Welcome to Product Support, a column devoted to helping you get the most out of the gadgets and software you already use.
In mid-2020, Sonos launched an entirely new app and rolled out a massive update — called S2 — to pretty much all of its speakers to “power the next generation of products and experiences.” That meant giving its speakers, both old and new, to play higher-quality audio (up to 24-bit/48 kHz). And now that's actually coming to fruition.
Sonos just announced that Qobuz is the first music streaming service that is able to play 24-bit high-resolution audio on Sonos speakers. In fact, if you're Qobuz subscriber and you have Sonos speakers running on its updated S2 app, you can start listening to this higher-quality audio right now.
Previously, Sonos speakers were only able to play CD-quality lossless audio (roughly 16-bit/44.1 kHz) and if you tried to play a 24-bit audio file (or higher) — it just wouldn't play.
If you subscribe to another lossless music streaming service, such as Tidal, Amazon Music HD or Deezer, you unfortunately can't listen to these 24-bit music files on your current Sonos speakers — but support for those services is expected to come soon.
If you're curious about what 24-bit audio files will sound like on your Sonos speakers, Qobuz is offering a 30-day free trial for new users (and there's no obligation to subscribe after the trial period is over). You'll probably have to have a higher-end Sonos speaker, such as a Five, Beam or Arc, (not to mention very good ears) to really hear the difference of these higher-resolution files. But you can find out for free!
