Zp 24/96

This has been a long ongoing request so feel SONOS must have investigated or have something in the pipeline.....otherwise requests fall on deaf ears here


Given the way real-world development actually works, there is a third, more likely, option:

It's been placed on development list but has never reached the level of priority warranted for it to be investigated.

Cheers,

Keith

A moderator comment from a speaker maker's forum where I am also a member may be of interest:

Quote

Moderator's comment: please be aware that 192/24 is unlikely to produce higher fidelity that 44 or 48k. That is because the extended bandwidth permits and encourages spurious HF tones to bleed through which would otherwise, intentionally, be filtered by 44/48k systems. 192/24 is not the automatic route to greater fidelity, just to greater noise.

Unquote

Thanks for the post but I must disagree with that - smacks of the old DolbyDigital NoiseReduction...sure it may have cleaned up background noise, but it also stole some of the detail!

SACD sounds great to me - compare Dires Straits SACD vs CD on a high end active stereo system....I know which one has the 'blacker' background. ;-)

It's a bit like arguing that vinyl lets everything through, including hiss and static in the recording studio.

Best regards

You cannot compare a production SACD to a production CD. They are well known to be mastered differently, with more time, care and emphasis being given to the SACD version.
+1 to this.

I have a SACD player, and a bunch of JVC XRCDs. These are CDs, just a carefully mastered version, with some fancy packaging, sold in the audiophile market at a premium over normal CDs. They sound just as good as the few SACDs I have. As do many of my regular CDs, I suppose they have been decently mastered as well. Now all my player does is serve as a DAC for the Connect, and music sounds just the same as from the SACDs/CDs, that have been ripped to the NAS via Apple lossless. I suspect that even ripping at the default iTunes 256k compressed setting wouldn't sound audibly different. I did lossless because HDD capacity is not an economic issue any more.

For academic interest, a question: does this mastering thing apply to vinyl as well? Can one have different quality LPs of the same recording?

Kumar,

It is very instructive to compare a Mobile Fidelity Ultra Disc with a few regular CD's and a few records from different masters, including a Mobile Fidelity LP. If you can, find masters from different regions (ie Japan, UK, US).

You'll need to go back to your audiophile roots and use a high end turntable for this, but the differences between masters are dramatic. In some cases you'll need to repeat the comparisons many times in order to satisfy yourself that they all started with the same studio session. Be careful about the LP condition during your comparisons. Mobile Fidelity LP's wear gracefully, the other LP's may not.

i want support for 96 khz.

(the current year is actually 2012)

thanks.

It's only a software issue, the hardware is not a problem as most people interested in playing hi-res files will output to an external DAC anyway.

What about those who don't have ZP90s/Connects?

The difference in sound quality through a high-end system is significant.
Not so, according to those who've conducted controlled tests. See http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html#toc_lt and the links therefrom.

In fact you might want to read the whole piece. The view is that if there's a difference it's that hires reproduction can contain unwanted distortion products.

Can it really be true that Sonos does not support even 22-30 kHz?

This is insane. What a joke from someone aspiring to be the market leader. This thread has been going for over 5 years with the same single request.

Can someone recommend an alternative system that can actually play my music?

Try Squeezebox. I'm sure somebody has something left in stock. 😃

Actually it's not silly. It may be the case that sounds above 20kHz are inaudible but sounds at 16kHz to 20kHz are audible and so a recording at 22 kHz may well be a better recording than a CD, even if some of the sounds are inaudible.

Moreover, the reason my complaint is not silly is that I have some recordings which are at 22kHz-31kHz which I would like to listen to on my Sonos. I will be able to hear many of the sounds on these recordings, even if I cannot hear all of them.

Maybe you should think a bit more slowly next time.

Anyway, aren't CDs 44.1 kHz - are you saying that this is too much for the ears to hear? My understanding is that the sampling rate was designed to be twice what can be heard by the human ear (up to around 20-22 kHz). But Sonos is giving me error messages like "Unable to play XXXX - it is encoded at unsupported sample rate 22664 Hz".
Ah, that's not hi-res at all (the topic of this thread). In fact it's low-res.

The problem is that sample rate 22664 Hz is indeed not supported. The actually supported rate is 22050 Hz (22 kHz nominal).

Native support for 44.1kHz sample rates. Additional support for 48kHz, 32kHz, 24kHz, 22kHz, 16kHz, 11kHz, and 8kHz sample rates.

I would also add that it may be interesting whether or not 24/96 and 24/192 files are any better (or even worse) than CD quality but if anything it is those posts which are off topic.

As I noted above, the bottom line is that people have such music and want to listen to it. Sonos should support as many widely-available formats as possible and they are letting down their customers by stopping them playing their music (which will still sound very nice, regardless of the subtle merits and detractions of the sample rate).

I would also add that it may be interesting whether or not 24/96 and 24/192 files are any better (or even worse) than CD quality but if anything it is those posts which are off topic.


I'm sorry, but in a forum where there is free exchange of ideas, the discussion of whether or not a hoped for enhancement is viable and/or an actual "enhancement" is most certainly not off-topic. First off, Sonos has limited resources and directing these resources towards a useless vanity project which gives no benefits (and actually degrades sound quality in some cases) takes those resources away from other projects we may hope for. Second, in order to implement this feature, the Sonos system could suffer a decrease in reliabilty and/or ease of use, which also affects us all. Third, development and support cost money, and if this feature does not sell, causes reliabilty problems, and uses up more support resources, we who have bought into the Sonos system pay for it via higher prices for new units and/or poorer support.

PS - Sonos has currently listed this enhancement as "Not Planned" at ask.sonos.

Support high resolution FLAC files purchased from HDTracks.com

So being they have no immediate or future plans to implement this, the advice to convert your files to a compatible format becomes all the more applicable.

Actually it's not silly.

Yes. It is!

Maybe you should think a bit more slowly next time.

I thought about what you posted slowly and, speaking as someone with a Degree in Electronics Engineering, I am qualified to say that what you posted was utter rubbish.

However, there seems to be some confusion over what sample rate (versus audible frequency) you are trying to use, so I will indulge you.

If I assume you are talking about audible frequency, rather than sample rate, and thus you are talking about "hires" (the topic of this thread):

It may be the case that sounds above 20kHz are inaudible but sounds at 16kHz to 20kHz are audible and so a recording at 22 kHz may well be a better recording than a CD, even if some of the sounds are inaudible.

Err, what? I'm sorry, but this is complete nonsense.

This is like saying "if I make a lightbulb that emits invisible (to the human eye) ultra-violet light, that will make the visible light somehow better"

If the audio on two recordings below 20kHz is identical, then any "audio" above 20kHz on one of them isn't going to make it sound better. This is because it's inaudible. It's presence doesn't magically improve the sound of the audible sound (I use quotes for "audio" because it's not audible... it is, in fact, noise). In fact there's some evidence that suggests too much of this sort of high-frequency noise may actually be detrimental to the playback of sub 20kHz audio.

And, in reality, very few people can actually hear up to even 20kHz. Most men over 30 years old have a top audible frequency of around 16-17 kHz or less.

Moreover, the reason my complaint is not silly is that I have some recordings which are at 22kHz-31kHz which I would like to listen to on my Sonos. I will be able to hear many of the sounds on these recordings, even if I cannot hear all of them.

This is where we get to the confusion:

Anyway, aren't CDs 44.1 kHz - are you saying that this is too much for the ears to hear? My understanding is that the sampling rate was designed to be twice what can be heard by the human ear (up to around 20-22 kHz). But Sonos is giving me error messages like "Unable to play XXXX - it is encoded at unsupported sample rate 22664 Hz".

Firstly, you are correct: CD quality is 44.1kHz sample rate. This was chosen because (as you say) it's more than the range of human hearing (plus a bit). This yields an "audible" output frequency range up to about 22.050 kHz. In reality it's a little less than this partly because of some mathematics, and partly for practical reasons (filter design), but also because no normal adult humans can actually hear as far as 22kHz so a small amount of this is inaudible noise (how much depends on the human).

However, if you are getting error messages from Sonos that the rate is 22664Hz, then this is referring to the sampling rate which would give you an audible signal of 11.332kHz or less. This is distinctly lo-fi, and most people would be able to tell that the quality was poor. It would be like listening to your music through a cellphone speaker.

In any case 22.664kHz is a totally non standard sample rate. I doubt there are many players that can play this rate, or at least I doubt there are any commercial consumer ones. As ratty states, if you want to support sample rates around 22kHz, 22.050 kHz is the standard, and Sonos supports it.

If you are saying that you downloaded these as 24/96 files, then I can only guess that the files have been corrupted, or Sonos is misreporting the sample rate. Either way, Sonos won't play them.

Assuming they aren't corrupted and they are actually 24/96 files, there is a way to play them by down-converting them to 16/44.1kHz format using a utility like SOX or one of the many media player/converter tools out there. I will note that by doing this you are really just removing all of the extraneous (and, potentially, damaging) inaudible noise from these files. As long as the conversion is done correctly you shouldn't lose any audio quality by doing this.

I would also add that it may be interesting whether or not 24/96 and 24/192 files are any better (or even worse) than CD quality but if anything it is those posts which are off topic.

As I noted above, the bottom line is that people have such music and want to listen to it. Sonos should support as many widely-available formats as possible and they are letting down their customers by stopping them playing their music (which will still sound very nice, regardless of the subtle merits and detractions of the sample rate).

Given the additional noise on these higher-res files is inaudible and, very likely, detrimental to playback quality, there's no good reason not to convert them to a more standard format (like 16/48 or 16/44.1). In which case, you can then play them and your issue magically goes away.

The argument about wanting to play them as they are doesn't hold. 24/96 is (as far as formats for listening to audio are concerned) a pretty random format to chose. It's one that has got some traction in some circles (particularly amongst companies like Linn who are trying to give a good reason for you to buy their high priced music streaming systems), but it's pretty arbitrary and (unlike 16/44.1) wasn't borne of any specific audio science or engineering.

I could chose a random format just as easily (how about 37.547 kHz sample rate) and that wouldn't work either. IMO expecting this to work this is no sillier than expecting a format like 24/96 to work, once you have separated the facts from the hype.

So my advice is, run a converter app on these to turn them into a more standard audio listening format and start enjoying the music.

Cheers,

Keith