Sonos launches new Operating System in June

Until now, Sonos had held fast to the 48 kHz limit: in line with Apple's philosophy, they argued higher sample rates were unnecessary. In view of HiRes streaming services such as Qobuz, Tidal Masters or Amazon Music HD, the multiroom pioneer is now apparently rethinking its approach. Sonos has yet to say exactly what the new operating system, which will be pre-installed in all newly shipped products from June, has to offer. Parallel to the new OS, there will also be a new app. All currently available products can be updated to the new OS and then run with the new app. If you, however, want to use the existing, currently available devices together with the so-called legacy products (Connect, Connect:Amp, ZP80, ZP90, ZP100, ZP120 and Play:5 first generation) in a shared system, you can stay with the old operating system and the old app - and then have to do without the new features. The old app will continue to be available in the App Stores, in the future under the name "Sonos S1 Controller". The legacy devices cannot be upgraded to the new operating system because of insufficient hardware resources. However, security updates and bug fixes will continue to be available for the old operating system. It will not be possible to downgrade products available in June to the previous OS. These devices will therefore not be able to be combined with the legacy models in mixed operation. You would then have to set up two separate systems: the old devices with the old app in one system and the new devices with the new app in a separate system. As an alternative, Sonos offers a trade-up program with a 30% discount on all new products.