24-bit audio.
Unless Sonos has had a major philosophical change recently, the last I checked they refused to support 24 bit-audio. And their stated corporate rationale for refusing to do so was as insulting as it was nonsensical: That 24-bit audio "doesn't sound any better than 16-bit". Maybe it all sounds the same on their equipment. But that is a completely ridiculous position. A well-mastered 24/96 high definition stream starts to finally approach good vinyl playback in nuance, note decay, and tonal spectrum on a better system. The best Redbook isn't even close, and you can upsample it until the cows come home. You can't add what's already missing. Redbook is what kept me spinning vinyl through the digital dark ages. We play a lot of high definition media now. Very refined 24-bit filter and DAC chipsets have now been around for over 25 years. A BB PCM1704U-K grade chipset will still stomp all over whatever is in the newest Sonos and the horse it rode in on at 24-bit word lengths. The Touch, and the Transporter in particular, do a very capable job presenting these higher bitrate streams. It's one area where the Squeezebox team had foresight and crushed it. Sonos is patently full of it when it comes to 24-bit audio. The Squeezeboxes can't handle the newer 192 kHz sampling. But I have a very hard time hearing meaningful differences between 192 and 96 kHz, and we have a first-rate setup. And even if I could, there is even a digital pass-through app available through the community to pass it to a 196 khz capable DAC. Just my 2c on why a Sonos device will never enter our house. Never disparage 24-bit audio because your product can't handle it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ sgmlaw's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13995 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=109764 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
