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The next generation of Sonos software is now available. Sonos S2 is a new app and an operating system for compatible devices, which brings support for higher resolution audio, saved groups, support for new Sonos products, and more.

Learn more about the Sonos S2 app on our S2 home page.

 

Support for the newest Sonos products

The all new Sonos Arc, Sonos Five, and Sonos Sub will require the Sonos S2 app. These new players are not supported by the Sonos S1 Controller. 

 

Saved Groups

The new S2 app can save groups of rooms to create groups quickly and easily. Once a group is created, you can select it to start playing music and the players will automatically group up. 

 

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. 

 

How to get S2

All Sonos systems will be able to update to Sonos version 11.2, which contains some bug fixes and stability improvements. This version is a new S1 update, and compatible with all players. 

Once the 11.2 update is completed, systems compatible with Sonos S2 will receive a notification that the new app is available. You can tap that notification to start updating and the new app which will guide you through updating compatible players to the new platform. If you don’t see the notification banner, you go to System Tools in Settings to check compatibility and update. Sonos S2 is Sonos version 12.0.

You can check our Sonos S2 Compatibility article for a list of products that are compatible with S2.​​​​​

 

Articles and important information about S2

We will support products on Sonos S1 with bug fixes and security patches, and we will do what we can to ensure they keep working with the music services you love given their limited RAM and processing power.

We’ve put together answers to some of the top questions we’ve seen around S2 here, so please check out the following articles on:

Sonos S2 Overview - A great starting place to learn more about S2.

Sonos S2 Compatibility - Information about the differences between Sonos S2 and S1, including which Sonos products are compatible.

Set up separate S1 and S2 systems - Learn how to set up a separate Sonos S1 system with Sonos products that are not compatible with S2.

Known limitations with separate S1 and S2 Sonos systems - This article covers what you can expect when using two separate S1 and S2 systems.

Set up a separate Sonos S1 system

Remove Sonos products that are not compatible with S2 - Instructions on how to use the product removal tool in the Sonos S1 Controller before updating to Sonos S2.

Information about Trade Up:

If you’re interested in updating older Sonos speakers, here’s all the details on our Trade Up program, a way to get a big discount on any new Sonos products that are S2 compatible.

Trade Up home page - Get a general overview of the Sonos Trade Up program.

Trade Up support article - Step by step instructions on how to trade up your eligible Sonos products.

So in summary paying for a Hi-Fi subscription to Tidal, Qobus or Deezer does not make sense because Sonos doesn't support it. 

You get lossless audio, but you don't get MQA.


 

Last but not least, bluesound doesn't use a separate wifi network like Sonos, and I never had any interferences issues. You know the BIG and only excuse used by Sonos support why your system isn't working properly. Obviously you cannot be a sound and network engineers in the same time. Pathetic. 

We have been able to use Sonos on normal wifi as a normal mode for many years now?


Finally I found the solution for Hi-res and MQA streaming compatibility. 

https://www.bluesound.com

Well, you are welcome to MQA.  Pure snake oil.  Better sound?  No - just expectation bias.

Good luck!


Finally I found the solution for Hi-res and MQA streaming compatibility. 

https://www.bluesound.com

Well, you are welcome to MQA.  Pure snake oil.  Better sound?  No - just expectation bias.

Good luck!

Agreed. I have a Tidal trial account right now, running through a traditional hifi separates system that is way better than my Sonos gear and there is precisely ZERO difference between MQA and the standard lossless.

TBH, I’m not 100% sure there is even any reliably detectable difference between the “Hi-Fi” level lossless and the 320kbps stuff. Certainly nobody is going to hear any different through Sonos all-in-one speakers.


Finally I found the solution for Hi-res and MQA streaming compatibility. 

https://www.bluesound.com

As with most ‘solutions’ - they have a tendency to ‘evaporate’...

 

Indeed no more issue and happy with my real Hi-fi sound. My jazz collections never sound better. 

Last but not least, bluesound doesn't use a separate wifi network like Sonos, and I never had any interferences issues. You know the BIG and only excuse used by Sonos support why your system isn't working properly. Obviously you cannot be a sound and network engineers in the same time. Pathetic. 

You do realize that the Bluesound Node 2i’s inherent noise level means it isn’t even capable of 16-bit resolution, right? :joy:

 

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-and-measurements-of-bluesound-node-2i-streamer.6631/


 

TBH, I’m not 100% sure there is even any reliably detectable difference between the “Hi-Fi” level lossless and the 320kbps stuff. Certainly nobody is going to hear any different through Sonos all-in-one speakers.

There have been a lot of studies on this and you are right, the vast majority of people can not distinguish the difference so long as it is 320kbps or higher. I am sure there are some out there that have very very good ears and have some very high end gear that can hear the difference and they of course should be able to choose and enjoy to listen to the lossless. I have tinnitus in both ears so 320kbps is more than fine with me and it also uses up a lot less disk space on my 10TB NAS. On a side note, just about everyone that I have setup Sonos for in their houses/apartments only use Sonos for background music which 128kbps is just fine for.


Anyone on here using URC Total control 2 and upgraded their Sonos S1 to S2 and can comment on if the the Sonos intergration still funtions?

Also anyone care to share how S2 works when internet is down for local music playback compared to S1? 

I am upgrading my system in April to S2 and want to be prepared.

Thx. 


No entiendo nada?


Anyone on here using URC Total control 2 and upgraded their Sonos S1 to S2 and can comment on if the the Sonos intergration still funtions?

Also anyone care to share how S2 works when internet is down for local music playback compared to S1? 

I am upgrading my system in April to S2 and want to be prepared.

Thx. 

You might be best to contact URC Automation to answer your question, or perhaps just setup a separate S2 HH with one or two currently compatible S1/S2 devices to check the compatibility with the URC system. As long as you retain an S1 HH, you can always go back and downgrade the devices to S1, if necessary.

https://www.urc-automation.com/contact-us/


Thanks Ken for the reply! Brilliant minds think alike, I purchased two newish Connects S2 capable units off eBay for a fraction of the cost of a new Port. Since my old Connect is S1 once I add the two new Connects I should be able to do some testing on this once my friend brings them down to me here in Colombia. :fingers_crossed_tone2:


Just an update and PSA for those with URC Total Control and are upgrading S1 to S2, S2 works just fine in place of S1 on URC Total Control. You will of course have to update the MAC of the Sonos unit to the new S2 units mac address for the URC Total Control system so see it.


Will our old “Docks” and “CR100s” work with the “new” S1 App / Controller software?


No. Those products have been retired, long ago.


No. Those products have been retired, long ago.


I only ask because when I looked up “About Your System” on the Sonos website, it seems to indicate that the CR100s and Docks are compatible with S1.

Scrolling down the list of items in our system we see:-

  1. The Boost, Sub and a few more show as OK with S2.
  2. The Playbar, Play 1s, Play 3s, and a few more show as S2 compatible but “Upgrade Eligible get 15% off”
  3. The ZonePlayers 100s, ZonePlayers 80s, CR200s, Play 5s (1st Gen) and others are not S2 compatible and say “ Sonos S1 Only” and “Upgrade Eligible get 30% off”.
  4. For the CR100s and Docks it says “Sonos S1 Only”. (No mention of being upgrade eligible, presumably because they were subject to older upgrade offer years ago?).

Anyway because the Sonos analysis of our system says that our CR100s work with:- “Sonos S1 Only”, the implication seems to be that the “new” S1 software has been modified to be backwardly compatible with the CR100s and Dock as well as the ZonePlayer 100, ZonePlayer 80 etc.

This is why I have asked Sonos to confirm if this is the case or not.


Excelente con la nueva actualización


I have upgrade to  S2 as requested on iMac but it won't open in applications. Why not? Any ideas please.


I’d highly recommend you open a new thread, rather than responding here in an announcements thread.

However, there are several things I’d look at in your case. 

  1. Which MacOS are you running? There are minimum requirements, posted here.
  2. Do you have any virus/trojan/VPN software running?
  3. Where did you download the file from? If it wasn’t Sonos directly, trash that file, and download a fresh one. 
  4. Less important to opening the file, but more important immediately after it opens: Are your Sonos devices on the same wifi subnet as your iMac?

It might be worth calling Sonos Support directly to discuss it. Much faster to resolution of the issue that way. 


With S2, Sonos speakers now have support for high resolution audio, 24-bit, 44.1/48kHz for FLAC/ALAC only. 


So I got a Roam.  It only works with S2 and I didn’t want to break my S1 setup, so I thought I’d use is as a separate system - just portable.  And this worked at first and sounded surprisingly good.  The next day, the S2 app couldn’t find my “system”, so I let it “look for it” and it proceeded to, with no warning, update all my S1/S2 components to S2 breaking my setup while also never finding the Roam.  And it looks like I cannot use the software to “downgrade” (repair) the chaos. I’ll probably have to reset and reset up most of my system.

“While we don’t recommend downgrading your products to S1 after updating to S2, it is possible to downgrade cross-compatible products by resetting them and adding them to an existing S1 system.”  - even though the S1 app is telling me to update back to S1, then it errors out. Great.  So reset is probably the only option.

It’s actually worse - that quote above is one of several suggested ways to fix things - it doesn’t work.  So then there is the product removal tool:

“Remove products using the removal tool
Open the Sonos S1 Controller app for iOS or Android.
From the Settings tab, tap System.
Tap System Tools, then tap Remove Products.
Follow the on-screen steps to select and remove your incompatible products.”

It doesn’t work either because the incompatible units make the app unusable and it wants to upgrade first, then fails.

So then you are down to: If Remove Products is grayed out or missing, you can remove any products that are not compatible with S2 by resetting them to their factory settings."  I.e., remove power and repower while holding a play/pause button of the link button.

And elsewhere they say “For normal issues, you should not use the factory reset option. This is kind of the nuclear resort that should be done when every option has been exhausted.”  So I’m down to going nuclear and yes, that’s about how frustrated I am with this.

RESET is a pain if any of your units are in difficult to reach places or if you have stereo pairs or if you have eq tuned them or any combination of theses.  And then there’s the Playbase which refuses to reset using the online instructions. Hmm….

All this for trying out a stupid portable speaker. Jesus!  If you have an S1 system and want to keep it, do not bother with any S2 only products - it’s a mess.

Between this and the annoying nag screen on S1 to update to S2 which won’t work for me and that I have dismissed numerous times it seems like Sonos is hell bent on pushing users to S2 to the point of screwing them over and wrecking the S1 setup.  I’m boxing the Roam up and sending it back.  This entire S1/ to S2 mess is the end of Sonos purchases for me - I’ll just ride out what I have until it becomes obsolete or dies and find whatever has moved in to take its place.


As I understand it, it should not be possible that Sonos “with no warning, update all (...) S1/S2 components to S2”. I'd be curious for a Sonos reaction on this statement,


I’ve had S1/S2 systems on the same LAN since S2 began and the S1 components (that are compatible also with S2 - Play:1’s for example) have not ever self-upgraded to S2. I have moved compatible devices between the two systems, both upgrading and downgrading their firmware and there’s plenty of information on how to go about that on the forum here.

Even if a controller app is factory reset, it asks the user to press the ‘join’ or ‘play/pause’ button to connect it back to whichever system is required, that’s of course if there are two or more systems running (and seen) on the LAN, if it only see’s the one HH it will connect to that and I suspect that’s what may have happened in this case - the “about box” in the App clearly shows which system a controller is linked to and I think that maybe should have been checked before running any suggested updates particularly when setting up an S2 controller app. 

Anyhow all is still not lost🤞in these circumstances, that’s as long as there is one non compatible S2 device that still exists (not a Bridge, ideally) as that will be needed to initiate the downgrade process to S1 using the ‘correct’ steps, which as I recall begin with removing the S2 controller App (or at least it used to, but I haven’t done a downgrade in a while to test the process hasn’t recently altered).

In a good many situations, it’s often perhaps easier to stick with S2, as there’s every chance a user will mistakenly upgrade some of their components to S2 again anyway, that’s if they are not entirely clear on what they are seeing in some messages/aspects that appear on screen. It’s important to read the text that is presented during setup/update, or mistakes can be made, despite the various (sometimes repeated) ‘warnings’ that the app presents on screen.


With S2, Sonos speakers now have support for high resolution audio, 24-bit, 44.1/48kHz for FLAC/ALAC only.  ****

In a good many situations, it’s often perhaps easier to stick with S2, as there’s every chance a user will mistakenly upgrade some of their components to S2 again anyway, that’s if they are not entirely clear on what they are seeing in some messages/aspects that appear on screen. It’s important to read the text that is presented during setup/update, or mistakes can be made, despite the various (sometimes repeated) ‘warnings’ that the app presents on screen.

 

*Moderator Note: Modified in accordance with the Community Code of Conduct, by removing spam links.


Hi, 
Was really hoping for 96Khz and DD+…
Thanks @Ryan S 

When it includes 96 and 192 kHz like other services have had for years, then we will know you are serious about HD.


Well that’s a welcome change!. always asking for more though…. 

  1. would be good to see higher def streaming services supported - especially Tidal - cant see the difference between a local library and streaming given most home internet setups. Hopefully you’re working on it. :) 
  2. And also to see the music format in the now playing screen like you do with the home theatre source in the latest s2 release.

Keep at it please! Also any plans for 96k?

4 x amp, 1 x play1, 1 x beam, 1 x roam 
 


I know you guys have had your hands busy but I wanted to say great job on the new ui update. The small changes made a huge difference. Peace and love.