (!), and an equally old Lantana Tads as a center channel. Now I only have space for the RX6s and the Tads, so 3.0 sound it is. The A/V receiver is a relatively new NAD T758, which has become a problem child. It can’t reliably stream music and after it powers off, it frequently kicks itself back into “hotspot mode”, making me re-pair it to my wifi. The wifi signal in the room isn’t the strongest, but there’s an Apple TV right next to it that can stream 4K video without burping, so I think this is an issue with the T758. So, I’m considering doing something radical—going with an all-new 2-channel system. And given all it does, it’s hard not to consider the KEF LS50 Wireless II. But, it’s also hard not to ask whether I really want to replace the RX6s. They’re pretty solid speakers! If anyone’s got experience with both of these speakers, or maybe their various cousins in the Monitor Audio line, what are your opinions about how they compare? I know the LS50s aren’t going to have the same bass extension and a subwoofer may be in my future if I go that route (after the budget recovers), but what else is good and bad about the idea? (And I’m open to other potential suggestions.)

Coke is correct about the new library creation -- the option is only available when you start Music by holding down Option. I should have remembered to mention that because it's pretty obscure. (I think it's in a help file somewhere.) I just double checked on my Mac, which is also running Music on Big Sur. The Add to Library command seems to only appear when you've unchecked the "Copy files to Music Media folder when adding to library" option in preferences.

Not by Apple’s definitions. :) I’m literally looking at the dropdown in iTunes for Audio Quality right now, and the options are, verbatim: High Quality (AAC 256 kbps) Lossless (ALAC up to 24-bit/48 kHz) High Resolution Lossless (ALAC up to 24-bit/192 kHz)

While iTunes has its issues (boy howdy), I can’t say I’ve ever had the experience of it “stealing files.” The Music app (since you mentioned Big Sur, I suspect that’s what you’re using, not iTunes?) will copy files into your chosen “Music Media” folder if you have that option set in the “Files” tab of the application’s Preferences. It should never delete files. When Apple Music and iTunes Match first rolled out, there were evidently bugs that could cause it to do so, but I haven’t ever run into them, nor have I heard about those stories for years. So, it’s pretty hard for me to take a guess as to what’s going on. For what it’s worth, this is what I would do to restore your library and choose settings I consider to be the “safest” with iTunes if you want to minimize any possibility of it mucking about with your files: In the General Preferences tab, uncheck “Automatic Downloads” and (at least at first) “Sync Library”. In the Files tab, uncheck “Keep Music Media folder organized” and “Copy Files to Music Media folder when adding to library”. Start a new iTunes Library. You can save it in your Music folder. This is not the folder where you’re actually keeping your music. Select File > Add to Library… and select the folder you are actually keeping your music in. After iTunes is finished doing indexing and updating and whatever it does, turn on “Sync Library” if you wish. I did this quite recently in an attempt to move back from Audirvana to iTunes, and so far it’s been fine. And, For the playlists, it depends on whether they’ve already been synced to the cloud. If they have been, then they’ll probably be restored; mine were. Also, continue to keep good backups. :)

The features that are Apple Silicon-specific are — as far as I know — taking advantage of the neural engine on the M1 (and presumably on future chips in the family). I expect macOS to continue to support the last generation of Intel Macs for some years to come without losing features, but I suspect feature parity will diverge as more new features will depend on hardware that just isn’t there.

I’m pretty sure, but don’t think I have the equipment to confirm, that you get lossless audio — not “hi-res lossless,” but up to 24/48 — from Apple TV boxes connected via HDMI; enabling lossless audio is, at the least, now an option in settings.

I'd forgotten about using HDCD as a test for bit perfect output! I remember doing that on a previous receiver. (Originally by accident. "Wait, why is the HDCD light on? I'm playing a ripped…oh, I get it.") I'm pretty sure I no longer own anything that can decode HDCD, though.

I never thought to click on that! Thank you. (Silly me, I would have put that info in, I don't know, the window that comes up when you click "Get Info".) I just commented to a friend that Apple has somehow managed to implement lossless audio -- something only audiophiles are likely to really care about -- in the least audiophile-friendly manner possible. :)

I didn't expect exclusive mode from iTunes, er, Apple Music, but I did expect bit rate switching on the Mac. I'm not going to say that flat-out makes things useless for my personal needs, but it makes things…wobbly. I'm not sure just setting it to stream "non hi-res" lossless and locking to 16/44.1 with Audio MIDI Setup is the right answer, either, because according to their own specs, Apple's non hi-res can still be 24/48. (Can I personally hear resampling going on if I just set it to 24/96, especially on my solid-for-desktop-but-still-desktop computer speakers? If I'm honest, I doubt it, but it's the principle of the thing.) That Music on iOS does handle auto rate switching is interesting, though. For the record, I just went to check my Apple TV, and there's now a setting for "Audio Quality" in the Music app setting -- but the choices are only "High Quality (AAC 256 kbps)" and "Lossless (ALAC up to 24-bit/48 kHz)", so no hi-res there. Since tvOS is based on iOS, it may do auto rate switching, although in extremely short testing it doesn't seem to have switched off 48K.

They will not. :) Apple confirmed to The Verge that lossless audio is not supported on any model of AirPods, which use AAC over Bluetooth; if they're not bringing it to their own Bluetooth hardware, they're definitely not bringing it to anyone else's. (To be fair, I don't think they could bring it to anyone else's, since I don't think there are any lossless Bluetooth codecs, period; even if Apple came up with one, both ends would need it.) According to MacRumors, not even the (no longer made) HomePod or the (still made) HomePod mini will work with Apple's lossless audio, although MacRumors is living up to their name and quoting "unnamed sources" on that -- it's documented that AirPlay is at capable of CD-quality lossless ALAC streaming, but reports are fuzzy as to whether it can currently do higher resolution. As I mentioned earlier, I'm less pessimistic than some others about the potential of Apple opening this up -- on their video streaming service, they've taken a "the more the merrier" approach to third-party clients, and there are a few third-party Apple Music clients out there, and even first-party clients for Android and Samsung TVs. But "less pessimistic" isn't the same as "optimistic." I'm pretty sure that personally, the only way I'll get it on my living room system is through my Apple TV hardware. (My A/V receiver has BluOS in it and could almost certainly be upgraded to support Apple Music with proper API support, but -- based on my experience with NAD/Bluesound so far -- I wouldn't be holding my breath for them to do that any time soon, even if Apple not only gives the okay but Tim Cook personally delivers API documentation to them.)

When this rolls out, I'll give it a try. (They said "coming in June," so it's all still AAC for now.)