We need Audiophile Edition version of Port

I know very little about jitter. Virtually nothing in fact. What I do know is that if I am using digital coaxial out from a Connect, I must have an external DAC, and be bypassing the DAC in the Connect. 

So how can my Connect be introducing jitter that is not, as @jgatie says, sorted out by the external DAC?

What is the Connect doing to degrade the sound please, @Ivan Jeremic ?  What is it doing other than forward packets of 0s and 1s?

An external DAC can’t resolve jitter on an SPDIF link, because SPDIF has no error correction facility.

Essentially it happens when the clock at the receiving end fails to match the clock at the sending end. Valid data can be lost, invalid data can be inserted and valid data can be corrupted.

The receiver may be able to detect that errors have occurred but, because there is no error correction, can do nothing about it.

This description makes it sound serious but, in my experience, it’s not in the real world! I did some experiments in the mid 90’s with cheap SPDIF equipment and… I never found any examples of errors caused by jitter. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t happen.

Jitter seems to be quoted frequently by higher-end audio manufacturers, and I suspect that the main reason they do it is that few people understand what it is, and even fewer have the ability to measure it - so they can make any claims that they like with no real danger that their claims will be questioned.

Historically, concern about jitter mainly arose in telecoms networks before the time when the phase locked loop had been invented. These days, clock stability is such that networks can operate at tens of Gb/s without any issues at all, so designing a clock for PCM audio really isn’t a technical challenge!

@Antifon gave a very good explanation of most of the problems.

Another problem I am aware of is also that 0 or 1 is level of voltage. It looks something like this __-_-___----__ where low is 0 and high is 1. Change from 0 voltage to 1 voltage levels does not happens in no time. You have time needed to change voltage from 0 to 1 and vice versa so you have some “in between time” lets say not 0 not 1 but if you catch signal in a bad time then it is “0.2” or “0.332” times. Also you can see that if you have several zeroes in a row there is no change in voltage.. If signal is not clocked correctly then these get misinterpreted.  You have electrical pollution from WiFi and home appliances etc which can cause “buzz” in audio circuits. You have definitely hear those sometime when being extremely strong but they occur all the time. Signal is passed through the cable which can be faster at transferring this voltage level changes or slower… When you have 44kHz/16bit signal that mean DAC is taking 16 bit of signal 44000 times per second… Plenty of chances to make an error.

Coming from IT background in the first I did not believe in any of this stuff. Sure good DAC will interpret digital signal in more musical matter but that is it. 1 is 1. 0 is 0. Nothing could change that until I heard noticeable differences when using different digital sources even different digital cables.

Antifon is right when saying that this is not a big problem in a real world. Most of the people will not recognise it because they do not have gear which can reproduce this errors in processing in a way you can actually hear them. I describe it as a coarse sound. Its like you have a distortion in a sound similar to what you get when you crank volume up too much but in a more subtle manner. You can recognise it when it is gone. Music appears softer, cleaner, more relaxed. There are no sharp edges. You can listen to music longer even on higher leves.

How Sonos can deal with that I do not know. Probably just by removing complexity from device (no audio processing etc) and try to get rid of interferences from electric network I suppose… Maybe using better components since this part was left as appendix which no one cares about. I am not an expert on this.. Just my thoughts.

If I had an ask of Sonos in terms of ‘upping their game’ then it would simply be around things like the robustness of components liable to wear and tear (e.g optical connection on play  bar). 
 

i don’t claim to be an audiophile. Have dabbled in high end audio equipment in the past, same for specialist AV/TH equipment - but ultimately it was the ease of use, accessibility and convenience of Sonos that won out. Sure there are 100s of features each of us would like to see happen (higher bitrate, more speaker options in TH congigs etc) - but those who’ve already said it are correct - Sonos is a ‘mid quality mainstream’ manufacturer. There will probably never be a product that is significantly ‘better’ than a pair of Play 5s for stereo. And same goes for the rest of the niche players. 
 

despite grumbles. I would still rather the convenience that filling the house or any multiple combination of rooms with Spotify over a single ‘high end’ system. It makes for a much more flexible ‘music’ experience than sitting in a dark room with acoustic treatments, the ball-ache of a turntable and worrying if the £1000 gold cables really were a wise investment. 

Honestly, I can’t say that I’ve looked at the opinions of audiophiles when making decisions on audio quality.  Whenever possible, I trust my own ears. Even when seeking advice from youtubers  or other social media, it’s not the people looking for perfection that I’m listening to. From my experience, audiophiles don’t have the same priorities as me.   

Even if audiophiles did help with sales as you suggest, I’m not sure that a $900 Port is going to help sell the $350 Port….since the audiophile is likely going to say the  $350 Port isn’t good enough.  Really, your argument is like saying that Honda needs to start making supercars, so the supercar fans will tell others that the Accord is a good vehicle.

If a USD 25 Chromecast, a USD 350 Port and a USD 1000 external DAC can’t be picked apart in a blind listening test, what’s the point of such a Port?

Audiophiles will never love Sonos, a mass market brand, even where it sells at a higher price point than many such. As soon as mass market is the target, audiophiles exit. It has nothing to do with sound quality, but with human psychology.

@Kumar These are all assumptions. These are not grounded arguments. What if difference can be heard and what if a lot of audiphiles use modified Sonos Connects as a source just because of convinience?

You are basically speking in front of milion of audiophiles even you are not one and about things you havent even tried. 

@melvimbe Honda Racing Fondation was formed in 1982 in order for them to be able to experiment and try out different things to build better cars and I would say that it was a good idea. Honda today build great cars. 
Bealive it or not Sonos is building audiophile gear. Everyone who buy more then one of their products is an audiophile. They can buy cheaper products but they choose Sonos because it sounds good and it is easy to use.
Would you buy Sonos speaker if it sounds like crap but it is easy to use and looks kind of nice?

That is a classic example of an ungrounded assumption.

@Kumar If you have tried 35$ Chromecast, 350$ Port and 1000$ DAC in blind lostening test and could not hear difference then I stand corrected and you have my deepest appologies.