Zp 24/96

But I don't feel that gives me the right to criticise or ridicule someone whose perceptions tell them otherwise.
This forum is for the discussion of possible future Sonos developments.

The criticism wasn't about an individual's perceptions -- which they're perfectly entitled to -- it was in response to the "just support the damn files already" imperative.

My comments (deliberately) weren't aimed at any one person or post. This is a very long thread but you don't have to go very far back to see that many comments within it do indeed question and criticise other people's perceptions and beliefs.

Which is quite healthy unless and until it becomes personal or bad tempered.

My comments (deliberately) weren't aimed at any one person or post. This is a very long thread but you don't have to go very far back to see that many comments within it do indeed question and criticise other people's perceptions and beliefs.

Which is quite healthy unless and until it becomes personal or bad tempered.
Absolutely, and of course ad hominem attacks are not permitted.

However posts which point out the effect of bias and placebo; which highlight the science and controlled tests; which observe that hires content often sounds better simply due to more careful mastering; and which note that the HiFi industry is always keen to up-sell to the 'latest and greatest' are all valid arguments.

Unfortunately it seems that for true believers in hires it's a tenet of faith which no amount of evidence can dislodge. That's fine and they're entitled to their beliefs. In the opinion of many, however, hires is a distraction and Sonos have wisely ruled it out for now.

How is that any different to what I said...

Arrrrggghh. I quoted the wrong post. I meant to hit the Ferrari one.

Who cares about "can you hear a difference" or "what is better or not" and let's just look at the simple fact that a lot of people have a lot of 24/96 (or higher res) files that we want to play over our Sonos. So, just support the damn files already.

+1 on this from me. I've got a bunch of (completely legal) concerts that encoded using 24 bit. I can play them on foobar, but not Sonos.

Seems silly to me (but then, I haven't read all 67 pages of this thread to see if there's a real technical limitation).

Would really like to avoid having to downsample a whole bunch of flac files.

+1 on this from me. I've got a bunch of (completely legal) concerts that encoded using 24 bit. I can play them on foobar, but not Sonos.

Seems silly to me (but then, I haven't read all 67 pages of this thread to see if there's a real technical limitation).

Would really like to avoid having to downsample a whole bunch of flac files.

There's a real technical limitation. More than one:

1) Bandwidth will be at the very least tripled over playing 16/44.1 FLAC files, never mind MP3.

2) Sonos is first and foremost a multi-room system, therefore the inability to sync the files with players which are not 24/96 capable is a problem.

In addition, the market for 24/96 is a niche of a niche, which according to all scientific theory and studies gives no benefit to the actual music quality heard, and may even introduce intermodulation distortion not present in 16/44.1 downsampled version. See: http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Because of these factors (it is assumed), Sonos' official suggestion/support site currently lists the support of hires files as "Not Planned": Support high resolution files @ask.sonos

Hello
As a long time Sonos user, I swing by this thread every once in a while. I have posted several times advocating that Sonos should support HiRes files.
It became apparent that wasn't about to happen, so a while ago I invested in a dedicated media renderer in my main system, which allows me to listen to HiRes files. I still use Sonos for the rest of the house - in fact I recently added a Play 5 to my son's room.
In case anyone is interested, I'll share my experiences with HiRes. I don't do blind testing, but I do level match and use AB switching. When I began these experiments my entire music collection consisted of lossless rips of my CDs. My expectation was that I would prefer HiRes files to these lossless files. These are my conclusions:
1. There was no consistent preference for HiRes over lossless (ALAC)
2. There was no consistent preference for lossless over AAC
3. There was no consistent preference for HiRes over AAC

I found that in my case, what mattered far more than the format was the mastering quality of the file. I cannot emphasise this enough. For me it has been a bit of a revelation. I now spend more time trying to establish the 'provenance' of specific releases and then buy the one which I think stands most chance of being well mastered. This does lead to me having bought several versions of tracks, but for sanity's sake I delete the non-preferred versions from the library once I've made a judgement.

This leads me onto another topic (hopefully I will be forgiven for going off-topic, but I think it is relevant). I'm sure most of you know all about the 'loudness wars'. I was aware of it but hadn't really thought through the consequences. Over the last few decades, mastering engineers have progressively applied more and more compression, increasing the apparent loudness of music. Each successive 're-master' almost invariably means a more compressed version. This means that it is very hard to find a version/release of an album that uses even a fraction of the dynamic range offered by 16-bits. To say that we need 24-bits is a sad joke I'm afraid. A well-mastered 16-bit version will have more dynamic range than a more compressed 24-bit version.

Sorry for going on, I'll sum up my findings:
1. If you want to experiment with HiRes audio, build yourself a dedicated renderer and allow it to co-exist with your Sonos system.
2. Don't get hung up on the format (sample-rate or bit-depth). Mastering quality is far more audible.
3. Dynamic range is one clue (not a guarantee) that a particular release has been sympathetically mastered.

Lastly, a request: Does anybody know of a website or database which rates different masterings? There's lots of information on the Steve Hoffman site, but it's hard to sort the wheat from the chaff.

These are my conclusions:
1. There was no consistent preference for HiRes over lossless (ALAC)
2. There was no consistent preference for lossless over AAC
3. There was no consistent preference for HiRes over AAC

I found that in my case, what mattered far more than the format was the mastering quality of the file.

Sorry for going on, I'll sum up my findings:
1. If you want to experience HiRes audio, build yourself a dedicated renderer and allow it to co-exist with your Sonos system.


Most music lovers will agree with your conclusions in 1,2 and 3 above.

My question is to the last sentence, given that any hi res files one may have would still be of interest for two reasons:
1. Because one has them
2. Because they are from a better master.

Why not just downsample them to a Sonos supported format and do away with the need for a separate co existence?

I didn't phrase it very well, I've edited that sentence

1. If you want to [experience] experiment with HiRes audio, build yourself a dedicated renderer and allow it to co-exist with your Sonos system.

I don't expect people to change their mind about HiRes formats just because of my opinion. But if they feel so strongly about it they can get on and do their own experiments. (OTOH, it cost me quite a lot of time and money to find this out for myself, so if anyone does take my word for it they can save that expense LOL)

Does anybody know of a website or database which rates different masterings?

Sadly, no. Like you I sometimes find myself having to try several before I find the best. It would be great to have more info available to reduce the hassle (and cost).