Sonos never said they were going to abandon older devices, but leaving that aside…

From launch Sonos has been capable of playing lossless, CD quality, 16-bit FLAC and ALAC files.

Thank you John. So in theory if I sign up to Qobuz, link it to my original sonos system by managing the service settings in the normal way for adding a service, then play tracks through the sonos it should do the job in FLAC etc.

Please forgive me for labouring the point (and probably appearing thick), but somehow I was convinced from something I read somewhere that it was limited to 320mbps.

No there is no such limitation to 320kbps (if it could do 320mbps that would be impressive!) and never has been.  Sonos cannot play so-called ‘hires’ 24-bit files from streaming services.  You would have to check what Qobuz actually offers.  But there are lots of services now offering CD quality options, including Deezer, Amazon Music and Tidal.

John,

That is really helpful, thank you :)

I for one cannot hear any difference between CD quality and Spotify 320 kbps, even when played through my “HiFi” set up.

Not only do you not need to change hardware, but I suggest taking the claims for better sound from the likes of Qobuz with a pinch of salt.

What instead is sorely needed is for all songs from a particular streaming service to play at the same sound level if the volume control has not been touched. As far as I know, no one offers this, and sound level fluctuations from one track to the next are more detrimental to the listening experience than claimed/alleged SQ improvements via ever more bits and bytes in the streams which also often lead to interruption when the WiFi environment fails to cope with the increase in bits and bytes. Especially in the case of stable grouped play of multiple speakers, which is the only remaining USP of Sonos.

Spotify has this - just not from the Sonos app. If you use the Spotify app you get volume normalization

But since this does not work on Sonos even via the native app, I have no idea as to how well it works! Let alone not being able to get the benefit for my listening.

As to Spotify - has anyone felt the benefit in any other system? As far as I can tell it will only be available via the phone speakers or via headphones plugged into the phone, but is there a clear improvement on this aspect then? 

It should also be there with a phone connected to the Line in jacks on Sonos - I need to run this test sometime.

@Kumar Do your speakers not show up in the Spotify app? I do believe volume normalization works when you stream to Sonos via the Spotify app.

In my system "Zolder” and “Huiskamer” are Sonos speakers/systems I can stream to.

No, it does not work, that is for sure. I use the Spotify app, and connect to a target Sonos speaker via that app.

I have had to resort to deleting songs that are otherwise excellent from my party playlists, simply because this feature is missing and the song is usually too low in sound levels and very rarely, too high.

From what I understand, the feature only works on the device that is hosting the app - and therefore logically, it should work on Sonos if the hosting device is wired to Sonos Line In. One of these days, I need to test this...

Are you not able to AirPlay from the Spotify native app?

I don’t have AirPlay capable Sonos kit, I have chosen to remain on S1.

There are several AirPlay-supporting Sonos players which can run S1, but evidently none are in your current arsenal. You could play with Bluetoothing to one of your Echo devices instead.

Very good idea for a lazy test - and the first impression based on a few tracks is that normalisation as implemented by Spotify works!

Of course I then lose the album art on the Echo Spot, so I need to see how to get an old phone, and use it wired to a line in, setting up the phone to display album art. A project, but worth the effort.

I really should have thought of this sooner...