Zp 24/96

What that means is you guys who have the word "moderator" under your usernames become, rightly or wrongly, the de facto Sonos representatives here, you clearly are in a position of authority that the rest of us aren't, so, whether you want it or not, when you guys say something people pay more attention and when you argue yay or nay on a subject people believe, again, rightly or wrongly, that you have some additional insight into the workings of the company (which I don't believe you do, correct me if I'm wrong).

Generally we have no more insight than other users. Certainly our point of contact is Sonos Support, not Sonos Product Development.

The problem is not that people pay attention more to what we say (which they may or may not do), but that they falsely attribute stuff to us because they are looking for a whipping boy for their frustrations or a target for their false accusations and we are the closest they can get to "official", so we get singled out for things we never actually did.

For instance, on this thread, I checked my posts and they were overwhelmingly in favour of Hires support. The only arguments that could possibly considered to be "against" it were that a) it wasn't any different from any other feature request and b) the majority of the market may not be interested in hires support.

I know that Buzz and Avee have also expressed support for hires.

So when people ask for a feature to be added and you or one of the other mods argue against it (or in one case state, quite categorically, that nobody can hear the difference between 16-bit and 24-bit audio anyway, so there's no point supporting hires, I don't think that was you though)

The closest I got to this was post #158. I'm pretty certain I have never said hires is totally inaudible to everyone in all circumstances, because I don't believe that is true.

I also don't recall any other mod stating this (although I've not checked extensively) and I would be slightly surprised if they had. On the other hand I am aware of several posts from non-moderators who have claimed this. I strongly suspect that people have falsely associated these posts with moderators for the reasons I gave above.

I don't know what the answer is to that though but I do know one thing, I wouldn't want to be a mod here, the phrase "sacrificial lamb" springs to mind...

Most people are reasonable. Occasionally someone will become unreasonable. Each of us has our own personal "anti-fan-club" who organize the occasional vendetta attack on us.

But you do a great job here and rarely get thanked for it, so, from me, thank you!

Thanks for your support!

Cheers,

Keith

Folks...I like many of you have been following this thread with both interest and hope, that at some point Sonos would provide a hint of future plans. There have been many good suggestions, such as the creation of a "premium" zone player for those willing to pay for the ability to play hi-rez where and when needed. There has also been much conjecture on why Sonos continues to remain silent on this topic, even in light of the fact that virtually every competing product out there is now supporting hi-rez, and it is clearly gaining market momentum. Some posit that backward compatibility would be a major issue, bandwith issues with the network, etc..etc. although most other wireless solutions support hi-rez w/o issue. I would suggest the following. I like many in the sonos community have 6 zones throughout my home. I take advantage of virtually every product Sonos offers, including the use of a CR100, ipod & ipad units to control them. I have an extensive library with mostly apple lossless & other hi-rez formats. I would argue that many who want Hi-rez have setups similar to mine, in that they may have multiple zones...but there is usually only one or two "critical" listening zones. For me..that's the living room, where I have a high end 2 channel "audiophile" class system. The other zones, kitchen, den, patio, dining room...are in-wall speakers & or S5's and are primarily for "background" music. I believe for that purpose, CD quality (not mp3) is sufficient..even though I admit I do have external dacs in some of the larger zone areas. BUT..for the critical area, hi-rez is a must. To get around the lack of hi-rez in Sonos..I have a secondary server (Mac) with ammara..playing thru a Benchmark Dac to my 2 channel hi-end system. Unfortunately it means I must maintain and sync multiple copies of my music and put's Sonos out of the picture..when I want to sit in the living room and do some serious dedicated listening. Not optimal to be sure...but workable. I'd love to have everything integrated under Sonos (playing thru external Dac's true..) but it appears that Sonos just will not participate..for whatever reason. For those of you who really appreciate hi-rez, have a considerable library already, and the equipment to leverage it...then a "dedicated" zone....outside of sonos..seems the only way to go for now..and the foreseeable system. That's a shame, because as a long standing audio enthusiast, I can say there are very few (if any) products that have brought me as much pure pleasure (and fun) as the Sonos family has.

Very well put Mr. O'Malley. No point really beating the beast anymore Sonos either will or won't support HiRez at some point, although, and I know Sonos doesn't comment on future plans yada yada, but it would be nice for them to say one way or the other. Of course if they say nay, they loose potential customers, if they say yea, then eveyone says When!!! Tough call.

The issue will be when someone comes out with a product that has as good a user interface, and costs in the ballpark of Sonos. How much business will it cost Sonos. I for one would bag my Sonos products right quick if there was anything that was as slick and well thought out that did HiRez, but right now there isn't, but I'll bet my left *** that someone's working on it.

I found some reference to this subject in the "Zp 24/96" post from 2007/8, and thought it must be high time to re-activate this discussion.

I have a growing collection of 24-bit FLAC music files, and would like to know if Sonos will support music files of this quality in the near future? If they do choose to, will current hardware be upgradeable in the future? Or, would that be too expensive or technically difficult?

With 24-bit releases becoming increasingly common, and talk of even iTunes supporting HiRes files along with the current specialist download sites, it looks as if Sonos is lagging behind in this area. All the recent audiophile media streamers (such as those from Naim, Marantz, Rotel, etc) along with PC software such as Winamp and MediaMonkey will play 24-bit.

Consumers are increasingly concerned with quality once again, now that streaming has addressed our requirements for convenience. With suitable hardware, we can at last start listening to music in better-than-CD quality; after the failures of DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD and their ilk to grow a market. I hope Sonos will continue their innovation, and take a lead here.

Simon

scoughlan,

I merged your post with the 'Zp 24/96' thread. I urge you to read it through. This issue has been argued strongly - on both sides.

failures of DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD and their ilk to grow a market

If these failed to find a market, exactly why should Sonos pay attention to this niche of a niche in a streaming market where 128 kb AAC is the norm? As has been said, ALAC and FLAC users are a small minority, and hires is a minority of that minority, whether iTunes decides to sell it or not (which is an extremely dubious and unsubstantiated rumor at this time). Besides, if you look to the newest announcements by Amazon and others, music in the cloud is coming a lot faster than hires dominance. IMHO, Sonos would be better served to watch that market, rather than a niche of a niche. YMMV.

Take the time to listen to some hires music, or even an old fashion CD and you might just find the music sounds better - to simplify the argument. To incorporate 24-bit support would be relatively easy and should not significantly increase price. If (my affordable) Squeezebox from 8 years ago can play these files, I'm sure Sonos can manage it. If users are happy with their low-bit files, played through junky DACs and cheap headphones, it is usually because they have never had the opportunity to actually hear music as it should sound.

Always strikes me as a bit strange for an issue to become so contentious when a simple poll might actually show who does and who does not want it?

Leave it running for 6-8 months as a sticky and see what develops?

Always strikes me as a bit strange for an issue to become so contentious when a simple poll might actually show who does and who does not want it?
It's been running for over a year: http://forums.sonos.com/showthread.php?t=14984

http://forums.sonos.com/showthread.php?t=14984&highlight=HiRes

By the way, what "developed" is that dozens of sock puppets registered just to vote in favor of HiRez. Check the usernames in favor of HiRez under the voting details, many have 1 post (or less).