Ability to play 24bit/96 files (like the competition: slimdevices transporter)
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http://forums.sonos.com/showpost.php?p=140543&postcount=7
Very interesting. I'm just checking one minor point with a (future) SA dealer. He said specifically in his last post that the demo version for dealers doesn't sync, but syncing will be released in the future. I'm checking this minor point to see if this software release will happen before general release. Probably not, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
Syncing was one of the larger draws to Sonos for me. It is a bit of a shock for me that multiroom and sync are not synonymous.
Syncing was one of the larger draws to Sonos for me. It is a bit of a shock for me that multiroom and sync are not synonymous.
Not a shock at all. Squeeze "accomplishes" it's "sync" by continuously resyncing multiple streams at the server, a blunt instrument methodology which requires CPU horsepower (and can lead to a loss of quality as bits are dropped in order to maintain sync). Which is why NAS based Squeezeserver installs are unreliable at best and missing features at worst.
It seems Simple Audio, like Sonos, does not require a server. Therefore, there is is no high horsepower central processor to handle sync. So the syncing must take place in the boxes, a much more sophisticated and difficult design (not to mention more accurate) and in Simple Audio's case, they are obviously not up to the task yet (and in the case of 24/96, it may never happen, just like Sonos). There are no free lunches in Computer Science.
Yes, it doesn't play Vinyl records, cassettes, or CDs either. All of these need to be digitised, reformatted, or transcoded to work with Sonos.
I read in some article how they wanted to add this or that - in an effort to play all music on Earth.
In this context, clearly it's an aim. A journey, if you will, rather than a destination. In reality is it *really* possible for any system to be directly compatible with every format and every service? I know for a fact there are people with formats like Wavpack and Monkey's audio which currently don't work on Sonos and probably never will. there will always be a percentage of formats or sources Sonos cannot play. Presumably it is Sonos's aim to reduce this percentage over time, but I can't see they will ever truly reach 100%. At the moment hires is an extremely tiny percentage of that.
And in this context, if you enable a new music service, you address the needs of a far greater proportion of the population than you could by supporting hires (especially in regions outside the US). So surely that makes enabling new music services more important than addressing the needs of a tiny subset of users.
Plus, that completely discounts the "Wireless HiFi" ... the notion there is high fidelity. It isn't high fidelity in today's world if it cannot play high resolution.
I think that statement needs to be prefaced with "In my opinion". There's hifi dealers and customers (not to mention scientists) across the world who would disagree with you.
I have never seen any definition of "hifi" which links it with these new hires formats.
Cheers,
Keith
Syncing was one of the larger draws to Sonos for me. It is a bit of a shock for me that multiroom and sync are not synonymous.
I agree, they should be and in conventional (non streamed) multiroom systems they were. It generally wasn't even considered as the nature of those systems meant that multiroom sync was part of the deal.
Sonos designed their system to provide these same benefits in a streaming system. This was part of the DNA of the product. Adding sync as an afterthought is not easy: just ask Logitech who after years of trying still don't have sync as good as Sonos's was when they launched several years ago.
Cheers,
Keith
Considering my mother still calls her 78 RPM All-In-One mono-only woodgrain and tweed monstrosity with the turntable under a flip top a "HiFi", I agree with Majik. 😃
I don't believe that the inclusion of this feature will be settled - at least not for a LONG time...
I've voiced my support for this feature but I love how this product works as a whole - I'm not going to continuously whine about it and it's certainly not a 'deal-breaker' to suddenly make me want to drop the product and switch to a competitor.
Many good points have been raised on both sides though having checked in from time to time to catch up, sadly I feel there's been a hell of a lot of unnecessary b****ing too.
Personally I have had to broaden my formerly selfish views and see that this product is primarily designed as a multiroom audio system that is simple to set up and use with good reliability. Barring a few hiccups, I’m sure most users would or should agree with this.
Unlike companies such as Linn, I don’t believe Sonos have ever promoted their products to be replacements for existing kit residing in your system (ie CD player/ZP90) and there to be worthwhile additions to enhance our lives and listening pleasure.
The argument has been made that to incorporate higher bitrate music that the hardware of the Sonos units would require an overhaul and that the multiroom ability of being able to play the same music simultaneously may be compromised. I’m not a technical expert but I’m quite happy to believe the idea.
Now, I’m currently only using this product as a single zone system (ZP90) in a high end HiFi so personally I have no need for the multiroom aspect (yet...) so the loss of such a service isn’t of great importance to me. To a lot of others however I’m sure a good sync is. I’m not really wanting the quality of the system to be compromised for the sake of one feature or another and would therefore want any new services to be pretty much bullet proof and have Sonos continue to have their reputation for a reliable product.
I’m always looking at what can be done to improve the performance of my system and hires is steadily being promoted more and more with hardware and catalogues of material growing, it is now worth considering as an aspect of part of your system requirements (putting aside the other debate of whether the difference is actually audible or not). I’m sure there are lots of other users in a similar position.
However, we have to realise that we are very much a minority WITHIN a minority. The mainstream majority will not have made as much of an investment in mid to high end HiFi equipment. On top of that, people interested or even knowing about hires music is relatively small (DVDA and SACD both dead after a very short life).
The combination of the two makes for a very niche market (...for now at least). Not to mention the amount of people actually interested in a ‘decent’ streaming system replacing CD itself as a viable source. These points alone go against what (I believe) Sonos are trying to achieve with their product.
It isn't high fidelity in today's world if it cannot play high resolution.
So how far do you want to take this? If Sonos suddenly decided to give us 24bit playback, how long would it be before you or others start demanding 32bit support.
Even if 24bit was incorporated for the audiophile community, how long would it be before we start asking about improving jitter performance this, need better power supply that? Yes there after market mods but surely customers shouldn’t have to rely on 3rd party suppliers...
I've voiced my support for this feature but I love how this product works as a whole - I'm not going to continuously whine about it and it's certainly not a 'deal-breaker' to suddenly make me want to drop the product and switch to a competitor.
Many good points have been raised on both sides though having checked in from time to time to catch up, sadly I feel there's been a hell of a lot of unnecessary b****ing too.
Personally I have had to broaden my formerly selfish views and see that this product is primarily designed as a multiroom audio system that is simple to set up and use with good reliability. Barring a few hiccups, I’m sure most users would or should agree with this.
Unlike companies such as Linn, I don’t believe Sonos have ever promoted their products to be replacements for existing kit residing in your system (ie CD player/ZP90) and there to be worthwhile additions to enhance our lives and listening pleasure.
The argument has been made that to incorporate higher bitrate music that the hardware of the Sonos units would require an overhaul and that the multiroom ability of being able to play the same music simultaneously may be compromised. I’m not a technical expert but I’m quite happy to believe the idea.
Now, I’m currently only using this product as a single zone system (ZP90) in a high end HiFi so personally I have no need for the multiroom aspect (yet...) so the loss of such a service isn’t of great importance to me. To a lot of others however I’m sure a good sync is. I’m not really wanting the quality of the system to be compromised for the sake of one feature or another and would therefore want any new services to be pretty much bullet proof and have Sonos continue to have their reputation for a reliable product.
I’m always looking at what can be done to improve the performance of my system and hires is steadily being promoted more and more with hardware and catalogues of material growing, it is now worth considering as an aspect of part of your system requirements (putting aside the other debate of whether the difference is actually audible or not). I’m sure there are lots of other users in a similar position.
However, we have to realise that we are very much a minority WITHIN a minority. The mainstream majority will not have made as much of an investment in mid to high end HiFi equipment. On top of that, people interested or even knowing about hires music is relatively small (DVDA and SACD both dead after a very short life).
The combination of the two makes for a very niche market (...for now at least). Not to mention the amount of people actually interested in a ‘decent’ streaming system replacing CD itself as a viable source. These points alone go against what (I believe) Sonos are trying to achieve with their product.
So how far do you want to take this? If Sonos suddenly decided to give us 24bit playback, how long would it be before you or others start demanding 32bit support.
Even if 24bit was incorporated for the audiophile community, how long would it be before we start asking about improving jitter performance this, need better power supply that? Yes there after market mods but surely customers shouldn’t have to rely on 3rd party suppliers...
That's a pretty weak argument against progress.
I mean, why work on steam technology - we have horses? Why work on gas powered engines - we have steam? Why work on alternative energy vehicles - we have gas?
I mean, seriously, you could use this argument to counter any forward progress in any area of technology ... ever.
This is going in a completely nebulous direction. Maybe they would - and maybe it would be right of SONOS to offer a product that handles it?
But that's not the item in question - high resolution audio is currently the highest quality you can get recorded music in. It would be nice to be able to own one copy of any one album for any future proofing and that's always the stance I'll maintain.
The overall audio quality increase isn't my primary concern - it's owning one copy of the music and being future proofed.
I mean, why work on steam technology - we have horses? Why work on gas powered engines - we have steam? Why work on alternative energy vehicles - we have gas?
I mean, seriously, you could use this argument to counter any forward progress in any area of technology ... ever.
This is going in a completely nebulous direction. Maybe they would - and maybe it would be right of SONOS to offer a product that handles it?
But that's not the item in question - high resolution audio is currently the highest quality you can get recorded music in. It would be nice to be able to own one copy of any one album for any future proofing and that's always the stance I'll maintain.
The overall audio quality increase isn't my primary concern - it's owning one copy of the music and being future proofed.
Arguing that just because it was beneficial to develop gas powered engines means that it would be beneficial for every company to develop every new technology possible is a classic example of reductio ad absurdum. You might as well ask why Ford doesn't develop jet powered cars because jets are the most powerful engine technology available, why Apple shouldn't develop multi-Teraflops capable super computers, because multi-Teraflops are the fastest speeds available, or why McDonalds shouldn't develop fine French cuisine because it is the best tasting food available.
Again, the market is what the market is. Science may drive what technology gets created, but the market drives what technology gets sold (and last I heard, Sonos wants to sell technology, not just create it).
I'd love if Sonos supported HiRez music.. unfortunately I don't think it will, I won't say never cause never is a really long time, but for the foreseeable future I don't expect it. Why, because what I've been able to glean from a few talks with Sonos people, is that Sonos in it's current state of development simply can't support it. By it I mean especially older units ZP80 and ZP100 of which there are plenty, also it maybe that even the newer hardware won't support it and it's also possible that Sonosnet can't handle it. It's very much part of the Sonos design parameters that older products aren't obsoleted.. So unless Sonos does a ground up revamping of everything the system as it currently is will not support HiRez.. and that's without even taking into account syncing zones and everything else. Sonos as a simple, inexpensive, decent sounding multi room, multi user system is great, I think probably the best. But it's not a Hi End music playback system it wasn't designed to be, and that was never it's design goal.
I never said that they should develop every technology available. You did in your post, but I did not. I simply said that the reverse argument was poor as we could apply it anywhere.
You might as well ask why Ford doesn't develop jet powered cars because jets are the most powerful engine technology available, why Apple shouldn't develop multi-Teraflops capable super computers, because multi-Teraflops are the fastest speeds available, or why McDonalds shouldn't develop fine French cuisine because it is the best tasting food available.
Well, since we decided to be absurd -
1) Jet engines may be more powerful, but the legal limitations on speed and power restrict the market. Furthermore, the cost of jet fuel and the ridiculous flammability of it would prohibit safe transport.
2) I would assume there is a technological limitation to teraflop computers at present considering the size required. Apple will eventually develop multi-Teraflops if technology continues to progress. Since Apple doesn't manufacture it's own motherboard chips, I think the question loses value.
3) McDonald's ... subjective.
What any of those examples have to do with the anything, I don't know.
Again, the market is what the market is. Science may drive what technology gets created, but the market drives what technology gets sold (and last I heard, Sonos wants to sell technology, not just create it).
And?
I guess you lost me on that one, since I don't think anyone argued this point. So, umm... you win?
If you read at the start of my post, I AM a proponent of 24bit. I'm not arguing against progress in the slightest. All I'm saying is that if it is to happen then it should be done properly and not at the potential detriment of other more sellable – and probably more widely used - features.
And I would be first in line to buy one. But the audiophile market is (sadly for me) not what they’re aiming for...
My main concern with the material that has been made available is where it has come from and how it has been treated. Some people have looked in to the content and found that rather than a nicely polished and purposefully mastered hires album, they have found that several examples taken are just the original 16/44 and upsampled! Kinda defeats the purpose in my eyes if you ask me – so not better, just different... You don’t buy a Bluray player to continue watching DVDs upscaled – you want to look at the prettier pictures.
Ummm... I thought the whole point of hires was the (supposed) increase in quality. If the extra data whose whole purpose of being there is not going to be taken advantage of, then what’s the point in having it there at all?
Having made considerable financial investment in my Hifi and digital storage, quality and playback ARE of paramount importance to me (along with the enjoyment of music of course...). However, I also like to collect music in various forms. As much as files stored on a HDD and controlled via as something as great a product like Sonos, I still buy CD and vinyl...
As for being ‘future proofed’ – that’s just not possible. Something bigger, better and shinier is always going to come along and we’ll have to look at upgrading.
What reverse argument? The poster argued that developing for increasingly smaller and esoteric markets is both costly and futile, because there is always an increasingly smaller portion who wants more. As an example, if Sonos ever offers 24/96, how many posts into the announcement will someone complain
"What!!?? No 24/192!!??" My over/under is 6 posts.
Well, since we decided to be absurd -
1) Jet engines may be more powerful, but the legal limitations on speed and power restrict the market. Furthermore, the cost of jet fuel and the ridiculous flammability of it would prohibit safe transport.
2) I would assume there is a technological limitation to teraflop computers at present considering the size required. Apple will
eventually develop multi-Teraflops if technology continues to progress. Since Apple doesn't manufacture it's own motherboard chips, I think the question loses value.
3) McDonald's ... subjective.
So, feasibility, safety and available technology drives the market. Whoda thunk it?
What any of those examples have to do with the anything, I don't know.
About the same as horses, steam and gas engines.
And?
I guess you lost me on that one, since I
don't think anyone argued this point. So,
umm... you win?
Actually, I think you did argue for developing technology that the market won't bear. You've argued that Sonos should pursue the utmost in sonic fidelity, which may or may not end with 24/96 (or 24/192 ;)).
Actually, you guys are behind the times. 24/192 is sooo last year.
The state of the art is now 24/384. So Sonos, when's it gonna happen? ;)
Cheers,
Keith
P.S. I have a copy of Bob Katz's "Mastering Audio" on order. Bob Katz is a well respected and highly experienced multiple Grammy winning recording studio Engineer and is best known for producing superior quality versions of Jazz and Classical music. Bob is the authority on recording and mastering and I'm told his book is a must read for anyone interested in this subject, including the subject of hires recordings.
The state of the art is now 24/384. So Sonos, when's it gonna happen? ;)
Cheers,
Keith
P.S. I have a copy of Bob Katz's "Mastering Audio" on order. Bob Katz is a well respected and highly experienced multiple Grammy winning recording studio Engineer and is best known for producing superior quality versions of Jazz and Classical music. Bob is the authority on recording and mastering and I'm told his book is a must read for anyone interested in this subject, including the subject of hires recordings.
I can take any music and play it on Sonos. I may have to convert it to a different file format to do so, but I can play any music on earth.
You may as well claim that two baked bean cans and a length of string can play any music on earth, then. The source material just needs to be converted first.
"All music on earth" means just that unless qualified. The reader's interpretation is correct. It's the statement itself that is inaccurate.
In fact, the Sonos system is capable of playing a relatively small subset of all the music on earth: 65,000 tracks, to be be precise, if one is using the local library.
Add to that the further restrictions of codec, sample rate and bit depth and you arrive at something much less palatable to a marketing department's glib platitudes.
Need more than 65,000 tracks? Better run a WMP (proxy) server or stream from a lossy on-line service.
No on-line services where you live? You must not live on the right patch of earth. Your chosen album geographically restricted? See previous answer.
Sonos: a good system that plays a lot of music. See small print for restrictions.
The truth is always less catchy.
Yes and he's not the only one because that's what it means. If it's not supposed to mean that they should have used a different phrase.
I'm not here to defend marketing slogans or corporate mission statements.
My point is, however you interpret it, it doesn't make any sense to hijack it as a tool to justify why Sonos should do hires. It's an argument based on semantics and interpretation, and a pretty pointless one.
Even if the conclusion is that hires support doesn't meet this criteria, based on market size hires support will still be a towards the back of a long list of other things which also don't. It doesn't give any additional weight to the argument for hires.
This is what I would call "scraping the barrel" for arguments. I would put the accusation that Sonos isn't "hifi" because of lack of hires support into this category too.
Cheers,
Keith
My point is, however you interpret it, it doesn't make any sense to hijack it as a tool to justify why Sonos should do hires. It's an argument based on semantics and interpretation, and a pretty pointless one.
Even if the conclusion is that hires support doesn't meet this criteria, based on market size hires support will still be a towards the back of a long list of other things which also don't. It doesn't give any additional weight to the argument for hires.
This is what I would call "scraping the barrel" for arguments. I would put the accusation that Sonos isn't "hifi" because of lack of hires support into this category too.
Cheers,
Keith
I personally find it ironic that some self-proclaimed "audiophiles", a group who traditionally accepts such dubious marketing claims as "oxygen free" copper, "fast, faster, and fastest" HDMI cables, "Digital" coax cables, "directional speaker wire", "clean power cords", etc., etc., etc; are seriously debating the semantics of "all the music on earth." C'mon guys, get real. :rolleyes:
Add to that the further restrictions of codec, sample rate and bit depth and you arrive at something much less palatable to a marketing department's glib platitudes.
I agree that the ad’s statement is inaccurate but for your average Joe Blogs looking for a new toy it’s obviously an attention grabber. On taking one home I’m sure they would be impressed as to the abilities of the Sonos by having sooo much music available on tap by playing not only their stored music but also having the integrated services offered on top of the all the thousands upon thousands of radio stations from around the world.
The ‘average’ punter wouldn’t care less if there was no support for APE or OGG or whatever (hires in this thread’s case...) – probably not even knowing what they are. I’ve not seen any statistics but think I’d be right to say that if we looked at people’s stored collections the majority would be made up of mp3 and itunes libraries and those of the people that care more for fidelity would be FLAC or WAV. I can say that in my puff I have NEVER spoken to anyone – friends, colleagues, customers that have used any formats other than mp3 or FLAC (and the enthusiasts only starting their hires journey).
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying devices shouldn’t support lesser formats due to lack of popularity – they should do as much as feasibly possible and reach as wide an audience as possible.
However, I do feel that if people are using more obscure formats for whatever reason then they’re more likely to be technically oriented by installing or setting up their ripping software in a particular way rather than use pre-installed, default software such as WMP and itunes. If such a person was to look at purchasing a streamer, they would look at the specs of the device or even ask questions on fora such as this before shelling out their hard earned rather than buy blindly because of what an ad’s tagline says.
Of course. I understand perfectly well why a slogan like that is chosen, but that doesn't make it any less disingenuous.
I can say that in my puff I have NEVER spoken to anyone – friends, colleagues, customers that have used any formats other than mp3 or FLAC (and the enthusiasts only starting their hires journey).
I have some MP2, which isn't supported by Sonos. I use Sonospy to dynamically transcode that material. Ditto hi-res for the few hi-res files that I have.
I do feel that if people are using more obscure formats for whatever reason then they’re more likely to be technically oriented... If such a person was to look at purchasing a streamer, they would look at the specs of the device or even ask questions on fora such as this before shelling out their hard earned rather than buy blindly because of what an ad’s tagline says.
I agree that a higher degree of knowledge on the part of the user reduces the likelihood of being caught out by misleading advertising. I also agree that an undemanding new user is fairly unlikely to discover that some of the claims made in the marketing materials are rather exaggerated. I don't, however, see that as mitigation of the intent to overstate the system's capabilities.
Personally, I didn't much care about hi-res when I purchased Sonos equipment and I care only slightly more now. I'd like to be able to play hi-res files, because I own some hi-res files. End of story. Some of the other shortcomings of the system are much more annoying to me than the lack of support for hi-res.
On that point I'm with you 100%.
Other than DVDA and SACD, I'm not sure there was anything else in the way of hires files available on the market (except for vinly of course 😉 ) when I got in to Sonos but I am in the same position as you... I have files I'd like to play via the simplicity of Sonos. All I do at the moment is play them directly from the laptop via my DAC.
Not to take this thread further off topic but is there a product that does fulfill all your criteria?
Out of curiousity, why do the people want hires support?
Is it for the simplicity of one stored music collection? Or do folk think they're suddenly going end up with £10k worth of source...?
For me it is a bit of both - I've yet to come across a control system that's as good as Sonos. Obviously I can appreciate the audio limitations of what a sub £300 box can achieve but the audio geek in me would like to see (hear) how far a box like this can be pushed and like to think I could appreciate the difference on a setup like mine. But forgetting the hires aspect I know that to get better sound in general I'll either have to replace the streamer or get a better DAC at some point.
Not to take this thread further off topic but is there a product that does fulfill all your criteria?
No.
Squeezebox comes close in terms of feature set, but doesn't have reliable enough synchronisation for multi-room use, and that's something I use quite a bit.
On the other hand, it is without many of the other annoying limitations that Sonos has. If I were forced to live with the worst of these, such as the 65k track limit, I probably would have started to seriously evaluate whether I wouldn't be better off living with Squeezebox's limitations instead, but I'm happy to have found tolerable workarounds for the most critical shortcomings. Everything else falls into the tolerable shortcoming category.
It's also worth pointing out that my needs have grown over the years that I have had Sonos. It was perfectly adequate for my needs when I first purchased Sonos equipment five years ago, but those needs have not remained static. Over the years, my collection has grown beyond what the Sonos can natively track and serve, streaming services such as Spotify have arrived on the scene in Europe, and I now draw music from a much wider variety of sources than I used to.
In that regard, the Sonos is somewhat a victim of its own success. It has made the consumption of music so easy, that I am now much more actively purchasing and listening to music than I was a few years ago. My ownership of Sonos has directly influenced my requirements of the system to the point that they now outstrip what the system can deliver.
That said, I still love the system. I can't think of many other purchases, apart from a bed and a coffee machine, that I use daily and derive so much enjoyment from.
That said, my bed and coffee machine do all that I expect of them, but the Sonos could be so much better than it is. Its slow, closed development model is particularly frustrating, with some of the system's worst annoyances not having been addressed after years of user complaints in forum threads spanning tens of pages. I don't need to name them here.
In short, there is much that is good about Sonos and quite a few things that are not. Whilst it's frustrating to see firmware release cycles come and go without many of these long-term niggles ever being addressed or even discussed by the company, no-one else has yet produced a system that can compete when all of the pros and cons are weighed against each other. That's a situation that won't persist forever, of course.
As far as hi-res is concerned, I don't get involved in the audible difference argument. I would like to play hi-res files, just because I have some and because more and more music will be offered in these formats in the future, making for the prospect of ever greater inconvenience in having a system that doesn't support them.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I am a Squeeze user, but I have had Sonos experience both recommending and installing a multizone Sonos system.
I followed the link over here from AVforums, and have read this thread with interest. My reason for posting is to correct what seems to be a misconception about Squeeze ability to sync. I have a 7 zone system which supports a tight sync without any problems at all.
I don't want to pretend that Squeeze is free of reliability problems, but syncing doesn't seem to be one of them.
For the enthusiastic, the user forum can be found at:
forums.slimdevices.com
While the forum is full of issues, searching for 'sync' brings up very few.
Andy.
I followed the link over here from AVforums, and have read this thread with interest. My reason for posting is to correct what seems to be a misconception about Squeeze ability to sync. I have a 7 zone system which supports a tight sync without any problems at all.
I don't want to pretend that Squeeze is free of reliability problems, but syncing doesn't seem to be one of them.
For the enthusiastic, the user forum can be found at:
forums.slimdevices.com
While the forum is full of issues, searching for 'sync' brings up very few.
Andy.
Try syncing gapless concurrent tracks in ALAC or 24/96. I imagine classical music fans, who would be more apt to use lossy or hirez formats, would not be too pleased if their gapless classical tracks could not be synced. Also, ALAC and 24/96, being transcoded on the server, are synced by dropping the bitrate, thus lowering the quality. Again, not quite the "audiophile" solution people here are looking for. And besides all that, the "sync" delay for Squeeze, when "perfectly" synced, is around 30ms, approximately 10 times the acceptable delay of Sonos.
Jgatie,
I believe that when synced, the server sets the bitrate at the highest common rate all synced players can cope with. So for a mix of players that can't all cope with 24/96 then 16/44.1 is chosen and HiRes files downsampled. If all players can cope with 24/96, then the sync is at 24/96. This seems a reasonable compromise.
You may be right about gapless, I don't have any 24/96 gapless material to test it with.
I dont follow your 30mS comment. Squeeze has no analogue input like Sonos, so a 'delay' in the stream is irrelevant. If you mean a timing difference between players of 30mS, then this would be very noticable, and I have not experienced this.
I believe that when synced, the server sets the bitrate at the highest common rate all synced players can cope with. So for a mix of players that can't all cope with 24/96 then 16/44.1 is chosen and HiRes files downsampled. If all players can cope with 24/96, then the sync is at 24/96. This seems a reasonable compromise.
You may be right about gapless, I don't have any 24/96 gapless material to test it with.
I dont follow your 30mS comment. Squeeze has no analogue input like Sonos, so a 'delay' in the stream is irrelevant. If you mean a timing difference between players of 30mS, then this would be very noticable, and I have not experienced this.
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