DACmote

The remote for Apple Music

Nothing in the path but your DAC.

One device plays Apple Music through your USB DAC. The other controls it from the couch. Only the commands travel over Wi-Fi. The audio never does.

Download DACmote on the App Store
The DACmote player screen showing Hotel California by the Eagles with a USB-DAC, 192 kHz badge
Player device · iPhone

What reaches the DAC

AirPlay stops at 16 bit and 44.1 kHz.
DACmote plays at full resolution.

Sample rate

  1. 44.1
  2. 48
  3. 96
  4. 192 kHz

LosslessHi-Res Lossless

Bit depth

  1. 16
  2. 24 bit

CDStudio

That is CD quality, and no further. DACmote leaves the stream alone: your DAC receives exactly what Apple Music delivers to the player device — Lossless, or Hi-Res Lossless all the way up to 24 bit and 192 kHz.

The signal path

Something has to be wireless.
It doesn't have to be the music.

Streaming to a receiver

The phone sends audio over Wi-Fi to an AirPlay receiver, which decodes it and passes it to the DAC. The audio is re-encoded on the way. PHONE RECEIVER DAC AUDIO Wi-Fi re-encoded here 16 bit · 44.1 kHz
The music itself crosses the network. Whatever comes out the other end is a re-encode, capped at CD quality.

DACmote

The player device is wired to the DAC and carries the audio. A second device sends only control commands to the player over Wi-Fi. PLAYER DAC AUDIO · USB 24 bit · 192 kHz REMOTE COMMANDS · Wi-Fi
The audio stays wired. Play, skip and search travel over Wi-Fi as small commands, straight from one device to the other.

On iPad

The sleeve, back on display.

Put an iPad at the amp and the artwork fills the screen, animated wherever Apple Music has motion artwork for the album. The controls fade out when nobody touches them, and what stays in the room is the record. The music is the thing you look at, not the interface.

An iPad standing on a hi-fi shelf above an amplifier, showing an album cover filling the screen with the playback controls laid over it
Player device · iPad

From the couch

The whole catalog, on the small screen.

  • Search everything

    Songs, albums, artists and playlists from the Apple Music catalog.

  • Your own playlists

    Everything in your library, ready to send to the player.

  • The queue, in your hands

    View it, reorder it, add to it, clear it.

  • Quality at a glance

    Lossless, Hi-Res Lossless and Dolby Atmos, marked on every result.

  • Animated cover art

    Full screen on the player, wherever Apple Music provides it.

  • Lock screen and Control Center

    Skip a track without unlocking the remote.

  • Discography by year

    An artist's albums in the order they were released.

  • Artwork, or a dark room

    You simply switch the player's screen on or off from where you sit.

Search results in DACmote, each track marked Hi-Res or Lossless
Search, on the remote
  • no subscription
  • no tracking
  • no ads

Before you start

What it needs.

Subscription
Apple Music. DACmote plays your subscription, it doesn't sell one.
Devices
Two, both running iOS 26. iPhone and iPad, in any combination.
Network
The same Wi-Fi. The two devices find each other over Bonjour and connect directly.
DAC
Optional. A USB DAC on the player device is the point, but DACmote works without one.
Languages
English and German.

Playback quality follows your subscription and the Music settings on the player device. Apple Music is a trademark of Apple Inc.

Privacy

There is no server.

DACmote has no backend, no account and no subscription of its own. It collects nothing, because there is nowhere to send it. The two devices talk to each other and to nobody else.

Put the player at the amp. Keep the remote with you.

DACmote is a remote for audiophiles, not another streaming box. Start player mode on the device at your DAC, pick it from the second device, and the room is yours.

Download DACmote on the App Store