Up the bit-rate with better-than-CD-quality streaming with Amazon and Sonos
Amazon Music HD has worked hand in hand with Sonos speakers for a while now.
Essentially, if you have an Amazon Music Unlimited plan, and you stream to Sonos using Bezos’ music platform, you’d be making the most of the HD tier; i.e. ‘CD-quality’.
CD-quality, when it comes to music streaming, is the consumer friendly way of describing 16-bit tracks. There’s a bit more to it than that, but that’s the basic line.
The good news is that, last year, Amazon stopped charging for HD streaming with its Unlimited Plans and so, if you’ve been using Sonos and Amazon Music, you’d be tapping into the HD streams where available – and there’s lots of them to choose from; over 75 million at the last count.
Essential guide: Understanding Amazon Music Unlimited
Ultra HD on the other hand, which whacks the bit rate up to 24 and classes itself as “better than CD quality”, has previously been missing from a Sonos setup.
Until now, that is – the multi-room speaker giant has just gone live with support for Amazon Music Ultra HD audio, as well as Dolby Atmos Music.
Here’s what you need and how to get started…
Sonos speakers and Amazon Music Ultra HD / Dolby Atmos Music
The first thing to do is to make sure that your Sonos S2 system is updated to the latest software.
This is super simple, just go to Settings > System > System Updates > Check for Updates on your Sonos S2 app.
After that, it’s simply a case of finding a song on Amazon Music that is available on Ultra HD or is a Dolby Atmos Music track.
Amazon has actually created a couple of handy playlists to get you started.
The Ultra HD one features 27 songs from the likes of Radiohead, Beck and Little Simz; and the Dolby Atmos playlist has 17 tracks from artists including Dua Lipa, The Beatles and Taylor Swift.
You’ll know you’re streaming in Ultra HD or Dolby Atmos as the app will show a little badge on the playback screen, like so:
What Sonos speakers work with Ultra HD / Dolby Atmos Music
The big caveat here, of course, is that not all Sonos speakers are invited to the Ultra HD party.
Sonos currently supports streaming hi-res audio from Amazon Music Unlimited (which streams up to 24-bit, 48 kHz for Sonos), through the S2 app only, on the following speakers:
- Sonos Roam
- Sonos Arc
- Sonos Beam (both generations)
- Sonos Five
- Sonos Ray
- Sonos Sub (all generations)
- Sonos Move
- Sonos One / One SL
- Sonos Port
- Sonos Amp
- Sonos Symfonisk Bookshelf / Table Lamp
- Sonos Play:5 (2nd-gen)
- Sonos Connect (2nd-gen)
- Sonos Connect:Amp (2nd-gen)
- Sonos Era 100
- Sonos Era 300
Streaming Dolby Atmos Music is more limited. Spatial audio is available on the new Sonos Era 300, 2nd-gen Sonos Beam and the Sonos Arc.
Of course, you can still group non supported speakers to these Ultra HD friendly speakers and playback music, but they will be limited to the regular HD (16-bit) streams.
If you’re not interested in Amazon Music then you’ll be pleased to know that Sonos has also recently added Apple Music to the spatial audio mix.
