Hi-Res audio with wired input on Sonos Ace

@Ken_Griffiths

If the different versions come from the same source mix then most likely, especially with a Sonos speaker.

Where it can sound obviously different is that Studios already had Cd quality 16/44.1 on the streaming service, for years but no 24 bit/hires version. The hires versions they then upload are a new remaster, often with a different sound engineer so end up a differently mixed release and don’t replace the existing 16/44.1 with the new mix.

Some owners will remaster all versions and create a new release, because people seem to love rebuying the same music over and over again. Yes, I’m being slightly cynical, some albums do benefit if the original release was an awful mix. At this point all versions are back to being the same mix again.

@craigski

lossless, hires is a marketing departments dream. And like the mobile phone pixel count arms race, marketing love people chasing higher numbers.

All of my Qobuz digital purchases happen to be hires lossless because it is the cheapest version with my subscription discount. It’s also often the cheapest way to buy the music I want.

If Qobuz only have the CD version, then it’s usually cheaper just to buy the CD.

In my car, while I can play upto 24/48 it’s pointless. The sound system in my previous car was ridiculously good, but anything more than a decent quality mp3 is pointless with the roof down 

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. 

Whenever I do see these type of threads, either in this community, or elsewhere online, I always think that it infers that people can’t often tell the difference (myself included) between 16/44 and higher bit/sample rates, simply by listening to the audio itself and that the majority rely on seeing a visual representation (label/display/badge etc.). I personally believe though CD quality lossless audio 16/44 is usually as good as it gets for my own hearing. Anything over that, I doubt I would be able to identify in any A/B test - I would (hand on heart) just be guessing. 

The thing with hires music is more about the mastering than the bitrate, a well mastered 16/44 track will probably sound better than a 24/192 average file but the reverse is also true a well mastered 24/192 will blow you away with the detail and quality of the sound.

I  am lucky enough to be able to hear differences in low quality sound from poor to well mastered tracks but in my experience there’s way more well mastered 16/44 tracks than higher resolution ones 

In closing if it sounds good to you then it’s good enough for you

Hi @HiFi Oasis, terminology correction to your thesis: your suggestion is that an analog signal goes through an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), then through EQ in the digital domain, and finally through a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) ...

        analog input > ADC > digital EQ > DAC

I cannot say if that is what happens in the Ace headphones, tho’ I know there are audio components that employ such a signal path.

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.

I was curious about this during my review of the Ace, so I reached out to my contact and they confirmed that the 16-bit/48kHz limitation is also applied to the 3.5mm connection. This would make sense since the connection needs to go through the onboard DAC of the Ace regardless of the cable used.

“Lossless” has to do with the type of codec used to encode the audio, not the bit-depth or sample rate.  You can have lossless 16-bit 44.1 kHz, it doesn’t need to be 24-bit.  In fact, if you know about sampling (and this guy does: 24/192 Music Downloads), anything over 16-bit 44.1 kHz makes no sense because you are wasting bandwidth on dynamic range that, if used, could render you deaf, and a frequency range that no human can hear. 

I have found these lossless ‘placebo’ logos quite misleading, I don’t trust them.

eg Apple Music will display a lossless logo, clicking shows 24/48 when I Airplay to Sonos, but checking bandwidth from AP to Sonos speaker its around 1Mbs, 24/48 would be around 2.5-3Mbs.

Playing same track via Apple Music service in Sonos App will consume 3-4Mbs, but without 24/48 logo.

But of course it must sound better with the logo? 

Don’t know which country he is in but in the UK he would probably get pulled over by the police

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.

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 was also hoping it would be capable of 24/48 (which seems to be the what the internal DAC of other Sonos products support), that’s why I was a bit surprised when I only see 16/48 on my Mac when using usb-c to usb-c (which correlates to what @HiFi Oasis also has found). But based on our screenshots, you were able to get 24/48 with usb-c to usb-c using iPad and Amazon Music?

I did test the 3.5 to usb-c cable included with Ace on my Era 300, and it works. Since the Era does require a digital input (afaik), it shows that this cable includes a ADC and there is a ADC/DAC conversion when using analog from source as well.

Hi @Ken_Griffiths, this discussion has kinda’ mixed-and-matched the two different ways to connect to Ace in a wired manner …

• Digital. This is what we normally think about when connecting over USB, a purely digital signal path from phone/tablet/computer to headphones. The digital-to-analog conversion is performed by the DAC inside Ace, and that DAC appears to be capable of 24bit/48kHz. Which is quite stellar audio quality my any measure!
• Analog. This is old school 3.5mm territory, an analog signal path from device to headphones. The digital-to-analog conversion is performed by a DAC inside the phone/tablet/computer … or by your UGreen DAC that is capable of 24bit/192kHz. In this case, it doesn’t make sense to talk about the Ace bitdepth/bitrate because it receives an analog signal.

It’s a fair bet that the DAC inside Ace is capable of 24bit/48kHz, based on everything you’ve shown. And your UGreen DAC may very well sound different, not so much because of the ‘better’ specs but because it has its own sonic characteristics.

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.

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.

The Bluetooth 5.4 audio chip in the Ace by the way is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Sound Apt-X HD audio and that’s considered as being lossless audio playback - see the attached chart. Some new Android phones support this Bluetooth audio playback quality - I’ve not got a supported Snapdragon device so can’t provide any further detail or comments on how it sounds, but I do have a couple of Bluetooth Apt-X HD TX’s (Fiio BTA30 Pro & 1Mii B03Pro) and even that quality audio sounds pretty good to my ears. 

Love the Ace by the way - think it’s build quality is great, really happy with its ANC noise cancelling and aware mode features, but the winner for me is the ‘TV Audio Swap’ with the Sonos Arc and the Head-Tracking ‘Spatial Audio’ - just great for immersive Movie streaming at Home.

Yes, I’m sure that’s the same one - here’s the actual link I purchased from on Amazon in the UK

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CG5FTHT9

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.

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 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.

Hi

from mi MacBook Air M1 ace with USB C in midi Options I see 24 bit 48hz only one option.

Andrea.

I think that’s pretty much the consensus that the Ace supports up-to 24/48 lossless HiRes audio over a wired connection. 

Is this for Input or for Output in the MIDI Options? On input (mic) I also see 1ch 24bit, but for output I only get 2ch 16bit

Anyhow, if I leave the UGreen DAC connected to the iPad and remove the line-in analog cable linked to the Five and simply replace it with the 3.5mm to USB-C (ADC) cable (supplied with the Headphones) and connect it to the Ace and restart the same track, I then see this….

When I saw this, it led/leads me to believe that the Ace supports 24/192 audio… but if I ditch the UGreen DAC altogether and just do a straight through USB-C to USB-C link instead between the iPad & Ace, I see an output of 24/48 audio - so I think at the very least the Ace supports 24/48 audio quality - I’m just not sure why I’m seeing 24/192 when I use the UGreen DAC.

Someone might have to clear the mist for me, but at no point in my own tests, have I seen 16 bit audio when playing a 24 bit audio track. Even the lighting to 3.5mm iPhone adapter I also mentioned in my earlier post gave me a display showing 24/48 audio on the Ace when playing the ‘Rust’ album tracks.

I can only speak as I find, but I’ll be surprised if a wired Ace is just capable of playing upto 16/44 audio, rather than UHD 24/48, or higher, but maybe someone will go onto show evidence to prove me wrong. I should add that I am not in anyway obsessed by these things, labels/badges in Apps… and happy with CD Quality 16/44 audio anyway. I’m just curious to know the actual answer of what the Ace can/will support.

 

If it helps clear the mist, The above isn’t showing anything about the adc rates after the analogue cable, you are seeing the ugreen adapter input value. The ugreen adapter has no way to display what is happening inside the Ace or the ace 3.5mm to usb cable over the analogue connection.

If you have a 32bit/384Khz source going into the ugreen that output would list 32 bit/384 kHz.

What it is showing isn’t the full signal path which is

Source 24/192 — digital — iPad Pro 24/192 — digital — ugreen input 24/192 — ugreen DAC output (analogue) — 3.5mm analogue — ace cable ADC — ace 

What it does show is nothing has changed the bit size and sample rate (24/192) from the source to the ugreen adapter input. It isn’t showing you what happens after the ugreen converts it to analogue. So what the adc in the cable or the ace internal values are.