24bit support only goes upto 44,000khz/48,000khz

It’s the option which embraces the range of human hearing, as has been well established in science and in listening tests. Higher sampling rates have their place in the production chain, but are quite unnecessary for final delivery.

Moreover doubling or quadrupling the bandwidth requirements would strain a wireless network, for no obvious gain. 

I appreciate that those who’ve bought so-called ‘hi res’ music may feel a bit miffed to have to down-convert, but it’s a one-time exercise. And you won’t be able to tell the difference.

Bumping this thread every month is, I venture to suggest, a bit of a waste of time and effort.

And they may well have been, along with all the other comments relating to this request, which are regarded by many here as pure snake oil.

As ratty has already pointed out, the network overhead caused by the increased file sizes would give Sonos severe problems, as they support up to 32 devices per system. Consequently, this is not a simple software fix, but would affect the capability and reliability of the  system, and would therefore probably also cause Sonos a massive support headache.

As you’ve already pointed out, there is kit around that will do what you want, although I have severe doubts that it can do it and provide the capability that Sonos does. As usual,TANSTAAFL applies.

  Not playing 24bit at 192kHZ

You’re clearly entitled to your opinions. However despite all the hype over many years we’re still waiting for clear evidence that sampling rates above Red Book produce any audible benefits. Indeed a recent large-scale listening test, conducted by a widely respected industry expert, found there to be no perceptible fidelity improvement.

Of course there’s a strong commercial imperative within the recording and equipment industries to try and convince users otherwise, so they’re motivated to go out and replace their existing music collections and playback equipment.

The marketing pressure for Sonos to comply, whether or not it makes sense technically, may become insuperable if for no other reason than to be able to tick the pesky ‘hi res’ box. If that ever did come to pass though I’d expect it to only affect the Port, with its digital output -- and maybe only for a wired or 5GHz network connection. There’d be zero logic in extending such support to the speakers, since they lack ultrasonic transducers. 

It’s also not a universal software fix because, despite later hardware quite possibly including a DAC capable of handling up to 192kHz (as indeed does the Port), there just isn’t any way of rendering the resulting ultrasonics without a supertweeter. Indeed if ultrasonics were present they’d quite probably degrade the sound owing to audible intermodulation products.  

No, if Sonos feels a burning compulsion to tick the ‘hi res’ box and get that monkey off its back my bet would be on a tweak to the Port firmware, as I sketched earlier. Whether they’d also include down-conversion to 24/48 in the Port so it could group with regular players, in the same vein as AirPlay requiring a capable ‘target’, is an interesting question.

I haven’t listened to hi res so don’t know if I could hear the difference but would like the option as available on my DAC and most equipment while still having the convenience of Sonos. At the same time would like Apple to make hires available as all my music is historically on Apple and Apple does have hires masters. I think with S2 and increasing bandwidth it is only a matter of time before Sonos and Apple make hires available as they are smart enough to know that even if only marketing for most people it is where market heading. 

Good afternoon

Do you know when you're updating the 24bit frequency so it works with 96Khz/192Khz encoded tracks please?

You're missing the point I'm making and I don't agree with your comments.

There's plenty of other users who are looking for this ability as this is where the standard is in my opinion! Sonos should be listening to their user base and not suggesting and making things personal.

This is constructive criticism and should be passed along to the engineering teams and technical teams as I'm sure this could be implemented very easily through a software update!

Who would benefit from ultrasonic transducers? By definition itself, not humans?

I can tell the difference with the higher frequecies over the lower ones, the detail is important....24 bit 96 or 192 needs to be implemented to give the user the choice

MQA? This discussion started off from Sonos’ recent introduction of 24-bit lossless decode.

A proprietary codec, implying licence costs, to squash ultrasonics into a 24/48 stream. One has to ask oneself: why?

Higher frequencies which are only audible to pets in a domestic setting? MQA is also an encoding technique which has thoroughly divided industry opinion. Many argue that, if one really wants higher sampling rates, internet bandwidth is now sufficiently plentiful that MQA is a solution to a problem that no longer exists. Personally I’d reckon the chances of Sonos supporting it are even lower than for 96kHz lossless.

By the way, it’s well understood that the ‘night and day’ differences between such ‘higher resolution’ material and the original can be entirely accounted for by the careful remastering that’s typically part of the equation. A down-conversion preserves all that. Sit back and enjoy it.

There’s no such thing, but I understand what you meant to say.