Hi-Res audio with wired input on Sonos Ace

If they playback app doesn’t show the chain similar to Ken’s Amazon app then I’m not sure. Maybe someone has written an app that will show details of usb audio if Apples sdk allows it.

I rarely play music from my iPad so haven’t needed to know as I just use either airplay or the internal speakers depending where I am at the time.

If Sonos don’t show the details for the headphones in the app, then there is probably little chance of getting the info from the headphones directly.

In general regarding Sonos products, they have generally stayed out of the hires hype. Their main speakers, port and amp support 24/48, but they haven’t chased higher numbers. It’s never really been their thing, so it would be strange for the headphones to suddenly start focusing on numbers.

Sonos is Sonos. Like many brands they have their own sound signature. My Yamaha avr’s and speakers have a different sound to Sonos speakers, port & amp using the same source. Sonos are selling their ecosystem, sound and ease of use (current situation not with standing) they’re not selling end to end purity of bits.

You need to see what the audio bit size and sample rate is on the headphones or usb output to know what is actually being sent, rather than the source format the app is receiving.
 

where can I see it from?

Thanks.

Andrea. 

I expect tidal is showing you the details of the file it is receiving, not what is going out of the usb cable.

With bluetooth, there isn’t any codec that can transmit 24/192 lossless, so if you have “upto 24/192” set in the tidal app for quality, then any bluetooth connection will perform compression of the original source.

Even Apt-X lossless is only 16/44.1 lossless or 24/48 lossy according to Qualcomm, so under ideal conditions with Apt-X lossless over bluetooth, Tidal would still warn about compression unless you set the incoming max to up to CD 16/44.1 at which point it might not.

https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2021/09/qualcomm-adds-bluetooth-lossless-audio-technology-snapdragon-sound

With usb, depending on what is connected, it is possible to send 24/192 with the right device and may need exclusive access to the audio system enabling, or setting the OS default. The Tidal app is unlikely to be performing any changes to the stream and the ipad/mac/pc/whatever will resample as needed for what is supported by the device plugged in.

You need to see what the audio bit size and sample rate is on the headphones or usb output to know what is actually being sent, rather than the source format the app is receiving.

Hi, it may be my impression but between IPad Pro m4 I listen via bluetooth and with a USB C cable that in theory the audio should pass loseless I prefer the first option. With Tidal. Tidal via USB gives on the songs that are 24bit 192khz in Bluetooth a sentence comes out that says that the audio will be compressed ... but it does not give the quality …
Andrea

I reached out to my contact again and asked to talk to someone from the engineering side, fingers crossed

Regardless of any of the technical speculation, I think the Ace sounds really good and I’m happy to use them on a regular basis.

Even if you are not that way inclined, and don’t care how it works, you may subconsciously enjoy it more if it has a nice ‘placebo’ logo displayed or a higher ‘marketing’ number shown etc.

Thanks a lot for explanation.

Andrea

Yeah, from your various screenshots I’m inclined to believe the Amazon App is getting it right.

Personally I think it would be odd for the Ace not to support 24/48 over usb and it feels like it would need extra effort to limit them to 16/48 I can see a plausible reason for Windows & MacOS to only show 16/48 as available.

Where it all falls apart is @HiFi Oasis Sonos contact confirmed 16/48 as the limit. 

Sometimes wanting to know how things actually work is a curse and the best thing is to ignore the technical details and just enjoy it. 

In iOS there is a Dolby Atmos option which can be switched off, but Apple default the option to ‘Automatic’ - so it enables/disables, as required. The Wireless Streaming Audio Quality Settings can be adjusted by the user too in the iOS settings - see the attached screenshots 

Within the Amazon Music UHD App the user can simply tap the graphic to switch the streaming audio between Atmos audio and HD/Ultra HD stereo - that’s the image on the iPad screen I posted earlier with the Ace - the left panel is Atmos audio - tapping the right panel switches it to HD/UHD stereo quality audio (and vice versa)… er .. allegedly.‍♂️

Hope that makes sense and clarifies things further.

I can think of a couple of reasons why 3.5mm → usb would have a lower volume than usb → usb

mac → 3.5mm cable to usb → ace

In this situation you have 2 independent volume controls. The Mac and the headphones, so if only using the volume control on one device you might not reach max volume.

If both the Mac and Ace are at max volume and it is still lower than you like, then the 3.5mm to usb cable could be impacting the max volume.

The output jack on the Mac has a max power level. Similar to how different impedance headphones can be quieter (assuming same efficiency drivers) the Mac output might not have enough power at max volume to reach a high enough volume level using the 3.5mm cable, so when the ADC converts it back to digital at the usb end it is a lower volume than using a direct usb connection.

Headphone impedance can be a source of frustration on PCs as the power output from the motherboard 3.5mm socket isn’t enough to drive all headphones at volumes people want.

mac → usb → ace

In this situation the ace are the volume control. The Mac keeps out the way and doesn’t alter the volume it just sends the digital signal to the ace for it to decode.

I get 24/48 with the Ace linked USB-C to USB-C. See attached…

 

Like I said, I believe there’s some resampling being done on either the OS or the app side, otherwise it would be possible to have this sample rate on Windows and MacOS.

If the Ace only support 16/48 over usb then the iPad would need to downsample to 16/48 otherwise the Ace wouldn’t be able to decode and play the audio. That should show in the output in the photo above assuming it is accurately reporting. Given my experience of the Amazon Prime App and AppleTV I wouldn’t assume 100% the Amazon App is showing the right thing.

Dolby Atmos/Sonic Spatial Audio for headphones only supports 16/48, so if you have Dolby Atmos for headphones or Sonic enabled, in Windows you won’t get any option to select a different bit size or sample rate, 16/48 is your only option. I don’t know if a Mac would let you select something different and automatically switch off Dolby Atmos.

16/48 rather than 24/48 seems an odd choice over usb for stereo audio, if the main target is spatial audio, then potentially there is no perceived benefit to supporting 24/48 if it costs more.

Assuming it isn’t a usb driver issue or Dolby Atmos/Spatial Audio for headphones isn’t enabled then Windows and MacOs should pick up all the supported formats.

Definitely an odd one with inconsistent reporting when plugged in to different devices. In reality if it wasn’t for the hires marketing machine, nobody would be any wiser because there would be nothing showing them any values 

But as you can see the playing App track shown, has a sample rate of 96kHz - so it’s not going to be the App in this case and I think iDevices will support outputs to DAC’s of at least 24/192 - as we’ve seen that when using the UGreen DAC earlier - this points to the DAC in the Ace as supporting 24/48 in my humble opinion, but it would be nice if this information could be confirmed (or otherwise), but that’s what I’m seeing here.

iPad Pro 3rd Gen - Apple Music UltraHD subscription - Here’s Amazon’s definition of SD/HD/UHD audio…

I get 24/48 with the Ace linked USB-C to USB-C. See attached…

 

Like I said, I believe there’s some resampling being done on either the OS or the app side, otherwise it would be possible to have this sample rate on Windows and MacOS.

I get 24/48 with the Ace linked USB-C to USB-C. See attached…

 

Yeah, this is a bit weird. 

Off topic; do Amazon brand audio quality (assume they refer to 24bit/192hz) as Ultra HD?!?  

I get 24/48 with the Ace linked USB-C to USB-C. See attached…

 

Tablet IPad? Program Used?

Thanks.

Andrea.

I get 24/48 with the Ace linked USB-C to USB-C. See attached…

I did some additional testing with the Sonos Ace. My Windows 11 desktop PC and laptop both detect the Ace as a 16-bit/48kHz audio device, my M1 Mac Mini does as well. On my 2020 iPad Pro 11” Amazon Music will supposedly output  at 24-bit/192kHz, and Roon Arc will do at most 24-bit/48kHz. My Samsung Galaxy Fold 5 using the apps UAPP and Rune Arc both exhibit the same behaviour, although in UAPP when I try to enable bit perfect mode it complains that it cannot resample the audio. HiBy Music on the other hand is only able to output at 16-bit-48kHz to the Ace.

I believe there is probably some strange resampling behaviour going on with iOS and Android, but as we can see with Windows and MacOS the connection is 16-bit/48kHz, which confirms what I was told by my Sonos contact when I reached out to them.

The DAC in the Beats Studio Pro is only capable of up to 24-bit/48Khz.

Thanks. 
however with the 3.5 jack the Sonos Ace have a much lower volume than the USB C counterpart. So from Mac the audio quality is considered to be the bare minimum…

Mostly because that is what the digital audio processor inside the headphones, USB dac to 3.5mm cable, device at each end of a usb-usb cable supports. Very few companies design their own processing chips and buy components from other companies. A single processing chip often targets multiple market sectors. Which chip a device manufacturer chooses is down to what fits their requirements and costs.

Marketing may then decide to use it as a feature because they know their target market responds to the “bigger/higher number is better“ marketing.

In general when talking about digital music, 16 bit Linear PCM sampled at 44.1Khz is the baseline minimum for what is classed as lossless audio as a source. Anything above that is also considered lossless.

It could be an audio cd, it could be a saved in a Wav, flac, alac, whatever format, as long as when decoded back to it’s original digital it is exactly the same as the digital source it was created from.

Studios when working with digital audio, usually record and manipulate the audio at a higher bitrate and sample rate. There are benefits for a studio to work in 24 bit, or higher, because the dynamic range means they don’t need to really worry about the input levels on mics and instruments, boosts or cuts when digital effects and processing are applied. That can all be levelled after recording. Engineers get on and do their thing, and somewhere a decision is made for the bit size and sample rate for the final product.

As consumer device targeted chips became cheaper supporting higher bit sizes and sample rates, an area of the audio listening market decided they were being short changed by the music industry and they must have the hires digital the studios used. Labels, rights holders, device manufacturers and marketing realised there was money to be made so here we are with terms like “full lossless”, “HD”, “Ultra HD”, “Hires” and devices advertising increasingly higher bit size and sample rates.

There are benefits to consumer devices being able to process digital audio in 24 bit, especially as room correction and other digital processing is becoming increasingly common in stereo playback.

But I don't understand why other headphones like the Beats Studio pro with USB C cable can choose 24 bit 192 khz. Ah the Ace connected with its 32 bit 192 khz 3.5 jack cable but the audio is heard at a much lower level than the USB connection... Another mystery...

ok so what the Mac detects is correct then?
Andrea.

Once again, you are confusing a codec, which encodes the sound and compresses it into a file, with bit-depth/sample rate, which just determines how much of a dynamic range (quietest to loudest range) and frequencies sampled (0 Hz up to ½ of the sample frequency).  A lossless codec means whatever goes in, comes out exactly the same.  A lossy codec means some data is removed in order to compress the file more, and the decoder estimates what the removed data is in order to get back as much of the original as possible. 

By the way, all Bluetooth is lossy.  Some Bluetooth codecs are better than others, but all are lossy. 

I’d have to ask the Wife to drive. I have to say the Ace ‘noise cancelling’ is really very good - not that we have a ’convertible’ to go out and test these things, but ANC, in general, works well for me.

therefore listening to a lossless audio file from MacBook via Bluetooth or USB cable does not change anything since the output value is 16 bit 48 Khz...so where are they lossless?