W4S Connect Modification worthwhile???

The wonders of placebo. As our friend Kumar sometimes remarks, a drop of adult beverage can have a similar effect on the brain's music appreciation.

...all that Sonos is doing is passing on bits.

Unfortunately not. Sonos makes three changes to the bit stream (even with fixed volume):

1. 1dB soft-knee compression which affects all signals in the loudest 3.5dB.
2. volume normalization using mp3 tag ITUNNORM (also applies to ALAC files)
3. the negative waveform signal is in error by one step (i.e. 1 in 32768)

There's a thread discussing this here.

Cheers, Peter.

Unfortunately not. Sonos makes three changes to the bit stream (even with fixed volume):

Sonos HAS muddied the waters here, but how much of this change is audible in a controlled test is still an open question. But the muddying of the waters is enough to have audiophilia nervosa raise its head.

Of course, in the context of the thread, in terms of whether a Connect mod is worthwhile, this is probably not relevant. And I still maintain that spending the money on some decent single malt, turning down the lights, and enjoying the music with no sleep lost over voided warranties is a better way to go. The only real tweak needed may be a bump up of the volume control to compensate for the slightly lower signal voltage from the analog outputs of the Connect compared to that from most CDPs/DACS.

YMMV, obviously.

And I doubt that with its focus on play units, streaming services, voice control and home automation integration, Sonos cares much about this issue now.

Thanks @Peter Mc. Yes I have been aware of that thread since your original post. And kudos to you for identifying this. But the issue has never really troubled me. and as @Kumar suggests, I felt "just passing on bits" was close enough for the issue on this current thread.