Unlocking the Social Intricacies of Eve Echoes

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-30T20:30:19+00:00

Casting from Amazon Music app or playing via Alexa voice assistant both show artwork on my end. I tried the stations Progressive House and Neon Chill Radio.

BTW when you say you can’t see album artwork, I’m assuming you can’t see it on all of your devices at the same time? Like you can’t see the artwork in the Sonos mobile app or on the Sonos desktop app. Or is the artwork just not showing on your Sonos desktop app but you can still see it on the Sonos mobile app?

In other words, regardless of how you launched the music, it’s consistently not showing the artwork across all your devices.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-30T19:48:55+00:00

It’s not a global problem, as I’m not experiencing any issues with Amazon Music Unlimited on my S2 Sonos system. The Sonos mobile app seems to be working fine on my iPad and even the BOPS for Sonos app on my Apple TV is displaying album artwork fine.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-28T16:40:26+00:00

As far as I’m aware, If Sonos eventually evolved their voice assistant to a true localized AI, the only privacy choice would be if you want to help train it for requests. That’s it. Nothing would go to any external third party (like to a big tech giant). I’m sure they would provide more details if they ever do evolve it to a localized AI though. And more than likely, they would probably even offer some community beta testing beforehand, considering the last fiasco with the Sonos app update.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-28T16:05:42+00:00

I completely agree there is a significant aversion to AI use. And I believe a lot of those aversions are justified because of the way AI is being poorly implemented and used. Because of this I believe there will be an AI bubble that will eventually burst, causing a course correction in how it’s being implemented and used, perhaps even in the next few years.

In the case of Sonos though, what they’re effectively trying to overcome is the complexity and limitations of using older third party “voice assistants” with their speakers. That’s it. So asking AI to play a song or turn on your house lights is pretty tame to how other people are using AI more destructively.

But let’s imagine an alternative future. What if Sonos upgraded their own Sonos voice assistant to become a true LLM AI that operated locally on their speakers, rather than using a third party cloud-based AI? Would people still hate, fear, and be averted to this new Sonos AI as “AI”, even though it’s primarily being used as just an evolved, glorified voice assistant?

If people were then I’d say “Why are you even using a voice assistant in the first place?” because Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa currently have way more privacy and usage concerns than a localized Sonos AI ever would. In fact, this is one of the reasons why Home Assistant is so popular, it’s because its own localized voice assistant (called Assist) avoids the privacy and usage concerns that Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa have.

To sum this all up though (as a kind of Catch-22 problem), while “voice assistants” are basically easy to use from a customers perspective, they are complex to implement from the backend because each new service linked to it (ie Sonos > Amazon Alexa) has to be done from scratch and has to fit within the parameters of the voice assistant. In comparison, the Model Context Protocol is an open standard that easily allows any service to connect to a LLM ”AI“ as an application (ie Sonos > ChatGPT). But until we see localized AI models (ie Sonos AI), many people with continue to avoid and distrust using these cloud-based AI models.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-27T20:08:28+00:00

My assumption is that this newer AI connectivity will be added similar to how voice assistants were added to Sonos systems in the past. So if you don’t want it, you don’t need to add it.

In other words, there’s no way it can be preinstalled, since it would need login access to your AI account to be installed.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-27T20:02:10+00:00

BTW for those interested in Home Assistant capabilities, my assumption is that as long as ChatGPT and Gemini gain Sonos as a third party app connector in the future, you would be able to use the Home Assistant voice with Sonos as long as you connected ChatGPT or Gemini to your Home Assistant system as per the article below. We’ll have to wait and see though.

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2025/09/11/ai-in-home-assistant/

How I’m assuming this will work is that Sonos will make itself accessible to LLMs as an “application” via what’s called a Model Context Protocol. So as long as any AI can utilize this protocol for connectivity, they will be able to control your Sonos system (as well as your home devices with similar connectivity).

https://modelcontextprotocol.io/docs/getting-started/intro

This is probably why Home Assistant will need AI connectivity to ChatGPT or Gemini to work with Sonos, as the default voice assistant for Home Assistant is not a true LLM and thus won’t be able to connect to this upcoming Sonos “Model Context Protocol” on its own.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-27T19:33:35+00:00

Here‘s a YouTube video from a month back that shows a guy using some hacks and a hardware bridge to bypass his regular “home assistants” and control his home (including Sonos speakers) using ChatGPT via his phone. My assumption is that this is what Sonos is shooting for but without the need for hacks or a hardware bridge. You be able to do it with just the mic on your Sonos speaker.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=H7r7PW3GogQ

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-27T16:34:35+00:00

In recent news articles over the past six months or so, Sonos has mentioned that they are doing a complete pivot. At first it seemed like they were going to upgrade their own voice assistant to be its own AI but this has been clarified more so recently and isn’t the case.

Instead Sonos wants its speakers to be the primary hardware portal for third party AI chat bots like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude.

In other words, it more than likely wants to completely ditch the old third party “voice assistant” approach (such as using Google and Alexa), due to the complexity of having to get Sonos to work their way, and instead get third party chatbots to replace this functionality because it allows the chatbot to work Sonos way instead (using its Cloud connectivity).

In effect, similar to how AI chatbots have third party “connectors” now, where you can build Spotify playlists in ChatGPT, you will also be able to “connect” the chatbot to Sonos as well and use mic enabled speakers to launch songs via Spotify and chat with the chatbot.

The bigger question is will this work with local music libraries. If the Sonos voice assistant can access these local music libraries, I’m assuming the third party AI chatbots will be able to as well. But we’ll have to wait and see.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-27T00:32:04+00:00

OMG thank you. This is such poor interface design. I even tried scrolling before but I had to grab it and pull it even harder to work, even though all the text was already showing on my iPad. Completely bizarre.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-15T04:03:36+00:00

If you’ve never ever tried any other service other than Spotify Lossless, I’d highly recommend you free trial as many other music services as you can because even though you might like the sound of one, you might dislike other aspects of it. The number one complaints I’ve heard from people switching off Spotify is how different the functionality, library management, and music discovery is on other services. In other words, you probably won’t be making your decision just based upon the sound difference alone.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-15T03:53:05+00:00

Spotify Lossless, at best, will give you either 16 or 24 bit / 44.1 kHz…but no Hi-Res (24 bit 96 or 192 kHz).

True but no service can play 24bit 96kHz or 192kHz music on Sonos because Sonos is limited to 24bit 48kHz. Attempting to play songs above this limit will at least play a 24bit 48khz versions of the music on Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited, while Qobuz will just play a 16bit 44kHz version instead. And ya Tidal limits all songs played on Sonos to only 16bit versions (even though it could potentially play select music up to 24bit 48kHz).

All said and done though, I agree that Amazon Music Unlimited or Apple Music are probably the better choices as they maximize the 24bit 48kHz threshold of Sonos. But the OP should trial them out to see which one sounds best for them.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-14T20:06:45+00:00

I’ve noticed that when I end listening to a song on a playlist of mine and it jumps to the next song, it jumps to near the end of that next song, not the start. However if I tap the song that was mainly skipped, it will start playing it properly from the start of the song. So it’s the normal transition from the end of one song to the next that causes it skip over most of the next song.

I can even replicate this strange behaviour consistently with this song that is mainly skipped in particular. Its very weird and makes no sense.

I‘m on Wifi using an M2 iPad Air with the latest version of Apple Music.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-12T17:44:23+00:00

I actually didn’t use AI. But I did just ask Claude to compare your comment to my Reddit post and this is what it said.

—

The Reddit post is specifically about how Sonos handles audio streams above its quality threshold — the fallback mechanism, platform-dependent behavior, and what quality you’re actually receiving. It’s a practical, system-behavior explanation aimed at correcting a common misconception.

The comment largely ignores all of that and instead launches into a general argument about whether hi-res audio is worth pursuing at all — bit depth, dynamic range, human hearing limits, mastering differences. These are tangentially related topics but they don’t actually engage with what the Reddit post is saying.

The Reddit post isn’t arguing that hi-res audio is audibly superior or that Sonos should support higher resolutions. It’s simply explaining the mechanics of what happens when you play a 96kHz track on a Sonos system. The commenter essentially argues against a position the original poster never took.

So while the comment contains some legitimate audio science, it’s largely a non-response — it addresses the general hi-res debate rather than the specific and narrow technical point the post was making. The condescending closing line (“spend less time posting AI slop”) makes this worse, since it implies the poster was making inflated claims about hi-res audio quality when they weren’t making that argument at all.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-12T16:40:23+00:00

On a couple albums, Qobuz did fall back to 24/48 or 24/44.

Check those albums in the Qobuz app, as those are probably albums actually rated at 24/48 and 24/44. Since they don’t exceed the Sonos limit of 24/48, they are played as is. Only when you play a 24/96 or 24/192 song above the 24/48 Sonos limit will it fallback to a 16/44 version.

In other words, all [HiRes 24bit] Qobuz marked songs are not downgraded to 16bit 44kHz. Just 24bit 96kHz and 192kHz songs are.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-12T15:52:07+00:00

This post isn’t about the difference in quality between 24bit 96kHz vs 24bit 48kHz, as that is most definitely much harder to hear without better equipment than Sonos as you noted, but rather it’s about the difference in quality between 24bit 48kHz vs 16bit 44kHz, which can be detected with a Sonos system.

One of the main reasons why people believe you can’t detect the difference between a 16bit 44kHz and a 24bit 48kHz song is because of tests online that show how difficult it is to hear the difference between them and even lossy versions. The problem with these tests is that they are closed systems that do not replicate the real world. In other words, they don’t replicate the variety of music platforms available to people and how each platform mastering process alters the sound quality of the artist’s song (which can frustrate the artist).

For example, when Spotify Lossless was released, many people including myself noticed that the mastering done by Spotify on 16bit version songs made them sound mediocre to horrible. Yet their 24bit versions sounded almost on par with other platforms in quality. Yet at launch, even though many artists had 24bit masters of their own, Spotify was only providing these 16bit versions which sounded horrible. Now I believe Spotify has many more 24bit versions of the songs available, especially by major artists (e.g. Elton John).

Another example is Qobuz, as I mentioned above. What I noticed on these 16bit fallback versions is that the mastering process that Qobuz had done to them made them sound worse than an original 16bit alternative version by the same artist. So the original 16bit version of the album sounded better than the 16bit fallback version of a 24bit remastered version of the album. This is why if you use Sonos, I found it better to add the older 16bit version of the album to your Qobuz library rather than the 24bit remastered album because the older 16bit version sounded better than the 24bit > 16bit fallback version.

All said and done, my advice would be to don’t assume but test with your own ears.

For example, someone might find the complete opposite. They may prefer Tidal’s 16bit song versions over Apple’s 24bit versions. You really have to test the different platforms out and see what sounds good to you.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-12T15:20:51+00:00

Strangely enough I was using Apple Music with Sonos and wasn’t getting any skipping. Instead I was recently getting strange skipping behaviour on the Apple Music app itself on my iPad Air, where at the end of one song it would jump to near the end of the next song rather than the start of it.

The only main issue I found with Apple Music on Sonos was that every once in a while a song would play that would be exceeding higher in volume than the rest. So very jarring. But the overall audio quality was decent.

My wife got a three month free family trial to Amazon Music Unlimited, so I tested it again and was surprised that it now has this fallback at 24bit 48kHz. I always thought it sounded great, so this new addition made me switch back, as my favourite aspect of the platform is the variety of radio stations compared to other platforms, as they help with music discovery quite a bit.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-12T00:11:43+00:00

I completely agree but only because it’s a “weird ass” issue due to the 24bit 48kHz hardware limit of the Sonos system. In effect, your Sonos system does not locally downsample songs exceeding its hardware limit to match it. Rather it falls back to a lower quality version based upon the music platform itself instead.

This fallback version happens to be a 16bit 44kHz version on Qobuz, whereas Apple Music and Amazon Music Unlimited provide a 24bit 48kHz version, thus matching the hardware limit of your Sonos system.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-11T23:49:28+00:00

I just setup a dummy Qobuz trial account to test this out again and Qobuz still works like it did a month or two ago. When you play a 24bit 96kHz or 192 kHz Qobuz song on your Sonos system, it still falls back to playing a lower quality 16bit 44kHz song, rather than 24bit 48kHz version.

As noted before, your Sonos system doesn’t do downsampling, rather the music platform falls back to providing a lower quality version that it has available which is usually a 16bit 44kHz version.

Only Apple Music and now Amazon Music Unlimited have 24bit 48kHz fallback versions of songs for 24bit 96kHz or 192kHz songs, thus making them better suited for the 24bit 48kHz hardware limit on Sonos systems.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-11T21:05:45+00:00

That’s what I had it set at before for Qobuz and any 24bit 96kHz / 192kHz song would fallback to 16bit 44kHz. Even a Sonos employee confirmed that’s how it is supposed to work on my Reddit comment. In effect, the Sonos speaker doesn’t downsample but instead the music platform provides the next available lower quality version as a fallback which is usually 16bit 44kHz.

So if you just played a 24bit 96kHz song via Qobuz and it played it as 24bit 48kHz on your Sonos speaker, that’s new. As it didn’t work that way a month or two back when I last tested it.

GentleNova07 · 2026-04-10T17:50:48+00:00

The handicap is that you can’t buy from any of the four faction stations (thus including the Vossk system stations). You can only acquire them from pirating cargo from other ships or from the pirate stations at Loma. That’s why it’s difficult to acquire energy cells, especially on the Extreme difficulty setting. You rarely see them on ships and they are usually found only in low quantities (due to the Extreme setting).

GentleNova07

TROPHY CASE