S2 Hi-Res false promise? | Sonos Community

So it’s been months since S2. Before the update, S1 was already able to play back flac 24/48. The promise was of more HiRes audio to come. I sold my gen1 connect in anticipation, bought a Port. And waited. I can still play the only same files as before, I’m a couple hundred pounds down, and feeling a little duped to be honest. Just curious whether there are others feeling the same....

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Lots to consider. What do you use as a source into the Connect? Obviously any streaming service can do that, but assuming you have a million CD’s ripped over time and sitting in a file directory somewhere, do you have a dedicated laptop, NAS, the Echo accessing a HDD somewhere else in the house, or are you using the S1 library tool for that? I don’t suppose it matters really though if you can get a good enough signal from wifi. I have a couple of Synology NAS drives gathering dust, but I don’t like them because they’re too busy and noisy. Also, my very early experience with NAS as a Sonos source was discouraging, though both Synology and Sonos may have matured to a point where it’s worth another shot. That was 2009, so things have probably gotten better.

Do you find the sound quality and power from the Connect is good enough for your legacy speakers, or do you have a higher end integrated amp dedicated to that? In this setup, it would seem that the only purpose of the Connect is to link to the Sonos environment—both in and out—so what would the point of the line in jacks be anyhow? Wouldn’t you just use the Connect as a source into an IA, and then get the benefits of the IA for a clean signal to the speakers?

And what about the library function? Apple’s abandonment of iTunes, while neither surprising nor wrong—and frankly overdue given the “bloatware” problem— to me was a fail given what they replaced it with. I’ve been playing with J River Media Center, but that’s also bloated, and not (in my experience to date) very LAN friendly. But that’s a recent experiment and the jury is both out and under informed so far. VOX wants money, for no real product benefit that I can see, which is another reason I am considering Roon.

I think I have answered most of your questions in preceding posts.

I have no idea of what JRiver/VOX/Roon do or will do for me when I have no perceived holes in my user experience so I can’t comment on these solutions.

Fair enough. Thank you.

Also, my very early experience with NAS as a Sonos source was discouraging, though both Synology and Sonos may have matured to a point where it’s worth another shot. That was 2009, so things have probably gotten better.

I’ve been using a cheap LG NAS running 24x7 since 2011, with no problems other than the Sonos track/store limits. I run a Synology NAS for the rest of my data.

Do you find the sound quality and power from the Connect is good enough for your legacy speakers, or do you have a higher end integrated amp dedicated to that?

The Connect is is simply a rather expensive link into the Sonos system, with no amplification - for that you need a Connect:AMP, or whatever it’s called today. The line in jacks are so that you can add an AV device (e.g. CD Player, Chromecast Audio etc), which can then be played on any other Sonos device - it’s really neat. So I can play my CD player in the living room to just a Sonos speaker in a bedroom, should I so wish - with the living room playing a completely different stream.

I don’t use any of the library functions for general use, as they don’t work for me, so I always use my own folder structure.

Regarding Sonos HD Radio - we just canceled our subscription. Even with all components upgraded to Gen2 and S2 compatible units, support team says it’s likely our set-up won’t handle Sonos HD Radio inter-transmission and they admit it’s not our system, house, or anything external it’s Sonos limitations period! Might work for you - jolly good! Bet many will find it does NOT work in its current state.

Can you further explain the problem you had with Sonos radio?

According to the top-tier support rep I was working with; Because of the Sonosnet congestion/standing tree issues and the number of Sonos components we have (16-18) Sonos HD Radio will probably continue to drop out on wireless units, lag, start songs later than wired units, and present quality listening issues until Sonos is able to resolve them. They determined that it is NOT my set-up/Wi-Fi/Equipment/ISP speeds. It’s most likely the limitations of a mix of S2 ready Gen2 components with fully S2-built units and HD bandwidth requirements.

In other worlds, NOT READY FOR PRIME TIME YET. Amazon HD can cause such Sonosnet constipation as well but not as consistently as Amazon throttles back it’s HD broadcasts throughout the day depending on their AWS needs.

It’s most likely the limitations of a mix of S2 ready Gen2 components with fully S2-built units and HD bandwidth requirements.

I don't see how any other make that claims to offer HD audio would be immune to this problem, and I also suspect this is less an S2 issue and more one of bandwidth. Plus, what you are finding is not even HD as is usually known - Amazon HD is just Amazon sticking the HD label on CD spec streams. So if these present a problem, how will the higher than CD spec streams work? Based on present state of the art, only by using wired ethernet connections between units.

IMO, this all amounts to trying to sell solutions to a non existent problem, when even 320k lossy streams sound just as good, and do not face these issues.

If Sonos could downsample Hi res files to 24/48 and play them it would be a start.

Fact is this is already possible, even with first generation Sonos Zone Players, just not using Sonos’ antiquated system.

Instead of making my “old” Sonos players “redundant” (as they tried to make us) or instead of giving Sonos yet more money on “newer” versions of Sonos products that still have the exact same, decades out of date, networking technology, I bought myself a Roon subscription (running it off a Mac Mini) and, hey presto, I get hi-res music streamed (transcoded where required) to ALL my Sonos players, and to my Macs, iPhones/iPads, or indeed any compatible hi-end (or low end) devices too. It seamlessly streams hi-res Qobuz or Tidal tracks too.

What’s more, the interface is about 10 Billion times better and makes playing all your music (both streamed and local sources in one “library”) a real joy again, and finding related and new tracks and artists. Sonos meanwhile never even had a “recently added” or played list when I last used it! All this cost less for a lifetime subscription than to buy Sonos’ latest new machine. Will never look back. Only commented after getting an email about Qobuz partnering with Sonos to start doing basically CD quality ‘hi-res’ (not the proper hi-res you can get on Roon, Tidal or Qobuz

Only commented after getting an email about Qobuz partnering with Sonos to start doing basically CD quality ‘hi-res’ (not the proper hi-res you can get on Roon, Tidal or Qobuz

Leaving aside the question of any objectively established hearable benefit of more than CD quality files from the same master, it is interesting to see how CD quality has now suddenly become Hi Res. Amazon started this, and others seem to have jumped on it. I wonder why?

Mmmm, yes I wholeheartedly agree that trying to sell us back CD quality (which many of us gave up for the flexibility of streaming) as “Hi-res” is just marketing b@ll@cks! But they’re all very good at that I guess

I also have a Chord Mojo and Poly combination (for both headphone listening and feeding active speakers) in addition to many Sonos players so I can attest to not being as impressed as I’d hoped to be by listening to even proper Hi-res audio compared to CD quality. I found I got a bigger improvement from just the better DAC in my Chord Mojo to the Sonos players (listening to just CD quality files). Context is everything though so, unless you’re going to listen in a quiet, sound treated environment or headphones, you’re not going to care too much about the streaming quality if you’ve got conversation going on or are listening in your car.

The listening experience has been most improved by using the Roon interface instead of Sonos for me. It’s made choosing music and finding new artists a real joy again. Love it!

I like to buy CD's and then transfer to my NAS as FLAC files, sounds like I'm living the "Hi Res" dream already.

Is Roon a substitute for the Sonos App?.

Hi res isn't a dream, it is a mirage made by clever marketing.

Further, even on lossless rips: I was a big fan till I discovered Spotify/Apple Music and found no difference on listening to the same albums I had ripped. So now I am quite happy to use just Spotify and have found that life is simpler with a much larger window to the world of music.

I never use headphones, and Hi Res can perhaps be picked out when recorded as such using headphones for listening. But the ambient sound levels in a typical urban domestic listening environment are so high that these differences can't be heard above the noise floor using even high end kit.

Sifting through all this hand wringing, my takeaway is that Sonos promised nothing with the release of Sonos S2, and has, so far, fully delivered on all of its promises. Great. Now that we can all accept that it’s not Sonos’s fault for failing to live up to consumers’ expectations, apparently and irresponsibly extrapolated from Sonos’s vague press releases, maybe the conversation can move to more productive subjects.

What Sonos DID expressly say, in its May 6, 2020 press release, was “et]his new generation app features support for higher resolution audio technologies...” Of course, this is not true at the moment: S2 “features support” for Dolby Atmos, which is singular, not plural, and (I believe) is only available on the Arc device at the moment. So the statement itself is deceptive and incomplete out of the chute.

But that aside, with Sonos on record with that vague teaser, it’s completely reasonable for consumers—both those who have historically been faithful investors in the Sonos ecosystem, as well as those curious to see what all the Sonos fuss is about—to expect some sort of expansion on the plans. Does Sonos have an obligation to do that? Not at all. So that observation can be tossed aside as the irrelevant, school-marmish finger wagging that it is. But should Sonos flesh this out? Of course it should.

I fall into both categories of Sonos consumer. I’ve been in the Sonos ecosystem for 14 years, and have now had three legacy products made obsolete by Sonos S2. Okay. It’s tech. I expect a certain amount of that. But will I replace them with yet more Sonos, or is this a good time to part ways, jump ship, maybe over to the Roon system, as Roon shows greater flexibility for other manufacturers’ hardware, as well as true hi res capability across the board?

But I just moved into a new home, and have a very specific need for new hardware right now. It would be nice to know what Sonos plans, and I think my 14 years of customer loyalty and thousands of dollars of support for the company—especially in its nascent days—deserves more complete information than a vague reference to undefined “higher resolution audio technologies” at some time in the undefined future. It’s quite clearly not “future proofed” technology, so at the moment I’m leaning toward new investment in a more flexible and scalable platform. Roon’s looking pretty appealing.

Roon is also Sonos-compatible, though it downsamples hi res audio to squeeze through the Sonos hardware limitations. So a gradual phase out of Sonos is a likely game plan. I can get new, non-Sonos hardware, switch over to the Roon Core software platform, and continue to use existing Sonos products until I replace them over time.

And THAT is a strategy from its loyal customer base that should have Sonos product planners quaking as it basically ensures the eventual total obsolescence of Sonos hardware. But if Sonos came out right now and said that it plans AT A MINIMUM 24/96 within 12-18 months? I’d likely stick around and keep buying Sonos.

It’s not a requirement that Sonos answer these questions. But doing so would be, without even a hint of doubt, the smart thing to do. Because I’m not going to wait while they slowly unpeel that strategy over the next few years, and I doubt I’m alone. I’m also not going to continue buying Sonos hardware just because some audio magazine like HiFi “would be amazed” if support for other formats didn’t materialize. Just because Sonos has no obligation to comment on rumors, can’t be held responsible for the fact that some “users wish to weave press speculation into their own wishes,” arguably they do have some obligation to be accountable and transparent in how they communicate with their customers. Assuming that is, that they would like to retain those customers. Of course, if that assumption is wrong and they’re just running out the clock to eventual obsolescence, then it doesn’t matter.

I’m also a hobby photographer, and am deep into the Fujifilm X-Series ecosystem. Fuji releases a product road map which tells me at any point in time what the next 18 months is bringing to their product lineup. That practice keeps me in the Fuji system, and without it I’d probably move back to Canon or Nikon.

Sonos could learn something from that. Especially as the hi res audio and whole house/multi-zone audio markets get more crowded and customer loyalty in those spaces gets harder to earn and retain.

So I have thought about Sonos in that way. It’s a hardware company, and if hi res really is snake oil but it’s snake oil that their customers want, it would seem logical (from a business perspective) to provide that functionality to keep people like me buying their hardware and getting deeper and deeper into their ecosystem.

They know this - and if it were easy to do, then they’d already have done it. Thing is, Sonos is designed to run many devices (up to 32 IIRC) in perfect sync. This makes much bigger demands on a network than just a few devices. Hi-res files are much bigger than CD standard, so give Sonos that much more of a technical problem, which they know will turn into a huge support problem. And for what? They’ve already said (and many here have argued) that there is no audible benefit in using hi-res files. I’ve single blind tested 320k MP3s against CD quality FLACs, and I can’t hear the difference, so I certainly don’t believe that I’d hear anything different with high-res. So why would they risk their entire eco-system to provide something that is of zero audio benefit?

Now that they’ve ditched older, less capable kit they may well do something - as you say, it’s a box to be ticked - but I doubt that it will be a priority when there are lots of other things to address.

For me at least, what is higher than half a purchased true HD music library that is unplayable on Sonos?

Caveat emptor, surely….

Using S2, there is support for 24bit sreaming.

Example with Qobuz:

https://support.sonos.com/s/article/1782?language=en_US

In my qobuz account I can select le quality level for SONOS up to 24bit/48KHz (not really HiRes, but close, better than CD Quality)

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