Which Streaming Protocol is Best: AirPlay, Google Cast, or DLNA?

In a world of music streaming, where audio quality is key, it’s important to know which streaming protocol preserves the sound of your favorite tunes the best. We all want our music to sound pristine, right? So, I put on my investigator hat and dove into the world of AirPlay, Google Cast, and DLNA to see which one comes out on top.

Picture this: you’ve got your music library on your phone or a networked device at home, and you want to listen to it on your awesome hi-fi system. How do you do that? Well, you cast it from your phone or tablet to your music system using one of these three popular streaming protocols: Apple AirPlay, Google Cast, or DLNA/UPnP.

But here’s the big question: which one delivers your music with the highest accuracy? That’s what I aimed to find out. Because at the end of the day, the sound you hear depends on how faithfully the digital audio is transmitted to your system. Ideally, you want it to be “bit-perfect,” meaning every sample from the original audio file reaches your system unchanged.

There’s a lot of conflicting information out there on which of these protocols is truly bit-perfect, so it was time to clear things up. My method involved testing two short tracks with different audio formats, using various devices and apps to cast the music and capturing the digital stream to analyze the results. It’s the nitty-gritty technical stuff, but it’s vital to ensure the accuracy of the findings. And the verdict? Well, you’ll have to keep reading to find out!