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joanna72
Avid Contributor I
September 22, 2023
Answered

Sonos won't play Hi-Res music files. What are my options?

  • September 22, 2023
  • 35 replies
  • 6657 views

Hi everyone

I’m a newbie Audiophile and love Hi-Res music but don’t fully understand what it’s all about other than the quality of sound is better.

I have a Sonos system at home that comprises of an Arc, Sub and two One speakers L+R.

I keep all my music files on my PC and a backup drive. These files are mostly Apple AAC/M4A format that I listen to through the Sonos app on my PC as well as on my phone.

However, I recently purchased two Hi-Res albums online U2’s Achtung Baby and All That You Can’t Leave Behind. They are both 96Khz/24bit FLAC files but Sonos will not play them and brings up a message saying;

“Unable to play this track - it is encoded at unsupported rate 24b96000Hz”

Is there a way round this to play these files without compromising the sound? If this isn’t possible, then what are my options to play Hi-Res music through my Sonos speakers? 

I have been able to listen to Hi-Res music through my Sonos speakers but this was through using Amazon Music streaming service.

Now I want to play my own Hi-Res music files stored on my PC but can’t with Sonos.

 

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    Best answer by jgatie

    All a higher sample rate gives you is the ability to capture frequencies higher than a human being can hear.  It's pure snake oil, unless you are playing music for your dog.  Studies show any quality differences are due to better mastering, not higher sample rates.  So resample at 48 kHz and be confident you aren't missing any quality.

    35 replies

    Show previous replies
    joanna72Author
    Avid Contributor I
    September 23, 2023

    The reason why I got into Hi-Res music is because I bought a Sony NW-A306 Walkman with Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones and that I now keep my entire music library on.

    I think the ultimate goal was to listen to classic albums in Hi-Res with my Sony gear. I don’t use iTunes that often anymore and only have a very old iPod Nano that I use to listen to music in my car.

    Though a lot of my music is still m4a and iTunes registered but always use the Sonos app now to listen to these files.

      ratty
      ratty
      September 23, 2023

      The reason why I got into Hi-Res music is because I bought a Sony NW-A306 Walkman with Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones and that I now keep my entire music library on.

      All the more reason to rip CDs to lossless, either FLAC or ALAC 16bit/44.1kHz. The NW-A306 will talk LDAC to your XM4s, hopefully without sample rate conversion, and hopefully at 909kbps.

       

      Kumar
      September 23, 2023

      Try premium headphones, from a premium DAC. 

      With the room acoustics taken out of the frame, that would make sense if listening via headphones was my cup of tea. It isn’t so I will not go down that rabbit hole now, and create dissatisfaction where there is none today.

      Stanley_4
      Stanley_4
      Grand Maestro
      September 24, 2023

      I rip to FLAC as it is likely to have the longest lifetime as a supported format.

      Once ripped in FLAC I can easily convert to anything else.

      Which conversion I did for the car with its limited storage and weak sound system. It holds a lot more in the MP3 format and on that setup you can’t hear the difference. I also stuff some MP3s on my laptop to listen to in hotel rooms.

      Kumar
      September 25, 2023

      If ripping, lossless is the obvious route. My question was to the OP question on whether 256 AAC, if mastered for iTunes and purchased would sound better than the CD - why not listen to both and trust your ears to tell you? As well as for albums ripped already - the same test would be valid regardless of whether AAC or ALAC has been used. When I stopped buying CDs, I moved to buying such 256 AAC albums from iTunes and found SQ to be just as good. As I now find Spotify to be, having stopped buying music completely.

      Of course if the OP is using premium headphones and the like, differences I do not hear may well be audible and then those would be relevant in deciding how to proceed.

      Wrightytyke
      Avid Contributor III
      December 1, 2023

      Just an additional piece of info I’ve noticed, the songs on Spotify that seem to sound bad (off and on constantly while playing) are the latest remastered stuff and seems to be the same songs. My normal playlists play fine but I tried the latest remastered 2023 u2 (yes I know 😂) and that’s all over the place, I went back to one I knew worked and was fine and then went back to the u2 and exactly the same again, all over the place. 
      I’m thinking my kit is probably dated too much now it could be time to move up to era’s? 

      Stanley_4
      Stanley_4
      Grand Maestro
      December 1, 2023

      I’d take a look at the data rates your selections are using, if the new stuff is pushing more data you may simply have wireless issues that can usually be resolved with out buying new gear that would suffer the same problems.

       

      https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/improve-your-sonos-products-wifi-connection

      Wrightytyke
      Avid Contributor III
      December 2, 2023

      Just an additional piece of info I’ve noticed, the songs on Spotify that seem to sound bad (off and on constantly while playing) are the latest remastered stuff and seems to be the same songs. My normal playlists play fine but I tried the latest remastered 2023 u2 (yes I know 😂) and that’s all over the place, I went back to one I knew worked and was fine and then went back to the u2 and exactly the same again, all over the place. 
      I’m thinking my kit is probably dated too much now it could be time to move up to era’s? 

      I’ve only just realised I meant to post this on my thread but just realised I’ve added it to yours instead FFS 🤦🏼

      Sorry 

      kmcm0
      Lyricist II
      December 16, 2023

      Hi everyone

      I’m a newbie Audiophile and love Hi-Res music but don’t fully understand what it’s all about other than the quality of sound is better.

      I have a Sonos system at home that comprises of an Arc, Sub and two One speakers L+R.

      I keep all my music files on my PC and a backup drive. These files are mostly Apple AAC/M4A format that I listen to through the Sonos app on my PC as well as on my phone.

      However, I recently purchased two Hi-Res albums online U2’s Achtung Baby and All That You Can’t Leave Behind. They are both 96Khz/24bit FLAC files but Sonos will not play them and brings up a message saying;

      “Unable to play this track - it is encoded at unsupported rate 24b96000Hz”

      Is there a way round this to play these files without compromising the sound? If this isn’t possible, then what are my options to play Hi-Res music through my Sonos speakers? 

      I have been able to listen to Hi-Res music through my Sonos speakers but this was through using Amazon Music streaming service.

      Now I want to play my own Hi-Res music files stored on my PC but can’t with Sonos.

       

      kmcm0
      Lyricist II
      December 16, 2023

      All a higher sample rate gives you is the ability to capture frequencies higher than a human being can hear.  It's pure snake oil, unless you are playing music for your dog.  Studies show any quality differences are due to better mastering, not higher sample rates.  So resample at 48 kHz and be confident you aren't missing any quality.

       

      This is profoundly incorrect. Sampling rate has nothing to do the frequency of the audio data that it contains. it's the frequency at which the data is captured. there is plenty of audiophile snake oil out there, this isn't one of em.

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