Sonos Connect optical out max resolution

Internally the players have had 24bit data paths since inception in 2005, however, there was not enough internal processing power or network bandwidth to deal with 24bit high sample rate content. While there are advantages when using 32 bit high sample rate during post processing in the studio, there is a complete shortage of peer reviewed studies proving that anything beyond 44.1/16 is necessary for distribution. By the way some studio people feel that 192/24 is a lame, outdated, low sample rate format.

Rather than chasing word length and bit rate, you are better off chasing quality mastering and absence of compression. I’ve had UK, Japanese, and US LP pressings, CD’s, and Mobile Fidelity CD and LP of the same master tape to compare. They sounded so different that it was hard for me to satisfy myself that they all originated from the same studio master tape. The US LP’s and CD’s were clearly the worst. Carefully comparing the Mobile Fidelity CD and LP, when using a very high quality CD player and turntable ($200 units need not apply), the CD and LP were almost indistinguishable until the LP issued a ‘tic”. After enough listening it became clear that the CD had a lower noise floor, distortion, and a wider dynamic range. Casual audiophiles typically walked out mad after they misidentified CD or LP a few times, claiming that I somehow tricked them or that my equipment was not good enough.

Do you have a cite for the bold above?  Preferably from an accredited scientific journal?  

I am shocked at the horrible mixing and mastering out there. Some songs of the 80's, 90's and early 2000's are terribly bright. Unbearably so (reason - mass music consumption on poor quality portable music players needed boosted treble content to sound OK).

But further to the point of sample rate: A good bit-stream DAC can reconstruct the sampled points with very low error, but what about in between sampled points? Those in between points are approximated by some interpolation based upon assumptions. Nyquist-Shannon theory may state you need to sample only twice the highest interesting frequency (40kHz for 20kHz) - which holds true for a pure sine wave -  but in practice you need to oversample most real-world signals at least four times for reasonable reconstruction. So, 96 kHz sample rate means that you guess about half as many times as with 44.1kHz. Remember, what you have not measured (sampled), you do not know for a fact. You can only approximate it from what you do know (do have sampled). So, higher sample rates do bring more accurate reconstruction. But again, diminishing returns at rates increase.

Yet another benefit of higher sample rate is that it eases the stress on filter design. The higher the sample frequency, the slower the digital filter can be without risking aliasing folding into the audible spectrum (up to 20kHz). As you likely know, a slower filter (more gradual cut-off) has a more benign behaviour in that it has less pre and post ringing artefacts than a faster filter (faster cut-off). Reproduction tends to sound more like old analogue on LP and less bright, yet detailed - this one is subjective.

I agree with Buzz: Good recordings, good mixing and good mastering at 24bit/48kHz, released as 16bit/44.1kHz should sound quite brilliant on a good sound system. I have some such recordings and a medium grade sound system (Sonos Connect, QED Performance Graphite TOSlink, DagMagic 200M, Cambridge Audio CXA60 amp, Van den Hul Clear Water speaker cables, B&W DM1600 speakers (ages old). For CDs, I use an old Rotel RCD965BX CD player with digital out to DagMagic 200M (QED Performance digital coaxial interlink).

At an AES convention Tomlinson Holman presented a paper describing his preamp design criteria. He is a limited bandwidth believer. After the presentation he was challenged by a person who claimed to have observed 400KHz on a spectrum analyzer connected to his turntable -- therefore the 20KHz limit on the Holman preamp was limiting the music. Behind me there was a phono cartridge designer and a disk cutting head designer mumbling that “we cannot play these frequencies” and “we cannot cut those frequencies”, implying that the 400KHz was a spurious response possibly the result of a cartridge resonance. Tomlinson’s argument was that limited bandwidth results in less intermodulation and much cleaner output. Mixing 32KHz and 31KHz signals can result in a 1KHz, audible intermodulation product plus harmonics. In other words mixing of inaudible ultrasonic signals can result in a blizzard of audible trash.

The wide and narrow bandwidth camps will forever be at odds with each other.

A narrow bandwidth person has no need for sample rates beyond 44.1, nor do the ears of adults.

In the studio there is plenty of room for mathematical mischief during digital processing. High sample rates and wide words minimize the risks. 

https://www.britannica.com/science/principle-of-superposition-wave-motion

My request for a cite is for the part after "in other words".  Can you cite a study which proves superposition actually "colours the sound and detail that we perceive"?   Better yet, one which finds that it  improves what we perceive.  Because I know of several where hypersonics actually added intermodulation distortion in the playback stream, which is never beneficial to the sound.

Cite for the  bolded?

Not just should sound so, but also actually do. And in my assessment of what is a good sound system, after having used many others in the days of my audiophile pursuits now abandoned, I find that Sonos can be as good a sound system as those I have used, for the sound quality it can deliver.

Why then tie oneself into knots by succumbing to all the digital snake oil being hawked by marketers today?

To the quoted words I will only add: placed appropriately in a decent domestic acoustic environment.

Even Spotify streams are, with some rare exceptions, just as good to listen to as their CD equivalents, except perhaps where high quality headphones are being used for listening.

Other than Sonos Connect, all familiar names from a past life; what is medium grade about these bits of kit?!

And Sonos Connect belongs in this set for sound quality it delivers. Presumably, the Rotel CDP has analog line out as well, so the DAC magic interposed between that and the amp is another familiar audiophile fancy! I once had another magic box called a valve based output stage buffer which essentially was a impedance matcher, that had another separate box that was optional - a “better” power supply for the magic box…Boxes and more boxes😁

Kumar, I have seen ridiculously expensive kit displayed in hifi shops around Cape Town. My stuff are decidedly medium grade compared to those things.

Concerning the Rotel 965, I have run that one for years with analogue out. Great CDP. But the DagMagic has brought improved detail, texture, stage acoustics, and better composure when the music gets complicated and loud (when the 965’s built-in DAC would get a bit rough). It was most apparent when I briefly switched back to the Rotel analogue out after running with the DagMagic for a bit. The drop in treble clarity & detail was quite audible.

So, now the Rotel serves as a CD transport. More boxes, as you say.