Zp 24/96

I am a bit worried of Sonos. If you look the market situation and the competitors policy in highres, Sonos is very alone with its "lowres" profile.

Are all the others wrong ?

It's very easy to incorporate hires into a system if you don't care about multiple zones, working with legacy components or synching (Squeezebox) or you are not wireless (Linn, etc.). If, like Sonos, your entire design is based on multi-room wireless audio that can be linked together in perfect sync, the ability to do hires and still keep true to your core design is much more difficult. So far, no one has proposed a solution that does this (and no, a standalone player which won't sync with others does NOT stay true to the Sonos design). The closest anyone has come to a solution is downrezzing on the non-Hirez boxes, and nobody outside of Sonos knows if this is even possible, given the CPU power available.

That said, aside from the "check mark on the box" factor, Hirez audio is a niche of a niche market. Sure there is a tiny but vocal minority screaming about it here, but it is small, very very small. Maybe Sonos feels leaving this market behind is not leaving much at all. I couldn't say I blame them. And speaking of the "competition;" as Sonos reaches 1,000,000 units and is doubling sales every year; Squeezebox is relegated to lower and lower importance on the Logitech ladder. Devices are being discontinued, support is in freefall, and software is buggier than ever before (which is saying a lot!). Take a look at their forums, the compaints aren't about what comes next, they are much more worried Logitech is abandoning the brand entirely.

Well I do not care so much for the multiroom system. I have only one room to listen to the music and I mean music not Muzak.

For a good sound and for serious music I use DACMAGIC from Cambridge Audio to support the Sonos system. I can hear the difference and I recommend it.:)

Well I do not care so much for the multiroom system. I have only one room to listen to the music and I mean music not Muzak.

For a good sound and for serious music I use DACMAGIC from Cambridge Audio to support the Sonos system. I can hear the difference and I recommend it.:)

So Sonos should abandon its core design functionality for you? Especially when there are dozens of standalone Hirez players on the market which will fit the bill just fine?

Well I do not care so much for the multiroom system. I have only one room to listen to the music and I mean music not Muzak.

For a good sound and for serious music I use DACMAGIC from Cambridge Audio to support the Sonos system. I can hear the difference and I recommend it.:)

While I think jgatie was a little harsh, as I believe that SONOS could make a concession to the core functionality with regards to hi-resolution audio (as an interim solution) - I can understand the desire to maintain full functionality in all cases.

With that said, a standalone player is probably what you're after. If you want a solid solution - a mac mini is a perfectly capable device, although not as elegant as other solutions. If price isn't an option, take a look at Olive's products ... they are pretty stout in the hardware department and don't require an external DAC. The downside is that you pay through the nose for that type of hardware. There are other options as well, but for now, having one room set up off-Sonos (or have two inputs - one for Sonos and one for the other) is the solution.

I hope Sonos solves the issue of trying to deliver high resolution audio to multiple zones one day. It is a big issue for me as there are recordings I would like to put on the system, but cannot.

For once (or maybe twice) I have to agree, if you are only doing one room and want to play Hi Rez there are numerous solutions. I have the PS Audio Perfect Wave Dac with Bridge that allows me to stream Hi Rez.. I also use the PWD as the Dac for my Sonos in that room. The beauty of Sonos is it absolutely seamless functionality.. no way will Sonos move off that nor should they.

For once (or maybe twice) I have to agree, if you are only doing one room and want to play Hi Rez there are numerous solutions. I have the PS Audio Perfect Wave Dac with Bridge that allows me to stream Hi Rez.. I also use the PWD as the Dac for my Sonos in that room. The beauty of Sonos is it absolutely seamless functionality.. no way will Sonos move off that nor should they.

I saw the PS Perfect Wave Dac with Bridge - but what's the interface like? Is it clunky or easy to browse a library?

The PS interface is not as good as Sonos, but almost nothing is. I'd suggest starting here http://www.psaudio.com/ps The bridge is still a bit of a work in progress, but PS is very customer centric. If you don't like the idea of tweaking and want a turnkey virtually idiot proof system then it might not be for you. As I said I use my Sonos system in concert with my PWD/Bridge..

+1 from me, I want it too.

I read through all the posts yesterday and posted my findings on AVforums. This is what I put...

I had a bit of a slow afternoon yesterday so decided to read all 291 post on the sonos forum posted over the last 4 years of customers asking about sonos playing hi-res.
http://forums.sonos.com/showthread.php?t=7951&page=1

It all starts of quite jovial, then gets serious, then desperate, and then people start to give up and go to the competitors - linn, naim, squeezebox et al.

No one from Sonos comes on and says anything in that period, it's against their policy to divulge anything about future development and releases so that explains why. But they really are tight lipped, not a single word said to all these desperate people.

The moderators on the site also defend the position a lot. As there are no official Sonos representatives on there, the moderators get it in the neck instead. The moderators say they want hi res too on many occasions and they are first and fore mostly Sonos users. But they go on to say that the difference on most systems is negligable, can you really hear it? only a handfull of people want it, most people have never heard of hi-res and listen to 128kbs mp3 etc and this is one thing on a wish list of hundreds.

I also learnt that it could still possibly be only a software upgrade rather than a hardware upgrade, but nothing is certain until they start testing. The chips, circuits etc can handle 24bit, they just need the software to handle the hd codecs. But there's also the network speed factor. I think the sonos mesh network can handle up to 300kbs and current cd quality songs streaming around your house are less than 1kbs. But then it supports 32 zones so that gets multiplied up, and i think 24/192 format is going to push that number, so they may still need a hardware upgrade for that reason.

Many have argued that they only want one room hi-res and the rest can play lower res formats, and I'm user most hi-res askers would fall into that camp. But Sonos seems to be the only streamer that built itself around the multiroom technology, and that is a cornerstone of their business, others that do this added it afterwards. It seems that they really want to keep the multiroom aspect, that everything it can play can be played everywhere and don't want to look for the happy medium. I think that is the real reason why they are the only serious music streamer that doesn't offer hi-res. It's not that tricky to support hi-res in a single streamer, but trying to make it multi room adds quite a few head aches.

Others have said only the digital out needs to support hi-res. If the user cares that much about hi-res audio, they'll be happy to supply their own dac, which is a valid point.

My honest findings from all this reading... I think Sonos have looked at hi-res many times and probably in a lot of depth, and they come back with the same findings, quite difficult to do in keeping with their current plans, not enough people want it, lets do something that increases our appeal in the mass market.

The best thing people can do if they really want it is post on their forum, write to them, write on here, put it in magazines, let their voices be heard. The more people, the more they'll listen. Lets see if there is enough of us to push it through.

Thanks for a thoughtful summary. A couple of corrections:

I think the sonos mesh network can handle up to 300kbs...
I'm not sure that there's anything official but from recollection the data rate is more like 30Mbps.

... and current cd quality songs streaming around your house are less than 1kbs.

You're actually out by a factor of ~1000. Uncompressed 16/44.1 stereo is 1.4Mbps plus overheads. FLAC would probably be around 800-850kbps.

Oh yeah, my maths isn't very good there. I'll correct it on AVforums. Thank you!