Arcam Sonlink

[Philim]

hi

has anbody tried this yet? Are there any benefits over the sonos dac? i currently stream most of my music via spotify - would this bring me any benefits?

 

[The_Lhc]

Even if it does bring any benefits, there's almost no point buying the SonLink, it is based on the rLink but has fewer inputs and costs more (the rLink can be had for £134 from Tesco.com of all places), so, unless you absolutely must have a matching looking DAC for your Connect and are happy to pay 50 quid more for the privilege, you might as well buy an rLink.

 

[Deliriumbassist]

Even if it does bring any benefits, there's almost no point buying the SonLink, it is based on the rLink but has fewer inputs and costs more (the rLink can be had for £134 from Tesco.com of all places), so, unless you absolutely must have a matching looking DAC for your Connect and are happy to pay 50 quid more for the privilege, you might as well buy an rLink.

It isn't just based off the rLink- it IS an rLink! You can open the Sonlink up, and there is literally an rLink inside, black case/optical input and all, plus the necessary cabling. Turn one over, it even says rLink on the bottom.

 

[The_Lhc]

Even if it does bring any benefits, there's almost no point buying the SonLink, it is based on the rLink but has fewer inputs and costs more (the rLink can be had for £134 from Tesco.com of all places), so, unless you absolutely must have a matching looking DAC for your Connect and are happy to pay 50 quid more for the privilege, you might as well buy an rLink.

It isn't just based off the rLink- it IS an rLink! You can open the Sonlink up, and there is literally an rLink inside, black case/optical input and all, plus the necessary cabling.

Really? Oh dear... has anybody put a pic of that on the interwebs? Couldn't see anything on google...

 

[Deliriumbassist]

A friend has one in his system, which is how I found out about it, as I was turning over his new toy 😛: If I remember, I'll grab a picture when I'm next over. It's pretty much a snap case on the bottom to hold the box in place.

 

[Philim]

other than the fact arcam have slapped a box on an old product - any views anyone

 

[zarathz]

This is not so much an answer as another question related to the Sonlink.

I just bought the Sonlink, and assumed that it allowed for 96k/24bit music files to be played through the Sonos system.

Seems I may be wrong.

Looks like the Sonlink is simply a "better" DAC than the one that the sonos system comes with.

But if you're using the sonos simply as a throughput of digital material to an en external dac that you already own (Peachtree Nova 125, in my case), then the Sonlink is truly unnecessary.

May have to bundle this back up and take it back to the store.

Can anyone answer definitively if the Sonlink allows 96khz/24bit files to be played through sonos?

Thanks.

 

[gregvet]

Definitely not. No additional hardware can allow hi res files to be played through sonos as the sonos software itself doesn't support it.

 

[manicm]

And Sonos have no plans to support it in the future either. My guess is they're waiting for wifi/wireless technologies to reliably and significantly improve to the point where hi-res audio can be feasibly played over air. In which case they will surely adopt it.

And that's entirely sensible on their part, after all wireless playback is the Sonos raison d'etre.

 

[matt49]

... after all wireless playback is the Sonos raison d'etre.

I know what you mean, but arguably this sells Sonos a bit short. It seems to me that Sonos has two 'killer apps': the user interface, which is one of the very best around, and the proprietary Sonos mesh networking, which allows multiple zones to be played in sync, whether wirelessly or over a cabled network. In other words, you don't have to use wireless in order to get your money's worth from Sonos.

 

[The_Lhc]

And Sonos have no plans to support it in the future either. My guess is they're waiting for wifi/wireless technologies to reliably and significantly improve to the point where hi-res audio can be feasibly played over air. In which case they will surely adopt it.

And that's entirely sensible on their part, after all wireless playback is the Sonos raison d'etre.

I think at the moment they're slightly restricted by their (laudable) insistence on retaining backwards compatibility. Currently they could only support 24-bit with new hardware which still wouldn't allow older players to play 24-bit or (possibly) by disabling the volume control on existing players (Sonos output is actually 24-bit but 8-bits are used for volume control), however that wouldn't be much use for the Play devices or the Connect:Amp.

Neither situation is especially desirable.