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Back in March I had received my new Port to replace one of my Connects. When I received the port, I did a sound test of it and my connect still running S1. The sound was excellent, very detailed and full. After a couple of days, I went ahead and installed the S2 operating system. 
I have been streaming most of my music these days and I’ve gone from being happy to almost regret as far as sound quality. I have S2 compatible Connect that I ended up switching from the new port, and I have found the Connect sounds a tad better, but not like it did prior to switching to S2. 
 I have always run my connect through a hybrid Dac that goes into my system, and I just find the sound quality is really compressed sounding, the low end is lackluster and the highs are not near as detailed as they were before I ever started to upgrade due to another connect no longer being supported. Basically the sound was night and day from my original Sonos that I’ve run for the last 7 years. I also did a trial of Qubuz to test out the “higher res” sound and actually I found that it really is only CD quality through the Sonos and Spotify actually sounds better. 
 

I hope maybe in the future Sonos will figure out an update to upgrade the sound quality. I have found the sound quality to be worse on all my other 9 Sonos products. 
 

There is no difference between S1 and S2 that could make any difference to sound quality, given the same source and equipment. 

You are not even using the DAC in the Connect. 

Uncontrolled subjective non-blind audio experiments are useless. 

I am sorry but I don't know what else to say. 


There is no difference between S1 and S2 that could make any difference to sound quality, given the same source and equipment. 

You are not even using the DAC in the Connect. 

Uncontrolled subjective non-blind audio experiments are useless. 

 

Agreeing with all the above, note also that comparative memory for listening, to assess relative quality is not reliable after even 15 seconds, unless differences are gross which is not possible short of defective units in use.

After some weeks or months, memory of how something sounded is just as useless as things in the quote.