In uncompressed mode, the encoding is lossless quality. You only lose quality in compressed mode.

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Yes, but if the signal from the line-in has been decoded by a very good external DAC and is re-encoded/de-coded again by the sonos DAC then you probably loose the quality of your external DAC right ? (even if the encoding is lossless)

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Why would you lose quality? Lossless is lossless. Do you think something can be "more lossless" than not losing anything from the original? Much of the "high quality DAC" talk is snake oil nonsense, an ADC capable of exactly encoding an analog signal is a commodity device costing a few dimes. A DAC indistinguishable from the so called "high quality" DACs is not much more.



But if you believe in such things, then yes you will suffer a loss from the lossless encoding. It makes no logical sense, but most audiophile voodoo doesn't make sense anyway. It's a matter of faith.

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When you connect to the line-in connector of a Play 5 in a stereo pair, am I right to assume that the Play 5 is recording the line-in (ADC), streaming it to the second Play 5 which is decoding it back (DAC) ?



If this is is the case, isn't there a loss of quality ?



It just boils down to this:



Do you want avail of the feature and expand your access to more music of perfectly acceptable quality - subject to the quality of the recorded music of course?



Or do you want to be anal about the subject and live without this useful feature?

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Surely if one was to use "a very good external DAC" one wouldn't think of connecting it though a pedestrian 3.5mm jack made out of mere base metal?

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