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High Resolution


Does the Sonos 2 app allow for high resolution playback now, or does it just enable it for future use?

my system is updated but a search will not show any Tidal Masters tracks.

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Best answer by Airgetlam 10 June 2020, 18:27

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According to the post here:

https://en.community.sonos.com/announcements-228985/introducing-s2-new-app-and-os-for-sonos-6841762

from Ryan S:

High Resolution Audio

 

With S2, Sonos speakers now have support for high resolution audio, 24-bit, 44.1/48kHz for FLAC/ALAC only. This support is for local music libraries shared from computers and network attached drives. We’ve updated the article on Sonos supported music formats here.

The Sonos Arc is a Dolby Atmos soundbar, and S2 brings support for that audio to Sonos for home theater and music. Dolby Atmos can be read from Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby MAT, and Dolby TrueHD.

In any case Tidal Masters is MQA, not PCM. Sonos doesn’t support MQA.

In any case Tidal Masters is MQA, not PCM. Sonos doesn’t support MQA.

Just to clarify this comment, Sonos will play back MQA files just fine, but the hi-res content is encoded in the lower 8 bits and Sonos does not decode them. It is basically just playing back the PCM audio in the upper 16 bits.

Without an MQA decoder, you wouldn’t be getting any better fidelity (and possibly worse) than Tidal HiFi anyway.

Indeed. My point was that even if Sonos’ 24-bit support was extended to streaming services this would be useless for MQA without a decoder. The lowest 8 bits (possibly 10 or 11 in fact) would be just noise.

While happy Sonos is supporting 24/44 bit music that bitrate only covers a small portion of high rez music. The majority of my music library is higher bit rates and I didn’t realize this failing until after the purchase of the product. Are there plans for supporting 24 bit 96 and 192khz files?

While happy Sonos is supporting 24/44 bit music that bitrate only covers a small portion of high rez music. The majority of my music library is higher bit rates and I didn’t realize this failing until after the purchase of the product. Are there plans for supporting 24 bit 96 and 192khz files?

Sonos doesn’t divulge their future plans, but I doubt it.

In the past they have questioned the merit of higher sampling rates, where files 2 or 4 times as large would potentially strain a wireless network only to deliver ultrasonic frequencies that are at best inaudible, and at worst damaging by introducing intermodulation effects.

High sampling rates have their place in the production chain, to avoid unnecessary filters, but are superfluous for final delivery. Though much of the industry would welcome the chance to sell new equipment and your music to you all over again, 44.1kHz sampling does in fact cover the entire range of human hearing.

As for your music collection, just run the files through a downsampling converter and play that copy. You’ll have all the benefits of any (re)mastering that went into your so-called hires versions and none of the downsides. 

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Lets increase the sampling rate, instead of having to down-sample to 48khz! There is a lot of folk on here who have collections in either 96/192khz.

https://en.community.sonos.com/music-services-and-sources-228994/24bit-support-only-goes-upto-44-000khz-48-000khz-6846393?postid=16475438#post16475438

 

Thanks again for your help

Lets increase the sampling rate, instead of having to down-sample to 48khz! There is a lot of folk on here who have collections in either 96/192khz.

https://en.community.sonos.com/music-services-and-sources-228994/24bit-support-only-goes-upto-44-000khz-48-000khz-6846393?postid=16475438#post16475438

We surely don’t need to go over that thread all over again.

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I don’t, but it does show Ratty, that there’s a lot of folk here in the forums...who keep asking the same “questions”.

~ stay save ~

I don’t, but it does show Ratty, that there’s a lot of folk here in the forums...who keep asking the same “questions”.

The ‘lot of folks’ probably amounts to a few dozen. Let’s be generous and say a few hundreds. And how do you think the ‘lot of folks’ stacks up, in relation to a total user base of millions? Tiny. It’s a niche (‘hi res’) of a niche (lossless) of a niche (local library play).

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LOL; good reply Ratty!

Every “vote” counts! Anyway 24bit up to a sample rate of 48kHZ, is a step in the right direction > > >