Zp 24/96

In my opinion the only way SONOS could make the business case of supporting higher bit rates and wider words, is if the hires proponents successfully position their wish as a "must have" pre sale "check box" in the marketplace. "Expert" equipment reviewers are contributing to the creation of this check box when they deride SONOS for "not supporting WiFi".

Currently, SONOS competitors are beating the "our system supports WiFi, SONOS is not WiFi" drum -- indicating that SONOS has a shortcoming, when this is actually a technology advantage for SONOS. The competition struggles with their WiFi connections while SonosNet is robust. It's an easy check box against SONOS because a large segment of the public equates "wireless" and "WiFi" -- in this view SONOS cannot be truly wireless without WiFi. Since SONOS has announced that it will support a WiFi link at some point, the air will disappear from this check box in a quick blast of flatulence.

It will not be as easy to deflate the hires check box.

I used Squeezebox for years, never had Wi-Fi issues (5-6 units at once), and I could play 24/96 flac files... SonosNet is needlessly complicated to set up and maintain (interference, connecting to bridge). Not supporting hi res formats exposes its lack of "robustness". If I hadn't spent over £1K on my Sonos set up I'd be long gone...and I will when I move back to the US. Sonos should cater a bit to the high end of the market since their gear is not cheap. Plus high res music is the new hotness...just look at all the portable high res players rising up...be scared Sonos because your service is not good and rapidly becoming antiquated...

I used Squeezebox for years, never had Wi-Fi issues (5-6 units at once), and I could play 24/96 flac files... SonosNet is needlessly complicated to set up and maintain (interference, connecting to bridge). Not supporting hi res formats exposes its lack of "robustness". If I hadn't spent over £1K on my Sonos set up I'd be long gone...and I will when I move back to the US. Sonos should cater a bit to the high end of the market since their gear is not cheap. Plus high res music is the new hotness...just look at all the portable high res players rising up...be scared Sonos because your service is not good and rapidly becoming antiquated...

Not very convincing when you use a discontinued product whose forums were rife with problems to deride a company which has become the 2nd largest speaker manufacturer in the world (that's 2nd largest speaker manufacturer, not just wireless speaker manufacturer). Also, the reviews, both professional and customer based, disagree with your assessment of ease of setup, reliability, and customer service.

As to your detailed market analysis which states "high res music is the new hotness" :rolleyes:, I've been hearing that type of rot for 10 years, and yet hi-res remains a niche (hi-res) of a niche (lossles) of a soon to be niche (non-service based, local libraries) market.

the 2nd largest speaker manufacturer in the world (that's 2nd largest speaker manufacturer, not just wireless speaker manufacturer).


That's an impressive statistic! You mind providing the source? I'd guess Bose might be #1, but really have no idea.

The DSP-corrected Play:1 really does outclass everything in its size range, as objective reviews have been showing.

I've also had Squeezeboxes for years - the Sonos system is better in every respect, with the minor exception that the SB radio has a clock display. 😉

That's an impressive statistic! You mind providing the source? I'd guess Bose might be #1, but really have no idea.

The DSP-corrected Play:1 really does outclass everything in its size range, as objective reviews have been showing.

I've also had Squeezeboxes for years - the Sonos system is better in every respect, with the minor exception that the SB radio has a clock display. ;)

From the CEO and founder himself:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/feb/18/sonos-soundbar-home-theatre-system

And now Sonos, which Cullen says in 2012 became the world's second biggest speaker manufacturer by revenue (after Bose, and ahead of Bowers & Wilkins), is moving in to get a piece.

http://sharespost.com/companies/sonos/

According to co-founder Tom Cullen, Sonos became the world’s second biggest speaker manufacturer by revenue last year (after Bose, and ahead of Bowers & Wilkins). According to the company, Hi-Fi is more than a $10 billion market worldwide. Sonos doesn’t announce how many users the company has; they instead refer to “rooms,” which roughly equate to speakers. The company announced they currently service 2.5 million rooms – a number that is two-and-a-half times the number of rooms they serviced by the end of 2011.

I doubt he would be saying it if it were not true.

Not very convincing when you use a discontinued product whose forums were rife with problems to deride a company which has become the 2nd largest speaker manufacturer in the world (that's 2nd largest speaker manufacturer, not just wireless speaker manufacturer). Also, the reviews, both professional and customer based, disagree with your assessment of ease of setup, reliability, and customer service.

As to your detailed market analysis which states "high res music is the new hotness" :rolleyes:, I've been hearing that type of rot for 10 years, and yet hi-res remains a niche (hi-res) of a niche (lossles) of a soon to be niche (non-service based, local libraries) market.

I'm not using a discontinued product... unfortunately Squeezebox went under before I moved to the UK so I'm now using a Sonos set up. I can only speak for my personal experience setting up Sonos with 5 units across 3 floors of my house...it took two months to sort out with a lot of good help from Sonos customer service...

You should research Sony NWZ-ZX1, Fiio X5, Astell & Kern AK100 and Ponos for some info on new high res portable players. Ponos raised over $4M on kickstarter for a product that is not well designed (I'm not a supporter). A lot of high res music services are cropping up...I'm buying a ton from HDtracks. I connect my Fiio X5 to my stereo through a digital coax to play 24/92+ music and it's great. Really great. Sonos should be doing this but I have to resort to getting off my couch and plugging in another device... I guess it's a shame so many companies are wasting their time and money developing high res portable music players? They can't have any market research...

There are people like me who spend A LOT of money on the highest end audio experience. Unfortunately Sonos is going to lose me and others unless it modernizes its service. Better digital encoding, compression and streaming technologies are here...better get cracking Sonos!

There are people like me who spend A LOT of money on the highest end audio experience. Unfortunately Sonos is going to lose me and others unless it modernizes its service. Better digital encoding, compression and streaming technologies are here...better get cracking Sonos!

Not only do many of us here disagree with you extremely strongly, but so does Sonos.

They have officially nixed the idea of supporting 24/96 (or higher) resolution music.

Hi-def (beyond CD Std) is a myth that the audiophool, Kool-ade drinkers have embraced despite all the contrary science.

Best you move on to your "high-end" play toys and stop beating that dead horse around here. You'll get little sympathy except from your "phooled" brethren.

Best of Luck

I can only speak for my personal experience setting up Sonos with 5 units across 3 floors of my house...it took two months to sort out with a lot of good help from Sonos customer service...



I can't refute your experience, but it is not typical. SONOS is still bound by the laws of physics and some situations are very difficult -- even for SonosNet. In the "wireless music" space, we have WiFi, SonosNet, Bluetooth, and EoP (Ethernet over Powerline), each trying to embarrass the others. Bluetooth range is much too short to be practical for whole house deployment. Typically, one of the others will save the day when the other two are embarrassed. In my experience SonosNet is the most robust of the crew. EoP is my last choice, but sometimes it will be the magic bullet.

There are lots of stories floating around about how someone struggled with one or more of the above with little success, then the magic bullet hit, creating a very vocal disciple.

In my opinion the only way SONOS could make the business case of supporting higher bit rates and wider words, is if the hires proponents successfully position their wish as a "must have" pre sale "check box" in the marketplace. "Expert" equipment reviewers are contributing to the creation of this check box when they deride SONOS for "not supporting WiFi".


It will not be as easy to deflate the hires check box.
Could Sonos not have this downsampling on the fly done inside a "new" Sonos player, with more CPU capability? It would still remain backward compatible with older units as far as Sonosnet and sync play is concerned.
With this, and the round the corner wifi capability these two loudly demanded check boxes will be ticked.

Not only do many of us here disagree with you extremely strongly, but so does Sonos.

They have officially nixed the idea of supporting 24/96 (or higher) resolution music.

Hi-def (beyond CD Std) is a myth that the audiophool, Kool-ade drinkers have embraced despite all the contrary science.

Best you move on to your "high-end" play toys and stop beating that dead horse around here. You'll get little sympathy except from your "phooled" brethren.

Best of Luck

How can it be a myth if its here now?

Its inevitable high res formats will be adopted more broadly just as it has in video. Video tape -> DVD -> Blu ray -> 4K ring any bells? and this progression is happening with video streaming now. Not sure why you would dispute this...its a great thing for music lovers.

I will enjoy my high end toys. Thanks. Enjoy the middle!

Its inevitable high res formats will be adopted more broadly just as it has in video.
Sorry, but that's a totally false analogy. It's a pitfall which repeatedly catches the unwary and is shamelessly used by snake oil audio salesmen, often in conjunction with the infamously incorrect stair-step 'jaggies' diagram supposedly illustrating the result of analog waveform reconstruction in a DAC.

Higher resolution video formats are discernible to the eye -- subject to the eye's resolution, i.e. it's a function of pixels-per-inch and viewing distance.

In the case of audio, 16/44 is able to capture the entire range of human hearing -- dynamic and frequency -- and to reproduce the original band-limited waveform with perfect accuracy. The science says so -- and BTW that article is by an expert in digital audio from the organisation which creates and maintains FLAC and other codecs. It's a myth to suggest otherwise.

Last but not least, the result of extensive controlled double-blind testing of high res audio against 16/44 by supposedly 'golden-eared' individuals was that no-one could tell the difference. The link is in the article referenced above.