Tír Na HiFi

Hi

I have just invested some money in Sonos equipment and would love to know if anyone else has had good/bad experiences with it. I can never see myself getting rid of my CD player (I still have a Linn Axis turntable as well) but for radio and also for convenience around the house, there is nothing to beat it, as far as I can see. It is not cheap as you really need a pair of speakers in each room to give proper separation, but when you do, it sounds really well. I have listened to a number of tracks that I have not heard for some time as they are on albums on which I don't like the other tracks (e.g. Pick up the Pieces by Average White Band). Using Sonos, you can listen to anything in any order.

I see some other threads talking about DAC and other stuff that I know nothing about, so any ideas there would also be great.

Mods, feel free to move this elsewhere or to delete it if you feel it is inappropriate.

DNT

DNT,
I have a Sonos zp90 connected to a dac,Perpetual Tecnologies P1A/P3A, which is a big improvement over the Sonos on it's own. It sounds very good. It is not quite as good as my Meridian 500 transport. It is an excellent product and with the ease of use and convenience you cannot go wrong. I have all my music backed up to a LaCie Nas drive and my Sonos can access it direct using my iPhone as a remote.

Mick

I have the ZP90 connected directly to the AV input of my amp, and it works well. I did a test with the same track on CD versus the zp90 and while there was a better sound from the CD proper, the ZP90 gave a good account of itself. How do the connections go? I have just had a look at the ZP90 and it has optical and digital out, so I presume I go out of of those and into the DAC? What might I expect to pay for a decent DAC?

Denis

I use the digital output into my dac. Cloney Audio have a selection of dacs from budget to high end. Check their website. Something like an Arcam Rdac would suit. You could also post a dac wanted add in the classifieds on this forum.

Could I ask if anyone else out there has had problems recently with RTE1. On my system, it comes in on the right channel only. The left channel is dead. This only happens with RTE1. I never listen to RTE2, so I am not sure about that, but Lyric is perfect, as are all other sources like my music library etc. I have two rooms in which I have a stereo pair, and I also have a ZP90 connected to the main stereo, so it is very obvious. It is not so obvious if you have a play 3 or 5 on its own in a room, although if you try changing the music equalisation to left only, you will be able to check. Last night, listening to a Beatles track on LAte Date, it really sounded weird, as some of the early Beatles tracks had a lot of stereo separation ie some instruments and voices almost entirely on one channel. It really did sound like listening to half of the tune!

If you can check it out on your system it would be great.

DNT

Little bit if a hijack here Dennis sorry! Mick I see you with the P1A/P3A setup. I have the same and permanently looking for a Monolithic P3 power plant. I have the P3 Modwright 1 and upgraded I2S cable. Perpetual Tech is a great Dac combo Dennis by the way, I too run a Meridian 500 transport Mk2 and the Dac is capable of very great things even with the right format music in iTunes and computer based Jplay. Endless fun (and frustration) when you start into streaming and computer audio. You never know when you get there/done the right thing as there are sooooo many options :-)

Rgds, Charlie

Charlie,
I have the Monolithic PS for the P1A/P3A. It is a significant improvement. I also have a silver 12s cable. I never tried the upgrade from modwright.Good luck with your search.
Mick

Mick/Charlie/other members

I feel like a real beginner here! I barely understand the contents of the last two posts (not giving out, just commenting!).

I have a really basic question which might involve redoing all I am working on at present.

I have ripped all my CDs to a NAS from which I play them using Sonos Play 3, Play 5 and ZP90 into the main stereo system. I am now in the process of saving all my LPs on the computer (one side per file at present, using Audacity). Are there settings I should look out for? In all cases, I record them at the highest level possible, so a typical track is anything from 4 to 8 MB in WMA format (from CD). the LPs are coming out as MP3s and an entire side is typically 20 MB.

At the moment the ZP90 is hooked up directly to the amp (Arcam A85 + Arcam Alpha 10 power) but I will be adding a DAC soon. I see conversations above about other equipment and settings that could improve things. Anyone who can shed light on any of the above (in short simple terms!!) would be very welcome to come in on the conversation.

BTW, I have no intention of getting rid of my Arcam CD72 or my Linn Axis turntable even though I have moved to the digital platform!!

Comments welcome.

DNT

I wouldnt be an expert here but got the jkdac and using eac to rip all my cds as others are. Files are much larger per track and hence better quality. Tracks could be upto 60mgb. flac or wav format. The quality from this unit is fantastic. Jplay is the software using to get best playback but again as others have pointed out you can use a wide variety of software to play files .I dont know anything about sonos I assume its a bit like the B&O systems that can play music anywhere around the house. Others especially Mick should be able to tell you what compromise you are making using sonos. It is probably a balancing act between convience and quality.

I have ripped all my CDs to a NAS from which I play them using Sonos Play 3, Play 5 and ZP90 into the main stereo system. I am now in the process of saving all my LPs on the computer (one side per file at present, using Audacity). Are there settings I should look out for? In all cases, I record them at the highest level possible, so a typical track is anything from 4 to 8 MB in WMA format (from CD). the LPs are coming out as MP3s and an entire side is typically 20 MB.

Storing an LP as 20MB means you are using MP3 i.e. 'lossy' compression. You should store then at least at CD quality [44.1/16] so a 45 min LP would take up about 400 MB. Even better you could store them as 96/24 quality but that depends on your A-to-D [analog to digital] converter. If you do this then you can't write the files to CD without changing the 96/24 to 44.1/16.

If you store the LP's as MP3's they may sound OK now but if you upgrade your hi-fi you will [probably] notice the difference. You are best to store the LP's as [at least] CD quality and then make MP3's from the CD quality recording. You can always throw away resolution but never recover it.

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By the way -- if you have everything backed up on a NAS consider making another copy as insurence.

james