24 Bit on Sonos Port

The Tidal restriction is not by Sonos, however, it’s what Tidal supplies to Sonos. Tidal could, if they chose, provide the higher bit rate. 

Are you sure that anything more can be heard by you? Many here cannot and these are people that have lot of exposure to the tech side of these things. And who have experience of many years of critical listening to music from their kit.

Agree. I’m looking to upgrade my hifi speakers and Amplifier at the same time as upgrading the older Connect. I’m currently using Spotify, and looking to improve the source. I’d like to test other options first (Amazon, Tidal) to see if there are any clear differences to my old ears, and was just checking if Tidal was on the higher rate first. But you’re right I may not really notice the difference myself. 
 

Thanks for all the other feed back everyone.

cheers.

Sonos supports Tidal HiFi, at 16/44.1.

It looks like you’d need Tidal HiFi Plus for anything beyond that. Since that would involve MQA it ought IMHO to be avoided at all costs. 

From another with old ears - there are a lot of upsides to aging and being able to give up a silly pursuit of bits and bytes is one of them, where music is concerned. Time left is better spent enjoying the music instead, which these days is already of much higher quality and quantity than what any preceding generation was given. And we get all that for a much lower cost.

@Anthony_45 

I have a Port connected to a fairly nice ($2K) Aperion Audio speaker setup running through a decent Denon AVR.  I did A/B testing between “Ultra HD” audio on Amazon and the same regular 16 bit version on Apple Music.  I heard zero difference and nobody I played it for could tell any difference either.  We tried a variety of music styles, trying to use the best recordings possible (electronic, jazz, acoustic, etc)  Nothing. It all sounded identical.

But all of it still sounded great (which is my point).  Playing regular 16 bit audio through better quality speakers still provides an upgrade over even the best Sonos speakers. So I wouldn’t; worry about whether the source as much as just connecting the Port to the best speakers  and amp you can afford. 

Thank you. 

I would be a little careful with that; everything else in the quoted post is on point.

Amps - after a point, it really does not matter what you spend, as long as the amp has enough grunt to drive the chosen speakers. Brands like Marantz, Rotel, Yamaha and even Sony still have excellent value for money stereo amps in their line up. If I was in the market, I would stick to Rotel or Yamaha, for reliability.

Speakers is trickier; I could point to some more expensive than mine, that I would never take in exchange, I prefer how mine sound. And speakers lend themselves to more things like expensive cabinets - carpentry really - that quickly drive up costs and prices for little extra value than sex appeal. Indeed, sometimes they offer audibly less value than more honest and function focused cheaper ones.

And amps from a trusted brand, you can buy from a spec sheet. Not so speakers because how they will sound in your room depends on how they interact with it to deliver sound that you may like, or not like. Regardless of price point.