Question

Connect no longer bit-perfect?

Forum|Forum|10 years ago
August 23, 2016
450 replies
29769 views

It looks like the Connect is no longer bit-perfect. Here's my evidence: let's discuss this.

First, I constructed a wav file of pink noise with amplitude ramping up from zero to digital max and back to zero.
I play this through my Connect and record the SPDIF output from the coax output into my PC.
The recording uses a Scarlett 8i6 audio interface set to use the Connect as master clock.
I record into a DAW (Sonar) multiple times - all instances are identical.
However, this recorded signal is not quite the same as the original wav file - it can be up to -21dB different.
See https://www.dropbox.com/s/t8od479xo9hi5el/connect_diff.PNG?dl=1
Note the expanded scale on the difference (third) track.

It looks like the difference gets larger when the signal is larger. To confirm this, I import the
original and difference files into Matlab and plot the raw data (difference vs original). There is clearly audio compression
happening here. See https://www.dropbox.com/s/p1yq6wcqafvnhaj/diff_vs_orig.png?dl=1
The scale is such that digital maximum is 1.

There also appears to be a slight bias when the waveform is negative and the signal is below the
compression threshold. See an expanded version of the previous plot
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9001tl9mkle4wly/diff_vs_orig_zoom.png?dl=1

Happy to answer questions about the method and conclusions.

Cheers, Peter.

p.s. Volume is set to fixed - I haven't tried variable.
In a loopback test (8i6 out from DAW to 8i6 in, no Sonos gear involved), I get bit-perfect cancellation.

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jgatie

I don't see one person in here "shutting down" your request for an audiophile Connect. In fact, the only thing shutting down your request for an audiophile Connect is the fact you have personally changed the topic of this thread into a plea for safe spaces, instead of a request for an audiophile Connect. Maybe if one could stay on topic, the request could rise above the noise.

To Kumar, a boom box Sonos like the Play:5 was requested. Trueplay may have had a few suggestions, but no full throated cry. There are certainly more hotly* requested items such as audiophile quality versions of Sonos components that have been ignored, or were expressly shot down by Sonos. Number one with a bullet amongst these items is support for hi-resolution audio. It was definitively stated on ask.com that it will not be supported, and verified by Tom Cullen in an article that Sonos does not believe in hi-res, especially higher scan rates. They obviously know the hit (or lack thereof) they are taking from that statement.

*hotly meaning a couple people writing hundreds of posts, not 100 people writing one or two.

K

Kumar

To Kumar, a boom box Sonos like the Play:5 was requested. Trueplay may have had a few suggestions, but no full throated cry. There are certainly more hotly* requested items such as audiophile quality versions of Sonos components that have been ignored

*hotly meaning a couple people writing hundreds of posts, not 100 people writing one or two.

That's about in line with what I thought - that the community or the earlier forum, has had relatively a small influence in the last ten years on the Sonos product portfolio development that has been developed from a much broader based market intelligence and assessment, allied to their sense of what the market needs. They were still caught napping on voice, as they have admitted, but no one here delivered any heads up of that gap to them either.

The only visible thing that I can see has been based on inputs here seem to be the controller/UI changes from time to time. And the 5 unit, as you have pointed out, though there again there has to have been a lot more driving it than community feedback.

As a community member that should bother me if I did not realise that we are just a drop in the ocean of feedback that Sonos obtains from many places to feed its business/product strategy development.

jgatie

Well, there were some active threads about Alexa/Echo, nothing like the 100s of volunteers for the private beta though. There were also requests for a Sub and some sort of video capability. So I wouldn't say this forum (or the others) had little to no influence. I'm 100% positive that it isn't the only, nor the most important influence. Marketing studies and plain old individual talent and vision would be #1 and #2 on that list.

One thing is for sure, repeatedly posting a request over and over and over again, while simultaneously drowning out your own request with demands for a safe space to repeatedly make that request, has never been successful. The hue and cry from the tiny vocal minority asking for things like hi-res support, audiophile quality gear, or any of the other wappinghigh like requests has never had any influence. As I said, Sonos knows the difference between hundreds of posts from a couple people and a couple of posts from 100's of people.

K

Kumar

Well, there were some active threads about Alexa/Echo

But was that before Amazon released voice control? That is what I meant - that voice isn't something that was seen as a must have feature by anyone here in a way that prevented Sonos from being blindsided by it.

Neither do I recall seeing any clamour anywhere close to that for hi res/audiophile connects, for something like Trueplay from anyone here that Sonos did do, based on what they thought is a customer requirement. Something that often delivers day v night improvement in sound quality that no one feels the need to challenge via ABX, also because it is easy to toggle it on/off.

Then there was the structured requests/ideas feature on the earlier version of this community - I am guessing that has been discontinued. If so, does that convey anything about the perceived value of the site to Sonos for market feedback purposes?

I guess we now need to turn over the thread back to it's bit perfect Connect subject! The clamour for which does not seem to be getting any response from Sonos either, seeing that it is a 6 month old subject now.

jgatie

No, there were never any voice control threads prior to Echo. The requests for hi-res capability or audiophile Connects were always from a very vocal, very adamant, and very argumentative few (sound familiar?). There was even an obviously gamed poll about hi-res support that saw dozens of "one-and-done" hi-res fans sign up just to vote, never posting again. Quite different from the Alexa, Spotify, or Google Play Music threads that saw many posters who interacted with the forum.

Back to the bit-perfect Connect. Sonos screwed up. For whatever reason it was implemented, they should allow the user to toggle bit-perfect on/off.

K

Kumar

For whatever reason it was implemented, they should allow the user to toggle bit-perfect on/off.

Perhaps one day, we will at least see a response, if not a reversal to bit perfect.
On Trueplay, I now recall a faint memory though, that there were a few voices here and there wishing there was a room response DSP on Sonos and I think I remember Chicks as one of those voices.

Ryan S

Retired Sonos Staff

This thread got quite out of hand on the personal attacks, and I think everyone knows it. For the sake of the conversation, we haven't deleted the blocks of comments at the moment. Please remember to not attack other users or we will have to remove posts and take further moderation actions as needed. Let's keep it friendly, even if you disagree. We don't need to go slinging insults to get our points across.

Then there was the structured requests/ideas feature on the earlier version of this community - I am guessing that has been discontinued. If so, does that convey anything about the perceived value of the site to Sonos for market feedback purposes?

I guess we now need to turn over the thread back to it's bit perfect Connect subject! The clamour for which does not seem to be getting any response from Sonos either, seeing that it is a 6 month old subject now.

The dedicated Ideas area was removed because we found that a lot of other threads had suggestions in them too and fit in a lot of other places, and often times, one request thread has many requests in it. The Community team here reads every thread anyway, and we make sure to pass on any of the ideas on to other teams as we see them. No need for a dedicated section, we handle the data aggregation on our end.

I've been watching this thread since the creation and have been talking with the player team about this request or question (whichever you'd like to call it). They are looking into the CONNECT output, but I don't have any details on that I can share. I'll let you all know if there's anything to bring up.

Thanks for keeping the conversation on track everyone.

Mark good posts by pressing the like button, and select the best answer on questions you've asked to help others find solutions.

Majik

The dedicated Ideas area was removed because we found that a lot of other threads had suggestions in them too and fit in a lot of other places, and often times, one request thread has many requests in it. The Community team here reads every thread anyway, and we make sure to pass on any of the ideas on to other teams as we see them. No need for a dedicated section, we handle the data aggregation on our end

Just to add to this, the original suggestions forum was pretty much created and maintained by the original User Moderators. At that time, although there were Sonos staff watching the forum, it was a very light touch approach. Often we had to raise issues to Sonos support via back channels. Since the switch to the new forum, Sonos staff are participating much more actively, to the extent that User Moderators aren't needed.

I will point out that maintaining the old format forum was a lot of work and conflict, especially as a large number of users never read, or abided by the rules when posting, even though the rules were there to benefit the community and keep things organised. A handful of people seemed to violently object when their posts were moved or merged as they felt they were more important than the community or that the rules didn't apply to them.

I'll add that, although it started out as an "Ideas" forum, in reality there were very few original ideas, and it was more useful as a way for people to discuss specific feature requests.

Frankly, though it was fun for a while, I'm glad to see the back of it and I can't blame the Sonos folks for not want to continue with it.

Anyway, back to the scheduled programming...

Cheers,

Keith

chicks

Hmmm, I seem to recall a certain member asking for TruePlay well in advance of its rollout, lol. It was met with some intelligent thoughts by the informed posters here, thankfully.

https://en.community.sonos.com/wireless-speakers-228992/dsp-room-correction-43916

jgatie

Hmmm, I seem to recall a certain member asking for TruePlay well in advance of its rollout, lol. It was met with some intelligent thoughts by the informed posters here, thankfully.

https://en.community.sonos.com/wireless-speakers-228992/dsp-room-correction-43916

That's the thread I remembered when I said "Trueplay may have had a few suggestions, but no full throated cry."

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