Sonos support for Apple Music's Lossless Audio

You can get up to 24/48 with Qobuz on Sonos S2 app. 

Just saying 

You can now play lossless, hi res and Apple masters from Apple Music by connecting direct from Apple device to a hi res dac. Just not on Sonos. Just saying. 
 

Curious what rates will be available on Sonos via AirPlay and direct on Sonos App. Meanwhile I’m switching away from Sonos to a direct connection to my Hi-Fi dac because my Hi-Fi dac like most Hi-Fi dacs apart from Sonos can play hi res masters. 
 

Like it or not the tech giants Apple and Amazon now offer hi res and Sonos doesn’t. Don’t know ideally maybe they will be able to play hi res as 24 bit 48khz on old devices and hi res 192lhz on new introduced devices at same time?  Hi res still play on Apple devices even if output isn’t hi res so presumably technically possible. Only really relevant for a Hi-Fi port/connect but if Apple and Amazon feel they have to offer hi res even if it is only for marketing purposes can’t see how Sonos can ignore. 

Thanks! Yes I have tried last night and it’s phenomenal!! Filled the room and more interesting is when I grouped the speakers in the other rooms, I could feel it’s much better than before! :)

Just starting to experiment with listening to Apple Music lossless as historically all my music library is on Apple from ripped CDs, iTunes and Apple Music. As I currently understand should be able to play to lossless but not hi res via airplay but not yet on S2. Not doing anything for me on Sonos speakers but playing some stuff on reference headphone amp/dac felt really good. 
 

Somewhat Strange that Apple always invested in high quality library but not how to play it. Bandwidths and Amazon HD has changed game. The only way for hi res from phone is via USB adapter and cable which have on order as curious  and not massive investment. Not ideal though and Apple will need to introduce new Airplay codex and new hardware will be required to play it.   seems direction of travel. I see no benefit on Sonos speakers but would be good to have a hi res apple compatible  port 

Sonos can play ALAC from a SMB drive already using the Sonos Library feature but looking at the supported formats for a SMAPI music service, which is the Sonos API layer that Sonos uses to interface with a streaming music service, it doesn't look like ALAC is supported, so this is on Sonos to support.  

It supports .m4a MPEG4 containers, which ALACs use but only seems to support AAC codecs in those containers, also mentions FLACs and WMA (it mentions it doesn't support WMA Voice, but no mention of WMA Lossless one way or another so it could be WMA Lossless could be supported) , but no mention of ALAC support which Apple is using for Lossless on Apple Music.

https://developer.sonos.com/build/content-service-add-features/supported-audio-formats/

So unless this documentation is outdated, Sonos needs to ALAC support to their SMAPI API for Apple to be able to implement this.  Strange, since ALAC does work via the library.  This won’t do anything for hires (unless its 24/48 only) but CD-Quality and access to the Apple remastered tracks would be nice.

Thanks does sound like 24bit 48 kHz is doable on Sonos given will from Apple and Sonos and suspect will come at some point. Almost as if Sonos introduced S2 with this in mind. Sonos are certainly no fools and they must talk. 
 

Developing hi-res Apple compatible hardware is longer term but presumably where Apple is looking to make more money out of releasing lossless and hi res content which is increasing by the day.  Whether Sonos will jump on that opportunity with new products I guess depends  on backward compatibility issues but difficult to ignore with a mainstream player Apple offering hi res and even harder if Spotify match competition. With mainstream music services and hardware competitors offering hi res then Sonos presumably has to bite the bullet at some point what ever the technical arguments. 

I don’t really buy all this “you should contact Apple and let them know bla bla bla…..”. 

Sonos - have YOUR team reach out and express some proactive will in having them flip whatever switch needs to be flipped to enable lossless streaming on Sonos. 

Not the greatest or clearest statement from Sonos. Apple Music lossless and hi-res has been out a few days so strange they can not say what the position is. 
 

I understand that can? Play lossless on airplay enabled Sonos devices but not on S2. I think  that is a similar situation for any hardware supplier. The apple app is far better than the Sonos app but I do believe that apple won’t grant Sonos access unlike Spotify and tidal.because the more powerful apple likes to maintain complete control. Currently there is no way to play hi res on anything other than USB connection.  At the moment Apple has upped the software but currently there Apple doesn’t appear to have any ideal hardware options or partners to take full advantage so it isn’t just Sonos. A camera adapter and usb cable is less than ideal so Apple also need to get their act together on hardware partnerships. 

Looking at the equivalent forum for another hardware streamer manufacturers there are literally hundreds of posts on this specific topic including numerous honest posts from the manufacturers technical department. I guess being niche they are more comfortable commenting than a large organisation like Sonos which I understand. 
 

The impression is that while AirPlay is capable of 24 bit 48khz currently only playing Lossy AAC even to its own HomePod devices on Airplay. Apple are planning to change Airplay software so it can at least play 16 bit 44 kHz which is relatively easy.  So this is down to Apple not Sonos. Sonos is only one that seems to have Apple Music via own app. Rest of manufacturers only on Airplay so Sonos is ahead   
 

The manufacturer is actively talking to Apple so surprised if Sonos isn’t. The impression is that Apple rushed this out because of Amazon and Spotify so content ahead of hardware.  It is only Tidal and Qubuz which is really open to integrating their software into manufacturers hardware. So the only way to play Apple lossless and hi res on other streamers is very USB. Apparently not m perfect set up but sound quality is very good.