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I'm using the TuneInApp for several years now on my smartphone, tablet, Mac and - of course - on my Sonos devices. iTunes offers hearers the possibility to choose from different stream qualities a radio station provides. It would be great if I also may choose them from within the Sonos controller apps. This may also practical when a user is on holidays: when the user takes his Sonos Play: loudspeaker with him 😉 and connects it to a mobile 3G/LTE router this could help saving bandwidth.
I have also found that the BBC stations via Tunein always seem to default to the low quality 56k streams, which makes them sound very poor.  I actually raised this with Tunein support and they responded with the following:

Thank you for contacting us regarding this issue. We have requested that Sonos implement the ability for the end user to choose the stream quality from all of the streams that are available within TuneIn. We hope they implement this feature in the future. Currently Sonos takes many things into consideration including stream reliability and quality when selecting the stream. There is not a way to override this selection.
I am currently getting around this by adding my own manual radio stations via the Sonos PC controller.  For example the following url can be used for BBC Radio 1 at 128k stream quality:



http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/listen/live/r1.asx



The only downside is that you don't get the station images and 'On Now' info.  Sonos, please implement something to allow us to pick the stream quality.
This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled Sonos is not using the high quality radio/TuneIn streams.. We have a lot of radio stations from DR (the Danish BBC) and they are all available in 96kb and 192kb, but Sonos seems to use the low quality stream. I'm using a 60/60Mbit fiber connection and it's been quite reliable so I doubt it's a problem with my line. Please make it possible to use choose between the available streams.



Example radio station: http://tunein.com/radio/DR-P3-939-s24861/
Let's hope Sonos implements that feature soon.
Yes, I also had a reply after a long wait from Tunein which contradicted what I'd been told previously by somebody at Sonos, but it confirms what was said above. Basically Sonos is choosing the stream. "Thank you for contacting us regarding this issue. The Sonos system picks one stream from our back end API. There is no way to change the stream that is picked. " I can understand this from a reliability perspective, but it does not make sense when the client internet speed is +30mbs but Sonos is choosing 56k streams, to the detriment of the sound quality. Let's work to fix this, Sonos.
@reneallard IMO it isn't that it is difficult to implement, I think for sure they could. But that they make design decisions to keep the user facing software simple as possible. Development is slow and usually only include a few new items. This is why they are successful.



If the missing features are important you can plug a Squeezebox to a Sonos line in or use the squeeze2sonos/upnp LMS plugin.
Having recently bought a SONOS Connect after having spent years with still functioning Logitech Squeezeboxes, I am quite surprised that the Squeezeboxes, not having been officially supported for 3 years, still manage to easily select bit rate for radio stations via the context menu of stations within their TuneIn app. This is just one example of many where the SONOS system lacks functionality that many other systems possess. And unlike some years ago when their only real competition was Slimdevices/Logitech, today there are new companies/products becoming available at a rapid pace. SONOS simply cannot afford to respond so slowly to requests to add simple functions that their increasing competition readily provides. Please add this function, I cannot believe it is that difficult to implement!
+a million for this. i listen to quite a bit of radio and streaming internet radio has the most noticeable poor quality when set to the lower bit rate. everything else i listen to on sonos sounds great. PLEASE allow us to choose the bit rate for radio!
It does seem odd and unacceptable that Sonos, which is high end kit, does not give an option for TuneIn such as "always choose highest bitrate". Listening at sub optimal bitrates is not consistent with the Sonos brand and needs to be addressed. From a programming point of view this must be possible.
sorry, i meant how does one see the audio quality (bitrate) currently. How do I know what bitrate my radio stations, even manually added ones are currently using?

Have a look at this forum post, this is the method that I use:



http://forums.sonos.com/showthread.php?t=39657
Yes, I find the whole thing astonishing. Still, their new controller has lovely pictures and menus... But no bitrate option/info.
A big +1 for this suggestion.  The current arrangement leaves sound quality of most radio stations to chance for the great majority of users (who will never venture into researching and storing their own custom radio station URL's).  This does nothing for Sonos's otherwise well-earned reputation for quality music reproduction.



I was reminded of this today when I mistakenly played BBC Radio 1 via the TuneIn button - it was pretty much unlistenable at 56kbps.
Another point:  BBC are stopping all their WMA radio streams from February, and replacing them with aac and SHOUTcast streams.  These WMA streams are the ones I currently use on Sonos (via custom radio station URLs), giving eg Radio 1 & 6 Music at 128kbps.



I keep my fingers crossed that when the BBC implement this change, they will change their station URL lists to put the highest bit rate streams at the top, so that Sonos picks these in preference. But we shouldn't have to leave it to chance - an option to choose highest/lowest bit-rate stream would give us control.
+1 for this problem, if Sonos are interested in providing the best sound then they need to support the ability to deliver the highest bit rate available. The whole BBC incident just shows how fragile these platforms are. While video/Tv moves to ever higher resolution picture video sound/radio is going backwards with lower bit rates.
How is this even a problem Sonos? Fixing it could hardly be more than a days programming.
I remember being able to search for stations on sonos by bit-rate, meaning I could choose to listen to some stations streaming as high as 320kbs. Why is this not the case anymore? I too made the mistake of thinking sonos was a high end product but Between this and their refusal to step-up and release a high res compatible version of their streamer I now find myself questioning where sonos sit in the market. For me it's time to invest in a high quality (hi-if) audio streamer. Good bye sonos
+2 for this. Come on SONOS!!
This is really ridiculous! No change in two years!

Even my cars satnav (Merc C-Class) displays the bitrate and I can choose, which stream I'd like to listen.



Come on Sonos, make this finally happen! We want to see the bitrate of radio stations and mp3 files somewhere in the controller app and we also want to be able to choose from the different stream qualities provided by the radio stations (like in the TuneIn Radio App).
As far as I know it' s possible to google a station' s highest bitrate stream and enter that url manually, using the pc gui, and connect to that stream. elllroy
Is it really so difficult for the client-side ( Sonos ) to get the list of available bit-rates and sort it in the order that makes sense? Then use that ordered list to connect at the best available rate.
It's pretty easy to add the url for the high bitrate stream as a custom radio station
If it's true that the first stream in the list gets selected that is just poor programming. Shame on you Sonos, if that's true. What they should do is look at the all stream info for a station and sort them according to bitrate pick the best one.
sorry, i meant how does one see the audio quality (bitrate) currently. How do I know what bitrate my radio stations, even manually added ones are currently using?

I've not got access to Windows. Luckily when I did I added the 6 music stream. It didn't appear again after moving house until I added my Connect. So I have 6 music streaming now at decent quality
I know that Tunein actually "chooses" the bitrate, but I don't know if there's any dynamic or "intelligent" method for selecting a bitrate. I do know that sometimes a radio station sounds lossy and other times it sounds fine. I too would like to be able to have a degree of control over the bitrate.
sorry, i meant how does one see the audio quality (bitrate) currently. How do I know what bitrate my radio stations, even manually added ones are currently using?
Just the audio quality. It's very noticeable.
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