S2/hardware limitations for hi-res audio

  • 2 July 2020
  • 8 replies
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  • ERJ
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I was really excited to hear that Sonos was going to support hi-res audio, but I had a tough S2 transition.  After reconfiguring both my main wireless and Sonos networks, I’m able (so far) to hear songs all the way through and have not had a device go missing in days!

After this work, S2 still is very, very slow to load.  Worse, it seems like a song will start to play before the buffer has enough data.  So I will lose the first few seconds, then have a rough few seconds, then have the song settle in.

This happens when, say, playing something from Amazon Music on Sonos.  It doesn't seem to happen once the queue is up and running, unless songs are skipped and rebuffering is needed.  It does not happen with internet radio on Sonos, which is much lower fidelity.  It also does not seem to happen with my networked music files on Sonos, maybe because they’re 360K MP3’s and local, don’t need much buffering.  We have a very fast network connection and I have no lags at all when using the Amazon player on my computer, even for the 96K/24 bit audio files.  

Supposedly S2 can play these files.  Maybe that’s the issue here--hardware that was built to do something that it’s having difficulty doing, now that there’s more data to deal with? My hardware all passed the compatibility test, but still, it seems like both the connectivity and buffering issues fit with notion that that hardware is being asked to do a lot.  I’d love to hear that there is work being done on a software fix.  S2 just doesn’t seem quite ready for prime time.

Any thoughts on this?

Also, an aside.  Some speakers seem to come up sooner from buffering than others.  I know one speaker drives the other when stereo paired, but it seems more distributed across rooms than just that.  Is each Sonos device doing its own buffering?  I have nine devices.  Wow that’s a lot of data, if so.

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8 replies

Krishma M
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Hi @ERJ, thanks for letting us know about that. We’re always working on making sure that we provide the best experience and for that, I’d suggest trying a different music service if you’ll get the same issue? Also if you can submit a diagnostic, so we can further check it on our side. Because the S1 or S2 should definitely work smoothly with your system. 

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Krishma,

Thanks for your note.

As I mentioned, it works perfectly with Napster.  I unsubscribed to the HD component of Amazon, which went into effect a couple of days ago.  I will try the lower-res Amazon and see how it works.  Assuming it works, would I have to resubscribe to HD Amazon to send a meaningful diagnostic?

Also, would it have helped at all to have unsubcribed my Sonos from Amazon when I went HD, and then resubscribed?

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OK, I checked to see that my regular Amazon Music subscription was still active.  Desktop player worked perfectly--music starts instantly.  Then re-added Amazon Music to Sonos.  Tried to play a song from a playlist that I built using some Amazon songs and got a message that Sonos was “unable to play (song) --  the song is not encoded correctly.”

If I search for a song on Amazon rather than use an existing playlist built on Amazon, it seems to play fine (in the low-res Amazon that I have now).  Not sure about HD.

 

Diagnostic #1831668580

Krishma M
Userlevel 5
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Tried to play a song from a playlist that I built using some Amazon songs and got a message that Sonos was “unable to play (song) --  the song is not encoded correctly.”

If I search for a song on Amazon rather than use an existing playlist built on Amazon, it seems to play fine (in the low-res Amazon that I have now).  Not sure about HD.

 

Diagnostic #1831668580

Hi @ERJ, thanks for replying and submitting a diagnostic. About the error that you’re getting, is it purchased music from Amazon Music that is placed in an Amazon Music playlist?  We need to confirm if non-purchased music is also affected. You can also try and check the article about Reducing wireless interference, in case you’ll get some problem again when playing high-resolution audio. You can consider rebooting your Sonos devices, router, and changing SonosNet channel which is also included in the link. Thanks!

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I have had basically the same problem. New Sonos devices, S2, Amazon HD and Primephonic hd.  Radio works OK. MP3s from my computer work OK. Amazon stops and starts at the beginning. Also, I have 4 Sonos devices (Two One SLs, one new Play 5, and a Port for 2 KEF LSXs; also a Playbar, but only for the TV). When I try to play all 4 together, there are several problems - speakers stop and start, that “not encoded correctly” message. I need to eliminate 1 or 2 speakers for things to work. For now, sounds like I need to downgrade Amazon.

I have also found S2 quirky. It loads slowly in many situations.

Airgetlam

That sure seems like wifi interference to me.

Bruce
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Krishma,

Again thanks for your reply.  This is on streamed Amazon content and happened with the HD service, or in the case of what I described in my last message, with a Sonos playlist that I built with streamed Amazon HD but am now attempting to stream instead from lower-res Amazon.

And to both you and Bruce (thanks for that reply, Bruce), It’s very doubtful that one particular streaming service would not work as a result of wireless interference, don’t you think?  I actually tried network solutions first--disconnected my boost and changed the whole network to wireless, as I have very strong coverage close, but not too close to, every Sonos.  No difference at all with the streaming problem, but the genie was out of the bottle and I decided to use the Sonos diagnostics to fiddle with the setup.  I moved a wireless router, repositioned the Boost and (again) wired it to the main router so that Sonos again is running on Sonos net, and added a secondary wired connection to a Play 5 with wireless enabled.  Every cell in the diagnostic table (at 1400) is now green or yellow, every noise floor is below 105.  Wireless channel selection doesn’t affect anything, and I am in a suburban neighborhood with only a couple of other networks barely visible.

The reconfiguring was worth doing, but the facts still are (1) that Amazon streaming, and only Amazon streaming has this issue; (2) Sonos worked fine with Amazon with HD streams that were on but unused by Sonos during the last month I had S1; (3) Amazon HD has streamed flawlessly on my computer from the day I got it; and (4) with the S2 upgrade,  Amazon HD and Sonos together simply aren’t functional.  Hard to believe that’s not something to do with S2.

I am going to resubscribe to Amazon HD for the computer and will give it one more shot on Sonos, with maybe an uninstall and reinstall of Amazon into Sonos as part of the process.

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Also re. JK’s post, one thing I got from reconfiguring was the ability to run 9 Sonos devices simultaneously and seamlessly (well, with Napster at least).  That same setup will not stream Amazon.

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