Zp 24/96
A
Ability to play 24bit/96 files (like the competition: slimdevices transporter)
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Userlevel 2
The fact that this thread is by far the largest in the request board with 414 replies and >58000 views (the second largest only has 160 replies and 20000 views) hardly agrees with that statement...
:rolleyes:
Analogy fail.
Your argument is that Hyundai should start building supercars, even though it may compromise the performance and reliability of their mass-market segment, and despite Hyundai's insistence they have no plans to build such a vehicle.
Next.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/03/sonos-drops-price-music-systems-high-resolution-wireless-mp3
I quote from the guardian:
As part of Sonos’s pursuit of music streaming, it has recently been looking at high resolution 24-bit music; the kind that Neil Young’s Pono Player and Linn records have been pushing about recently.
“It’s a big technical challenge for us, but it’s one we’ve definitely been working on,” explained Spence. “We’re looking at overcoming the limitations of streaming 24-bit in the home, as there seems to be a lot of momentum around it at the moment, so stay tuned.”
Hi-res audio files, also known as studio master tracks, are much larger than the highly compressed MP3 and AAC files commonly streamed and downloaded from Spotify, iTunes, Google Play and Amazon. Albums of studio master tracks can take up between 2GB and 5GB of space, while MP3s typically take up 5MB per track.
The increased file size and subsequent data rate required to stream hi-res music over a Wi-Fi network causes issues for bandwidth and technology.
But Spence is positive about Young’s moves. “Anything anyone’s doing to help bring high quality music listening back is a great thing,” he said.
I quote from the guardian:
As part of Sonos’s pursuit of music streaming, it has recently been looking at high resolution 24-bit music; the kind that Neil Young’s Pono Player and Linn records have been pushing about recently.
“It’s a big technical challenge for us, but it’s one we’ve definitely been working on,” explained Spence. “We’re looking at overcoming the limitations of streaming 24-bit in the home, as there seems to be a lot of momentum around it at the moment, so stay tuned.”
Hi-res audio files, also known as studio master tracks, are much larger than the highly compressed MP3 and AAC files commonly streamed and downloaded from Spotify, iTunes, Google Play and Amazon. Albums of studio master tracks can take up between 2GB and 5GB of space, while MP3s typically take up 5MB per track.
The increased file size and subsequent data rate required to stream hi-res music over a Wi-Fi network causes issues for bandwidth and technology.
But Spence is positive about Young’s moves. “Anything anyone’s doing to help bring high quality music listening back is a great thing,” he said.
Given that people who want something are always noisier than people who don't care, it's hard to gauge the actual interest without proper research, something with a bit more weight than a forum poll.
Again, the problem, as it appears to me, is that neither the people who argue for it nor the people who say it's a waste of time can prove that they, in fact, speak for the majority of users.
One can only hope that Sonos have a foolproof way of determining the commercial importance of this feature, be it overwhelming, non-existent or somewhere in-between.
That is the problem at its heart. But I take the view that, regardless of how many people want this, it's just another feature request. It's when people trying to make out it is more important than that, when people complain about it as if it was a major software bug that Sonos has not fixed that I have a problem.
(And just to pre-empt someone claiming that they consider it a bug in an attempt to hype their desire for this feature, it is not. I will personally consider anyone who claims they believe it is a bug to be either a liar or a moron of the highest order. It is not a bug. it is a feature that Sonos don't currently support.)
I will point out that I have done some unscientific market research of my own both online and in real life which suggests even the awareness of hires formats amongst the general population is extremely low, and those who knew of hires didn't seem that interested in it. Of course there are always hotbeds of activity where the interest levels are much higher than is typical (such as audiophile forums), and these are often quoted as "evidence" of the level of support. There might be some validity in this if Sonos was specifically targeting the audiophile market. I so no evidence they are. Outside of audio interest groups like this, I see negligible levels of desire or even awareness. Even within groups such as these forums (or even the Squeezebox forums), the interest seems to be confined to a mostly very noisy dozen or so people out of a community of several thousand. Hardly compelling!
If enough of the Sonos user base (or target user base) wants it, Sonos will have a better idea than us
Ultimately, that's my view. If there is a compelling market for this (or any other feature) Sonos will know about it. Sonos have proved themselves to be surprisingly canny when it comes to understanding and addressing their market (they have surprised me a few times in the past when I thought they were taking a wrong turn), and I have no reason to think they are doing the wrong thing in this case.
People seem to forget that Sonos do actually have a Marketing department. If the market was as obviously pro-hires formats as some seem to maintain, Sonos would know about it. They aren't so stupid that they wouldn't have addressed it by now.
Cheers,
Keith
Hi Draken,
First, don't put your girlfriend down by saying, "Even my girlfriend can hear the difference". There's a good chance she can hear better than you. Statisical data on hearing tests would support this.
Can you provide some details on your set-up when you've done these listening tests? What is your decent stereo and what efforts went into matching levels and what degree of blindness did you have to the sources? What was the redbook and 24 bit material and were they from the same masters?
I'm really interested in these details. Please provide/expound if possible.
First, don't put your girlfriend down by saying, "Even my girlfriend can hear the difference". There's a good chance she can hear better than you. Statisical data on hearing tests would support this.
Can you provide some details on your set-up when you've done these listening tests? What is your decent stereo and what efforts went into matching levels and what degree of blindness did you have to the sources? What was the redbook and 24 bit material and were they from the same masters?
I'm really interested in these details. Please provide/expound if possible.
Why isn't there noise now about the need for 24/192? 96 is so passé.
And 48/384 is on the way.
And 48/384 is on the way.
Userlevel 1
Jesus, get over yourself mate, he said they're looking at it, he didn't say they would do it, he didn't even say they COULD do it, there's a lot of technical obstacles to overcome in order to implement it whilst still maintaining basic functionality, such as volume control.
What the status of the 24-bit requests over on ask.sonos.com? Not Planned or Under Consideration?
What the status of the 24-bit requests over on ask.sonos.com? Not Planned or Under Consideration?
Userlevel 2
I recently bought some HD and Master recordings online. I can't play them with Sonos.
I think since this buying online is the future and if the listener want good quality Sonos should be able to play such recordings. Does anyone agree with me?
I think since this buying online is the future and if the listener want good quality Sonos should be able to play such recordings. Does anyone agree with me?
:rolleyes:
Just because the topic has been debated the most (most replies) don't conclude that hires would be anywhere near the top of the list among all Sonos users for feature upgrades.
I personally would like to see support for it but would not put it at the top. Probably would not make my Top 10 list.
And 48/384 is on the way.
PS: All of this takes me back a decade, where I was selling building automation controllers. We had a 16 bit marvel compared to the 8 bit one the competition had. And our challenge was to get the spec to say 16 bit, because that was the latest and greatest. Looking back, it was a wasted part of my life. No one should have cared how many bits, all that was required was did the widget do the job, and was it reliable in service. But consultants wanted to be convinced to appear to be state of the art before a customer, and we encouraged that nonsense. Just to find another hook to differentiate. What did it matter if the customer truly needed the "feature".
Under consideration seems more like it from the posts above. Anyway, with all the ultra-negative talk and notion that there's no chance SONOS will implement, I sold my gear and bought a Bluesound system. I bet Bluesound, which is gaining momentum, wouldn't even exist as competition if SONOS would've implemented higher bit rates.
This will be my last post (notifications off). Thanks for all those who added constructive feedback!
This will be my last post (notifications off). Thanks for all those who added constructive feedback!
[Mod note: Wiebele, I've moved your post to one of the more recent threads on this topic.]
Userlevel 2
First, don't put your girlfriend down by saying, "Even my girlfriend can hear the difference". There's a good chance she can hear better than you. Statisical data on hearing tests would support this.
.
I'm not putting her down. It's generally accepted that girls aren't really interested in hifi or sound quality. Whether they have better hearing or not isn't relevant. They are just interested in other things.
Can you provide some details on your set-up when you've done these listening tests? What is your decent stereo and what efforts went into matching levels and what degree of blindness did you have to the sources? What was the redbook and 24 bit material and were they from the same masters?
.
Like I wrote in my previous message, it isn't up to the customers to argue and "prove" that a feature they request are valuable or not. If a large number of people request a feature, the manufacturer would be wise to listen or else lose their customers.
I'm not going to waste time being baited into a discussion over why I find something valuable. Suffice to say, I and *a lot* of other people like how 24 bit source material sounds and we are requesting it's support.
Userlevel 1
Your argument is that Hyundai should start building supercars, even though it may compromise the performance and reliability of their mass-market segment, and despite Hyundai's insistence they have no plans to build such a vehicle.
Next.
How is that any different to what I said, in principle (I swapped Hyundai for Ford because Ford sells more cars, same as Sonos sells more units than anyone else)?
To support hi-res Sonos would have to abandon their core market. The same as if a mass-market car maker decided to only sell ultra-expensive supercars. Seems to be pretty much the same thing to me.
^ Please PM me with your Bluesound experiences. Thanks!!!
+8
I think at the end of the day it may simply be that the current Sonos system ( hardware and software) is incapable of playing Hi Rez formats without a complete redesign that might obsolete all the current products. That would so totally piss everyone off that it's not in Sonos interest to do it. It's really a shame since Sonos is by far, truly by far, the best streaming media system out there, or rather has the best interface, this side of the much more expensive Sooloos system. What I think will happen whether in a week or a month or a year is that someone will do a system that is as slick as Sonos but with HiRez abilities.. I just hope Sonos is looking to the future and figuring a way to do it. There's an awful lot of dead business that thought they were the s--t and that they didn't need to innovate.
So is there a solution? I believe there is. I think Sonos could leverage their existing client base and engineering into a separate higher end system that would do Hi Rez.. why not have a higher end product line up that would address the demands of Hi Rez audio..and the more upscale buyer? if nothing else it could create an entirely new revenue stream. The existing products and price points would be maintained for the more price sensitive and those looking for better would also be served .. there are certainly plenty of very successful businesses modeled on that concept.
I'll wait now for the reasons why not..
So is there a solution? I believe there is. I think Sonos could leverage their existing client base and engineering into a separate higher end system that would do Hi Rez.. why not have a higher end product line up that would address the demands of Hi Rez audio..and the more upscale buyer? if nothing else it could create an entirely new revenue stream. The existing products and price points would be maintained for the more price sensitive and those looking for better would also be served .. there are certainly plenty of very successful businesses modeled on that concept.
I'll wait now for the reasons why not..
:rolleyes:
There is a difference between a vocal minority and a majority. The reason this thread has gone on so long is because there is a very loud and active fanbase for hi-rez. Loud and active in no way correlates to actual numbers or market penetration, nor should it.
The human mind is a remarkable and wonderful thing. We receive inputs through our senses and our mind makes sense of it all, coloured by preconceptions, experience and sometimes, knowledge.
I "know" that credible, repeatable, non-biased, objective studies show that 24/96 and the like is pointless and possibly detrimental. But I don't feel that gives me the right to criticise or ridicule someone whose perceptions tell them otherwise.
My brother in law has just upgraded his speaker wires, going from an eye-watering £60 a foot to nearly £200 a foot. He now talks of "increased openness", "3d sound", "enhanced soundstage" etc. I "know" he's deluding himself and he's hearing what he wants to hear. But does that matter? Who am I to tell him otherwise and potentially spoil his obvious enjoyment?
Hi-res fans hear what they hear. They're surely entitled to believe what they believe. However, Sonos has decided not to support hi-res (which I personally think is sensible) so any further argument is rather moot isn't it?
I "know" that credible, repeatable, non-biased, objective studies show that 24/96 and the like is pointless and possibly detrimental. But I don't feel that gives me the right to criticise or ridicule someone whose perceptions tell them otherwise.
My brother in law has just upgraded his speaker wires, going from an eye-watering £60 a foot to nearly £200 a foot. He now talks of "increased openness", "3d sound", "enhanced soundstage" etc. I "know" he's deluding himself and he's hearing what he wants to hear. But does that matter? Who am I to tell him otherwise and potentially spoil his obvious enjoyment?
Hi-res fans hear what they hear. They're surely entitled to believe what they believe. However, Sonos has decided not to support hi-res (which I personally think is sensible) so any further argument is rather moot isn't it?
I for one am quite open to hearing a fair comparison of these with Sonos on all important aspects on this thread, particularly with respect to multi room single source audio - in sync or different music in each room.
I am not that interested in SQ comparisons - I think that with Connect/Connect Amp, Sonos can be as good as anyone can want it to be.
Squeezebox did the high end unit thing with the Transporter. It was discontinued last year. Supposedly it never sold enough to justify its existence.
Sorry, not meaning to draw you out but when someone states it as you have, I'm genuinely interested in how they came to that conclusion. In my eyes, when the test involves blind ABX with levels matched, some level of credibility is reached. Until this is done, well you know, talk is cheap.:)
Userlevel 1
It doesn't always work like that though, I used to work with a guy who used to spend every penny of his (pretty meagre) salary on hi-fi, he had a pair of custom built non-expanded polystyrene speaker cabinets which took a month for the glue to cure, never mind the rest of the manhours for the build, with a single aluminium driver (small, these were near-field monitors, not designed for massive bass, although, bizarrely, he only listened to Detroit Techno...), he had a completely isolated power feed, just for the hi-fi, which consisted of a MASSIVE Wadia CD player (can't remember the model it was a while ago but it was significantly bigger than most AV receivers) and an equally enormous amp.
Anyway, one day he decided to upgrade the interconnect, 1m cable, cost him £1200, so you'd expect placebo to be in full effect. He didn't like it, said it ruined the sound, so he swapped it out for a "cheaper" £600 cable, which he much preferred. So if it's all in your head, why did he react like that?
What the status of the 24-bit requests over on ask.sonos.com? Not Planned or Under Consideration?
This will be my last post (notifications off). Thanks for all those who added constructive feedback!
Actually, the status is officially 'Not Planned', and has remained such for a few years. Until it changes, I imagine the_lhc's analysis to be more reality than any other.
There are well reported rumours that Sonos are looking into Home Theater products. What this means in practice (outside of Sonos), is anyone's guess. Here's mine:
A range of products which incorporate Sonos technology into a Home theatre receiver capability. As wireless is one of Sonos's strengths I would see some options for the speakers to be wireless (perhaps these are linked zones using different channels, similar to paired S5s).
Why am I going off on this tangent? Because a primary requirement for any such product is multichannel support. This alone would make it stand apart from the current stereo platform. If it's going to be different, then putting hires in wouldn't be a stretch. In fact I would say it would be foolish not to. If the platform has the resources to decode multichannel audio, it's certainly capable of decoding hires stereo.
Will it support video? It will probably have to support video switching at least, if not some form of transport (although this would need to be for wired players, wifi isn't capable of supporting streams of HD video with any meaningful reliability). Some form of native video encoding/transport would remove the need to worry about codecs and would provide full support to existing video sources. There's always room for a separate "Google TV" type box which links in for seamless streaming support.
There's also room for compatibility with the current zoneplayers by streaming a stereo/standard-res only version of audio soundtracks to legacy players. The slightly tricky bit could be making the interface between the two as transparent as possible, but the UI for such a device will need to be far richer than the existing UI. My feeling is this can only be supported using a "two-tier" approach where the current Zoneplayers and any new "Home Theatre" devices are mostly independent, but with some functional bridge between them. A simple solution would be to expose the new system's audio channels as a new music source on the existing system's menu, allowing these channels to be streamed (and synced) to the existing zoneplayers, a bit like Internet radio.
I honestly don't think there's room in the range for a player which is only different because of hires capability: it would be practically identical to the current range but wouldn't be fully compatible with existing zoneplayers. I also think it would sell far fewer than you expect.
This is what I heard too.
Home Theater gives a proper, mainstream, and easily marketable reason to have a new platform which operates in a different way because it is fundamentally addressing a different capability. If such a platform should appear in the future, it would be natural in my view that it would support hires.
This is, of course, all speculation, and any new range is at least a development cycle or two away (probably 18 months to 2 years). I also don't see it completely replacing the current range, at least not for a few years.
Cheers,
Keith
Userlevel 2
I can confirm this. Do not care much about 24/96 support, but i am an active follower of this subject, because of the interesting arguments of the contributors.
I think of the lack of support of 24/96 the same way i think of the lack of ability to play CD's or vinyl records with Sonos. If I do want to listen to it using my Sonos equipment, I have to convert the source to something Sonos likes.
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