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Amazon HD: how to stream at cd-quality.

  • 16 June 2020
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Does the newest Sonos update allow us to stream at cd-quality from the Amazon Music app or do we still need to use the Sonos app to do so? 

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Best answer by Jean C. 26 June 2020, 22:23

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Hello @MIWI 

Thank you for reaching out to the Sonos Community with your question about Amazon Music and Sonos S2.

At this time there isn’t a change in the supported streaming rate from Amazon Music:256 kbps AAC & MP3 (up to 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC with Amazon Music HD).

I do not yet know when or if this might change going forward.     

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I’ve been battling dropouts with S2 since installing it.  After some reconfiguring and a Sonos support staff assist I thought I was there.

Amazon HD still gives about 10 seconds of silence and 5 seconds of garble with the first song.  It settles down, with an album selected, after that.  However with a shuffled list it does this every single song.  Also, the speakers in a stereo pair seem to buffer independently, and so behave differently during this time.  Aargh.  

I did the Amazon HD upgrade to use with a computer/DAC/amp combo, and it sounds great, with no lags.  We have a fiber connection to our network, and streaming multiple HDR video streams is no problem.  So the issue is not getting Amazon HD (some at 96kHz 24-bit) into the network.

I have the Napster subscription-quality stream, and last night built a Napster (only) playlist that played at 360k MP3 resolution, shuffling every song, without any issues at all. At one point I had three stereo pairs and two Connects playing. That means that my Sonos setup seems to be OK.

Finally Amazon HD, in the couple of pre-S2 weeks I had it, worked well on Sonos.

So it appears to be something in the Amazon HD and Sonos interaction that S2 brought to the surface.  One possibility is that S2 is reserving future bandwidth, even though, per above, not much is being used.  Is it an S2 problem, a hardware problem, or what?  I’m disappointed that this has happened but hopeful that Sonos will sort it out.  

ditto….

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I’ve been streaming using the S2 app to a Beam, a sub and 2 1’s, only occasionally using the Amazon HD app, no problem with garbling or delay with either app. Guess I’m lucky.