Does Plex Amp stream FLAC / ALAC directly to iOS?

Plex Players Mobile Devices
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Server Version#:1.22.0.4163
Player Version#:Plex Amp

Hi there,

Does Plex Amp stream lossless files such as FLAC and ALAC or are they converted to something lower (like ALAC) before playing on iOS.

I use a Synology DS1520+ to store my lossless files.

I was under the impression that iOS has supported FLAC for some while, but I’m not sure.

Kind Regards

2

If you have quality set to Maximum / “My ears are golden” you’ll get the straight FLAC from Plexamp in all platforms

3

Thank you for the really quick reply. Where is the setting for this?

Kind Regards

4

Ah, I found it. One last quick question: does this setting override the Conversion Bitrate setting (which is defaulted to 128 kbps) or are the two settings unrelated?

Thank you again for your replies.

5

What you are setting in the first part is the threshold at which point things will begin transcoding, everything above that will be transcoded to whatever is defined in the “Conversion Bitrate”

Helpful for when you are on the road and don’t want your 24-bit flacs downloading over LTE :slight_smile:

6

Thanks so. much for explaining this but I can’t follow it. I’m not too bright to be honest.:slight_smile:
If I don’t want any conversions and would like to just stream as high as possible (my LTE is not capped), what settings should I apply in the Conversion Bit Rate setting?

Sorry again for imposing on you. :slight_smile:

7

leave cellular/wifi to maximum and the conversion bitrate wont’ matter

8

Thanks again. Have a great day.

1 Like
9

this plexamp FAQ might be of use to you ?

10

Thanks. Most useful.

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If may ask a somewhat related question: Say I have quality set to Maximum / “My ears are golden”, and I can see that Plexamp on iOS is indeed playing straight FLAC (indicated on the now playing screen), what sound quality could I hope for via bluetooth on an AAC capable Wireless Headphone?
Would it make a difference to the sound quality received on said headphone (via bluetooth) if the song file were ALAC instead of FLAC?

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it depends on what your hardware supports:

https://www.headphonesty.com/2020/03/bluetooth-audio-codecs-explained/

this can break it all down for you, but for what you just mentioned this is why i have the maximum on my phone set to 320, which supports aptX

since i top out around 400kbps anyway and transcoding is negligible CPU time, that tradeoff means i can store more songs in the play queue for when i do go remote - because it’s only ever going to sound that good anyway

my home rig directly hooked up is maximum so i can do full fidelity in the right spots

13

Great Article. Thanks for the insight!

1 Like
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On my iPhone 11 Pro Max, I have (FLAC) playback set to Maximum, which from all the information, is going to be transcoded anyway to AAC, to fit the Bluetooth bandwidth, and then transmitted to the AAC compatible headphone.
Is there any advantage, other than being able store more songs, to set the maximum to 320, as you have it set on your device?

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functionally no, it ‘might sound better’ but is likely placebo effect, because as you mentioned the available bandwidth / transport is going to turn into aac/prescribed bitrate from the BT stream

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