Sound quality better on boost than 'just' wifi. Fact.

​@jgatie is absolutely right. It’s like saying a pdf is much clearer to read when you download it via 2.4ghz WiFi rather than 5ghz.

Ditch the Boost. 
 

Edit: I’ve asked ChatGPT too just in case we’ve missed something but there is no way the stream can be different between Boost or router. Sonos isn’t adaptive and so if, for example, your router suffered jitter or packet loss, it wouldn’t drop from Lossless or Atmos or HD to a lower resolution to accommodate, it would just drop out or stutter. So your router isn’t impacting the sound quality.

Did you change the SonosNet channel as well?

Change your Sonos system’s wireless channel | Sonos

What is the source of your music? Are you Grouping Rooms?

Where’s this going?

I think they’re trying to determine why the OP perceives a difference. Digital data is merely digital data. There’s not supposed to be any difference in it depending on the way it is delivered, so I think they’re looking for interference in the speakers not receiving all the data. But whether it’s in a number 10 envelope delivered by mail, or in a FedEx envelope, the letter inside is still the same. 

The only way interference will manifest itself is if the streaming buffer runs out trying to resend bad or missing packets, which will result in stuttering, then dropouts.  There’s no way interference can result in subjective changes to the music, like a less “crisp” or “punchy” sound.  Packet loss doesn’t work like that (much to the chagrin of many an audiophile).

Which makes sense in a digital package, which Sonos uses to communicate between devices. Which is why the OP’s post is so confusing. 

Could be the OP is playing two different sources like Lossless vs. Lossy or Amazon Music vs. Apple Music.  Volume difference can also trick the ears into thinking there are differences when there are none.  Testing has showed that even when the ear cannot discern a volume difference (under 3 dB), one will “feel” a difference in quality without hearing the change in volume.

It’s interesting to note that since their initial post the  OP has not yet responded to the comments and speculation on here. 

Not everyone lives on the forums :)

The OP will have got emails every time someone posted a reply. You don’t have to live on the forum to know when someone has tried to answer their query. But I’m sure the OP will find your reply insightful.

Maybe one of these could improve the sound when using the Boost 😀

AudioQuest Ethernet Cable

🤣 

Thanks for all the suggestions. I always understood digital encoding to be a complex mathematical process of sampling rates vs bit depth vs compression algorithms, and that’s just when recording/encoding the sound or picture. Upon decoding & streaming more layers of computation is involved. So I’m not sure about the comments referring to the fact that it’s just 1s & 0s. But maybe I misunderstood. 

One of the reasons I asked the question in the first place is because, as correctly stated above, Sonos does not do ABR. So how could this scenario make any difference?

What we have ascertained so far is this: 

The house is quite small, as mentioned in the OP. So you can hear a very small amount of bleed through from other rooms, depending on where you stand/sit. However, assuming all speakers are synced, this should not present any issues. Right?

Aside from streaming, what can change between the main wifi router and the Boost? Only the UDP transmission. (please do correct me if I’m wrong on this?). I don’t have sensitive enough tools to measure this, but the assumption now is that due to the much lower processing overhead and lack of multiplexing, the streaming from the Boost is significantly more ‘in sync’ than the router. Not as much as you’d hear an echo, so probs <10ms. None the less though, more than enough for the human ear to perceive a difference in sound.

Assuming that is the case, then the sync between rooms being a tiny tiny amount ‘out’, would soften the sound. Run off the Boost however and the sync is so sharp that the sound is crisper and the bass more defined. As far as I can see then, it’s a simple issue of wave superposition. It’s only by talking it through here that made me think of it. Keen to hear any alternative suggestions?

Sorry, I meant to add: My issue then, is to keep moving the boost around until I lose the interference that is causing the drop out. 

​@BarneyM 

Ultimately, if the Sonos Boost approach is the one you feel provides the better sound (whether placebo or technically-oriented), then that’s the one you will want to have working properly. 

Given the Boost doesn’t need to be the product plugged into the router or switch, but can instead be a wireless Sonosnet distribution source, can you connect one of your more convenient speakers to the router or switch by ethernet to instigate Sonosnet, and then simply place your Boost somewhere central in the house (or at the point equidistant from the first speaker and your furthest Sonos speakers) so that it acts as a literal booster for Sonosnet to help the signal reach all your speakers. 

This should overcome the issue of speakers cutting out when walking in front of the speakers, and ensure you have a solid Sonosnet setup that you feel is better on your ears.

Thanks Rhonny. A very sensible suggestion. I don’t have a speaker near the wifi router, but I could grab a very long ethernet cable and give that a bash. I did try to connect the Boost over wifi when i first got it, but with no success. However, I understood that if you create SonosNet via a speaker you wouldn’t need the Boost anyway? Or did I misunderstand that? 

Correct (unless you have a huge void to straddle with no speakers as a means of getting the signal distributed). I used to have a Boost amongst all my speakers to help with signal. But I removed it and found I really didn’t need it after all, especially when I bought better Sonos speakers. 
I don’t use Sonosnet any more anyway, but I know you’d prefer to. So maybe just ditch the Boost and see if simply connecting one speaker to the router/switch does the same (or better!) job of linking them all up. 
NB- the Boost has less support with the new app anyway, I’ve read, so it might be time to let it go…!

At least one SONOS unit must be wired in order to build SonosNet. BOOST reduces costs by omitting the audio processing. At inception SonosNet uniquely provided the capability to support 32 players on a home network and keep the players time aligned. Competitors were struggling with just a few players — wired or wireless. Competitors began to license SONOS patents, but I’m not aware of any that licensed the full SonosNet wireless mesh. At one point competitors were bashing Sonos for “lying” about being a “wireless” system when at least one unit needed to be wired. This became such a marketing issue that SONOS was giving away a BRIDGE (BOOST’s predecessor) with a player. Eventually, WiFi improved and, since it was almost a cheap trick for SONOS to eliminate the wired connection requirement, the competition’s boast was eliminated overnight.

Currently, the newest players don’t support SonosNet and are WiFi only, but mixed systems are supported.

Time alignment is not easy. In the CD player era you could simultaneously start two players playing a copy of the same album and by the end of the first track there would be an obvious time skew. You can play SONOS all day and through the night without developing a significant skew. Time alignment alignment is maintained within about 2ms. It is possible for some people to detect the gentle skew adjustments, but bring a sandwich and a drink, sit in a fixed position … pay close attention … and wait.

​@BarneyM,

If you are very sensitive to the skew adjustments (very few individuals are) and your network is struggling, there will be more frequent skew adjustments. In this case the presence or physical location of BOOST might be significant for you — potentially resulting in fewer skew adjustments. Network issues will not cause “static”. If conditions are so severe that the buffers are exhausted, the player will mute.

It is.  But it is wrapped in a transport method which guarantees that each packet of information will arrive exactly as it is in the original.  So every download from the same source will arrive exactly the same as the source, or it will cause errors like dropouts or stuttering due to missing packets.  There is no possibility that an error could modify the stream to be “crisper and punchier” because if a packet arrives with a single bit missing or added, that packet is rejected and resent from the source.  

Think about it.  A program on your computer or an app on your phone will not run if there is one single bit out of place.  It just won’t.  But we download and run programs/apps every day.  That’s because the transport method used for downloading checks that each and every packet is exactly the same as the original, thousands of times a second, and if it isn’t, it re-requests the packet until it is.  Same thing with music, except the music has to be almost real-time, so if it re-requests too many times, it exceeds the buffer and causes stutters and dropouts.  Regular downloads don’t care about how long they take, so they can sit there and re-request until it times out or fails.

If the “difference” in sound is due to skew, it should be easy to test.  Play the source on ungrouped, unpaired speakers that are the same model.  If skew is the cause (although I doubt skew could account for it sounding “soooo much better”) then the difference should disappear once sync issues are removed from the equation.