Connect no longer bit-perfect?

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.

I was referring to what Sonos had in place in parallel to the old Forum, where suggestions for new features were logged in with formal responses from Sonos to each - under consideration, under implementation, not being considered at present - on those lines, as far as I can recall. Is that what you meant when you refer to "dedicated ideas area"?

And your assurance that every thread is read and all ideas passed on ought to reassure those that think that their requests for Hi Res, Audiophile Connect and MQA are being prevented from reaching Sonos. Given the very short shelf life of every post here, perhaps a general message of reassurance on these lines ought to be conferred permanence in some way via a sticky - assuming of course that people read those.

I look forward to the OP reaction to your response on the bit perfect thing.

Ryan S

Retired Sonos Staff

I was referring to what Sonos had in place in parallel to the old Forum, where suggestions for new features were logged in with formal responses from Sonos to each - under consideration, under implementation, not being considered at present - on those lines, as far as I can recall. Is that what you meant when you refer to "dedicated ideas area"?

I spoke in general terms because on ask.sonos.com we had Ideas which were as you said, categorized into statuses, and as Majik mentioned, there was the Sound Ideas board on forums.sonos.com. The statuses left a lot to be desired and when we moved to this new platform we didn't carry them over.

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

Lyricist III

I just managed to get hold of a pre-2011 Connect (ZD90) in perfect working order. Happy camper here! If Sonos doesn't solve this, I guess those connect units might become more expensive on the second hand market as the issue becomes more widely known (so far I've yet to read about it on any of the audiophile websites). So I'm happy I got one now. Will install it in my system in a few days.

Btw, I've done some more listening tests, where I compare the sound from my connect-fed monitors+sub to the sound from my Sennheisers. It seems to me that the biggest audible change is about volume normalization between tracks. The compression of peaks CAN be audible on some tracks, but it's still relatively subtle. What is not subtle, however, is what happens when I play full orchestral pieces where some of the tracks/movements are much more loud and explosive than the rest. Much of this between-tracks dynamics gets lost with the volume normalization applied. And according to the information from Ryan from Sonos here in the forum, this volume normalization is not applied to the pre-2011 Connects.

I do realize that I'm in the clear minority here - as a person who listens critically to very dynamic classical music, and who possesses a system that is actually able to do justice to such dynamics. What I perceive as a problem, will not be a problem for 99 percent of sonos users. It might even be that this volume normalization makes life easier for most people out there. I don't know. Still, I would have liked Sonos to cater to people like me as well, and I'll watch over this new/old connect as if my life depended on it 😉

R

RICH40

Trending Lyricist I

Can someone explain the hardware difference between the ZP90 and the Connect? Might there be a simple modification on the connect to bring it back to the ZP90 standards?

Lyricist III

Functionality wise I don't think there is any difference. But ZD90s and Connects from before 2011 ran on a slightly different hardware. My understanding is that because of this, Sonos can't implement the same DSP and volume normalization in the older connects as in the new ones. So no, you can't modify the new ones. The only solution for the new ones is if Sonos makes a change in the software.

That the Connect has more capable hardware than the zp90 ought to be a given. Why then can the Connect not do the bit perfect thing and the volume normalisation thing is a mystery to me. Also a mystery is why, if both aren't possible, Sonos prefers to offer volume normalisation over bit perfect.

Unless, not having ever specified "bit perfect", there was no need for them to stay with that if they think that normalisation is of more value than bit perfect to their target market.

I can't hear any differences between my zp90 and my play 1 units on how effective they are at normalisation, so the point is moot to me. I also prefer the sound quality from my 1 pair + Sub to my zp90 zone, but that is subjective preference, I admit.

The other thing that is easy enough to do, but I doubt anyone will, is even a reduced protocol blind test between zp90 and Connect, to see if there are audible difference between the two once the usual biases that afflict all humans are ruled out. Wiring each to different analog input jacks of the same amp, and supplying the same source to both Sonos units makes it easy to achieve the two conditions that are not always easy to achieve at home: ruling out variability in source and sound levels. Toggling back and forth is also easy to do via the controller app. Perhaps we will see this rare event here soon!

Lyricist III

The other thing that is easy enough to do, but I doubt anyone will, is even a reduced protocol blind test between zp90 and Connect, to see if there are audible difference between the two once the usual biases that afflict all humans are ruled out. Wiring each to different analog input jacks of the same amp, and supplying the same source to both Sonos units makes it easy to achieve the two conditions that are not always easy to achieve at home: ruling out variability in source and sound levels. Toggling back and forth is also easy to do via the controller app. Perhaps we will see this rare event here soon!

My active monitors only have one analog input... But maybe I'll be able to pull off such a test with a rca switch :)
(and also cable splitters from the source etc)

That being said, I tend to trust objective measurements more than listening tests, which can be fickle. The best ways of identifying differences in blind tests are typically with either speech or pink noise, but we typically tend to listen to music and not pink noise on our stereos. And when listening to music, the brain usually fills in things that might be missing objectively, or that we expect to be there. When comparing two tracks of audio next to each other, the brain can "smear" the listening impression of one track over to the other for example. The very reason that sighted listening is so unreliable also makes blind listening somewhat unreliable. There's no easy way out, and no getting around that our brain and our hearing apparatus are very unreliable instruments.

But if there can be shown to be a measurable degradation within a range that we know is audible to human beings (and not only to bats or dogs for example), then I'll just take that at face value. I just want my system to perform as good as it can within the human hearing range (so I don't care for hi-rez files for example). That's why I employ active monitors without passive crossovers and with very good drivers, have a large subwoofer (bigger bass drivers have less distortion), avoid vinyl like the plague, listen in the near-field, and buy the cheapest cables I can find on eBay. For me it's all about objective performance, and getting as much bang for the bucks as I can. This improves my subjective appreciation of the music. I think its partly because of the objective quality of the sound, and partly related to my smug self-gratulatory satisfaction over knowing that I have good sound ;)

But I'll see if I'll be able to arrange a blind test with the two connects!

This improves my subjective appreciation of the music.

Lol. I prefer the short route these days; if it sounds good to me and if I enjoy the music/experience, I don't bother about objective measurements to confirm or in any way validate my experience! Perhaps this is the result of a decade of equipment obsession that I am happy to have left behind.

The blind test would be of interest, one way, or the other to those that are hurting by the loss of bit perfect. But how would they get over the knowing of the loss of bits even if the blind test proves that the loss isn't audible?:D

And if you do get around to doing the blind test, remember to also see what, if any, are the differences in normalisation effectiveness between the two units.