Zp 24/96

Jgatie,

I believe that when synced, the server sets the bitrate at the highest common rate all synced players can cope with. So for a mix of players that can't all cope with 24/96 then 16/44.1 is chosen and HiRes files downsampled. If all players can cope with 24/96, then the sync is at 24/96. This seems a reasonable compromise.

You may be right about gapless, I don't have any 24/96 gapless material to test it with.

I dont follow your 30mS comment. Squeeze has no analogue input like Sonos, so a 'delay' in the stream is irrelevant. If you mean a timing difference between players of 30mS, then this would be very noticable, and I have not experienced this.

Yes, the maximum timing difference, or "delay" between zones, is 30ms, up to 10 times that of Sonos. And it's not that the ALAC or 24/96 is downsampled, they also drop bits because Squeeze uses multiple streams which must be constantly resynced, rather than the single stream design of Sonos. The only way to resync 2 streams which drift out of sync is to speed one up, slow one down, or drop bits. Any way you do it (Squeeze chooses to drop bits), music quality is compromised. Sonos doesn't suffer from this compromise because linked zones all play a single stream, rather than multiple streams of the same track.

And this is all without mentioning that running the server on an NAS without a high powered CPU leaves 24/96 and ALAC users out in the cold.

Jgatie,

It is my understanding that Squeeze currently use a single stream for synced players, that is why the stream needs to run at a speed that all players can cope with. It is possible that earlier sync approaches used separate streams, I am afraid I don't know.

I am not aware that Squeeze is not 'bit perfect' in synced mode. Do you have a link for me to learn more about this?

Squeeze uses SOX on the server to downsample HiRes files for its less able players. This does have a processing overhead, but SOX is highly regarded audio software. I guess having a decent CPU is the price for wanting to have HiRes files available to non HiRes players.

Looking at the Squeeze Wiki, it seems streaming has changed from multiple to single streams in recent updates. I must apologize for not following the seemingly nightly releases. ;)

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/Synchronization

However, streaming is still incomplete with MySqueezebox.com, and my NAS comments still stand, so I wouldn't call it perfect. It does seem they have come a long way, but there are still compromises in syncing, along with horribly buggy software and lack of support; three things which would be unacceptable at Sonos.

Jgatie,

I wouldn't argue the reliability point as I have had issues with the software myself, and I agree that Sonos support is excellent.

I am still not sure I agree with your syncing point however, I think thats a bit of a red herring. With a local server, I find syncing to be fine. Whilst typing this I am listening to 'Raising Sand' in 24/96 on a Transporter while my wife is listening to Michael Buble on two synced Booms (with no perceptible delay). I had all of my seven players synced for a party two weeks ago with no problems.

I have no axe to grind with Sonos, and I have recommended Sonos to friends of mine rather than Squeeze because of reliability issues. On the basis of my experience, I wouldn't however justify the choice on the basis of syncing ability.

I was speaking of the compromises when using MySqueezebox.com or a lower powered NAS. For full syncing ability, Squeeze still requires a computer CPU and a complicated, buggy server, two things Sonos does not require.

Hi All,

It seems this subject has been coming up for years now. I have a few pretty high end systems in my house and love SONOS for getting music around. I often get ads for songs on some of the hi-res music sites and lately, I can't even purchase them because the only format they come in is not supported by SONOS. I would be in heaven if SONOS would do just two things:

1) Support the hi-res formats with the zp80/90.

2) Open the interface up so other home control systems could talk directly to SONOS. I could understand somewhat when the only controller came from SONOS. It was brilliant to allow iPads, iPods, etc. to be controllers. I don't see the big deal in making the upnp stream readable by device s that support it. That would just make the system more ubiquitous.

Craig

2) Open the interface up so other home control systems could talk directly to SONOS. I could understand somewhat when the only controller came from SONOS. It was brilliant to allow iPads, iPods, etc. to be controllers. I don't see the big deal in making the upnp stream readable by device s that support it. That would just make the system more ubiquitous.


The latter is already possible. Many generic UPnP controllers can control Sonos, and there are libraries for development and plugins for tools like Homeseer.

Cheers,

Keith

Old but interesting article about high quality audio in 44.1/16:http://www.dagogo.com/view-article.asp?harticle=39

Interesting. Thanks for this post.

It's clear to anyone with the slightest clue about audio that adult humans cannot hear audio above 20kHz, and thus any benefits of faster sample rates in hires are nothing to do with there being "additional audible information" in the higher frequencies: that is absurd and well known to be factually incorrect. Despite that the number of people I see who think that, because the file contains more data, that it must contain more audio. That is not the case: the majority of the additional information is noise.

However, it is clear that there are likely to be indirect benefits from higher sampling rates. This has mostly always been known during the production stage (although some attribute the higher sampling rates used during production processes as something which translates directly to listening, which it does not; another common incorrect assumption in audiophile circles).

With careful mastering Redbook audio can be made much better than the commonly produced CDs of today, and this article shows this. Hires formats are a tool to achieve better quality, but a very blunt one, especially when in most cases we're not getting the best out of the current format.

I also suggest people interested in this subject should check out Bob Katz's book "Mastering Audio". This guy really is the authority on audio production. The book is from the point of view of audio production, which is not the same as audio distribution, but it does discuss the reasons for using hires within the production process and how careful production techniques can be used to produce high quality results for Redbook standard distribution (and, conversely, how sloppy techniques produce poor results that are often attributed to the format itself when they are really the fault of the master Engineer).

Cheers,

Keith

Wow. It's pretty outrageous to delete as "pointless and grossly inaccurate personal criticism" a posting containing the following text:

Majik, your opinions may be your own but you having the position in this forum that you have does call for slightly more civil tone as everything you say will fall back on Sonos whether you or they mean or want it to.

Calling for a more civil tone hardly qualifies as "grossly inaccurate personal criticism", does it?

By the way, is there any way to ignore a mod? When I try to add you to my (currently empty) ignore list, I'm told:

Sorry Majik is a moderator/admin and you are not allowed to ignore him or her.

That hardly seems fair.