Zp 24/96

Sonos has already indicated that the idea is not under consideration. For the short term, get used to it and down-convert (bit perfectly) your music to a format that Sonos can play. Longer-term, you can politic Sonos for a change...

I am used to it and do downconvert. I am very pleased with how things sound through the Sonos. I'm just curious.



And they would be wrong. Read the relevant information posted via links in this Thread. Science trumps the mythical "Golden Ear".

You're probably right, but I would like to know for sure. Science told us when CDs first came out that they were perfect. I listened for awhile and went back to vinyl until the CD production and CD players got their acts together. When the CDs got to the point where they sounded better in my system, I digitized my albums and went 100 percent digital. My point is that scientific orthodoxy sometimes changes over time. I wish I could be put into a blind test comparing 16/24 and 24/96 so I would know for sure if there is an audible difference.



Sure they should. Especially when the facts (not opinions) are decidedly against the "high-res" cohort.

Well, they're the guys who do this for a living (making great records), so I can't know for sure. If there is some infinitesimal improvement that one would have to strain to hear, it wouldn't be worth it. As I said before, you are probably right.



Good luck. Unfortunately, it will not be by using Sonos, at least anytime soon.

Agreed. I am sticking with Sonos because listening to music through it makes me happy.

Best of Luck

Same to you.

The reason is that many who record or master digital music claim that it sounds better, and their opinions should not be discounted.

You are confusing recording and mastering with playback. Digital recording and mastering is done by oversampling (96 kHz) and with a larger dynamic range (24bits) so that they can move all noise to the extra space (or "padding") present above the audible spectrum. This is very useful for mastering, because after applying digital filters, you simply downsample to 16/44.1 and the noise is gone. This use of oversampling means nothing when it comes to playing the files, except for the fact it has led to the audio myth that because recordings and mastering is done in 24/96, it should follow that playback should do the same. In fact, the opposite is true.

The argument for higher sample rates has nothing to do with trying to capture and play back higher frequency sounds. Anyone who discounts higher sampling rates because humans can't hear above 20kHz simply doesn't understand how these things work.
When you convert a signal from analogue to digital (sampling) you must first remove all content in the signal which is at half the sampling frequency or above. This is done with a low-pass filter. For CD, we want to preserve content up to 20kHz while removing 'everything' above 22kHz. This requires an extremely steep filter. Such filters are very hard to engineer, and typically will suffer from defects such as pre-ringing and poor handling of transients.
When we convert from digital to analogue (playback), artefacts are again produced which are related to the sampling frequency. Again, a very steep low-pass filter is required and again this cannot be a perfect filter. After CD was launched, many of us quickly realised that the promise of 'perfect sound forever' had not been realised. Two of the causes were: jitter (not relevant to this discussion) and the extremely steep low-pass filters required during recording and playback.
The best engineering solution was to increase the sample rate. If we sample at 96kHz, then the low-pass filters can be much less steep.
It was easy to migrate the recording studios to 96kHz, which solves the sampling problem. But the CD sample rate was by then too well established, so we still have the problem of trying to playback a signal with content up to 20kHz from a digital format whose sampling rate is only just high enough in a perfect world with perfect filters.

Let me put it another way - when the engineers were deciding on the sample rate for CD, the thinking went something like this:
Well we know we can't go below about 40kHz, because sampling theory tells us that would be flat out impossible. But the guys working on the lasers and the read mechs and the discs and the DAC chips are really struggling with bandwidth and capacity. They say we have to find the absolute lowest sampling rate that we can get to work. Lets do some tests and see how close to 40kHz we can get and still make this work. I know we'll be stuck with some issues but we have no choice.

Its no accident that audio formats which have launched since CD have supported higher sampling rates. If the argument for 96kHz was based on capturing and playing back sounds above 20kHz, as some on here have claimed, then I don't think many would be gullible enough to buy into it.

The argument for higher sample rates has nothing to do with trying to capture and play back higher frequency sounds. Anyone who discounts higher sampling rates because humans can't hear above 20kHz simply doesn't understand how these things work.

I will point out that noone has discounted hires just for this reason. What has happened is we have discounted that as a reason for hires being beneficial when addressing the very real and common misconception that, somehow, signals above 20kHz are audible.

These myths include:

* We don't understand much about human hearing and perception WRONG - We understand and can measure a massive amount about human hearing and perception and it's limits and thresholds

* There are people with "golden ears" who can hear these ultrasonic frequencies If they exist, they are vanishingly rare and have yet to be discovered and measured. This is in contrast with those in the audiophile community who claim to have this ability, who are 10 a penny.

* There is something about ultrasonic signals which can, somehow, influence audible signals This is true, but contrary to belief these signals are detrimental to audio, not beneficial

* CDs are a compromised format due to limitations in technology of the day WRONG - CD quality is fully capable of supporting the audible range of humans. There are some technical challenges in doing so, but these are all understood and addressable

* They use hires in recording studios because it sounds better WRONG - They use higher res in recording studios because it gives them more data space to work with. Most importantly it gives space to push noise and other artefacts which can be generated by some audio processing techniques

These myths exist and people believe in them, and it's one of the primary reasons buy hires.

When you convert a signal from analogue to digital (sampling) you must first remove all content in the signal which is at half the sampling frequency or above. This is done with a low-pass filter. For CD, we want to preserve content up to 20kHz while removing 'everything' above 22kHz. This requires an extremely steep filter. Such filters are very hard to engineer, and typically will suffer from defects such as pre-ringing and poor handling of transients.

As it is, digital filter technology is extremely good these days, and it's really not that hard to make a good digital filter.

Even if that was not the case, it could be largely solved with oversampling techniques.

Most modern ADCs and DACs internally oversample. This may have been a problem 20 years ago, but it isn't today.

http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html#toc_o

Its no accident that audio formats which have launched since CD have supported higher sampling rates.

No, but it's nothing to do with Engineering of audibility. It's to do with marketing.

The industry has successfully managed to market degraded lossy audio (MP3, etc.) at the same price as lossless files. Noone will buy lossless files at a premium. They need an excuse for increasing prices, and hires is it.

If the argument for 96kHz was based on capturing and playing back sounds above 20kHz, as some on here have claimed, then I don't think many would be gullible enough to buy into it.

I think you grossly overestimate most people.

Cheers,

Keith

The argument for higher sample rates has nothing to do with trying to capture and play back higher frequency sounds. Anyone who discounts higher sampling rates because humans can't hear above 20kHz simply doesn't understand how these things work.
When you convert a signal from analogue to digital (sampling) you must first remove all content in the signal which is at half the sampling frequency or above. This is done with a low-pass filter. For CD, we want to preserve content up to 20kHz while removing 'everything' above 22kHz. This requires an extremely steep filter. Such filters are very hard to engineer, and typically will suffer from defects such as pre-ringing and poor handling of transients.
When we convert from digital to analogue (playback), artefacts are again produced which are related to the sampling frequency. Again, a very steep low-pass filter is required and again this cannot be a perfect filter. After CD was launched, many of us quickly realised that the promise of 'perfect sound forever' had not been realised. Two of the causes were: jitter (not relevant to this discussion) and the extremely steep low-pass filters required during recording and playback.
The best engineering solution was to increase the sample rate. If we sample at 96kHz, then the low-pass filters can be much less steep.
It was easy to migrate the recording studios to 96kHz, which solves the sampling problem. But the CD sample rate was by then too well established, so we still have the problem of trying to playback a signal with content up to 20kHz from a digital format whose sampling rate is only just high enough in a perfect world with perfect filters.



Everything you say is completely true . . . for recording and mastering!! Unfortunately, it does not apply to playback. Matter of fact, ultrasonics present in high sample rates can cause intermodulation in the transducers and amplifiers used for playback, making 24/96 recordings sound worse instead of better.

The are many valid and proper reasons for using higher sampling rates and bit-depth when recording and mastering, which you have stated eloquently. This is why it has become industry standard to oversample for recording and mixing. The snakeoil comes in when you try to apply these valid and proper reasons to the playback of those recordings, where they simply do not apply (or even cause distortion which is not present in a comparable 16/44.1 file).

This point about recording/mastering vs. playback has been stated many times in the thread, and was also emphasized in the included links. You would do well to educate yourself by reading them.

Let me put it another way - when the engineers were deciding on the sample rate for CD, the thinking went something like this:
Well we know we can't go below about 40kHz, because sampling theory tells us that would be flat out impossible. But the guys working on the lasers and the read mechs and the discs and the DAC chips are really struggling with bandwidth and capacity. They say we have to find the absolute lowest sampling rate that we can get to work. Lets do some tests and see how close to 40kHz we can get and still make this work. I know we'll be stuck with some issues but we have no choice.

Actually, the sample rate was chosen by Sony because it could be recorded on modified video equipment running at either 25 frames per second (PAL) or 30 frame/s (using an NTSC monochrome video recorder) and cover the 20 kHz bandwidth thought necessary to match professional analog recording equipment of the time.

Its no accident that audio formats which have launched since CD have supported higher sampling rates. If the argument for 96kHz was based on capturing and playing back sounds above 20kHz, as some on here have claimed, then I don't think many would be gullible enough to buy into it

Given this is an industry which sells $10,000 speaker cables, $2000 Cocobolo wood component feet, and green magic markers, you greatly underestimate the gullibility of the average audiophile.

On the Back Page of the January 2013 issue of the absolute sound there is an interesting interview. While slightly off the 24/96 topic, it does raise a point about the intransigence of audiophiles.

I'm not much of a fan of this publication, but I think that they were very brave publishing this interview.

On the Back Page of the January 2013 issue of the absolute sound there is an interesting interview. While slightly off the 24/96 topic, it does raise a point about the intransigence of audiophiles.

I'm not much of a fan of this publication, but I think that they were very brave publishing this interview.

This 58 page thread dating back to 2007 is evidence enough of this?:D

PS: oops, I made it 59...

This 58 page thread dating back to 2007 is evidence enough of this?:D

PS: oops, I made it 59...

Change the 'Posts per Page' amount in your Settings.

I only see 15 pages @ 40 Posts/Page.

Lookie...Lookie - The intransigence just got smaller!! 😃 :p

Best of Luck

I'm considering getting a SONOS but I realized that it doesn't support 24 bit 192khz files. Then I see that there is a thread that has been going on for years actually debating whether they should add it or not. I'm shocked that they haven't. Honest question, is there a DAC chipset made that doesn't support 24 bit 192 kHz? I would think this is more about Sonos being up to date with the current technology more than anything else. Processing power is cheap these days, there isn't any reason a $350 device couldn't handle those bitrates.

I was attracted to the sonos system because of the design and apparent ease of setup. I wonder why Sonos can't make something Logitech was selling for less 3 years ago. Think I'll sit out for the time being until they catch up with old technology.

But is Logitech still selling it today? I think that is a more telling question.