ATC SCM11/Musical Fidelity and Sonos Connect

[hybridauth_Facebook_10154086561718989]

Following some great advice on this forum I auditioned ATC SCM11s speakers paired up with a Musical Fidelity M3si amplifier.

I'm in the process of moving into a new apartment and am considering the setup in the living room. As I mostly listen to music using Apple Music, I was considering connecting my amplifier to a Sonos Connect. This will also give me the flexibility of adding surround sound to the TV and an 'ok' speaker in the kitchen should I opt to do so. The other alternative would be controlling my music via my MAC and just connecting the amplier straight to the computer.

Any suggestions? I fear that by adding the Sonos Connect into the mix I might be compromising the quality of the speaker/amplifier pairing.

Thanks!

 

[luckylion100]

Following some great advice on this forum I auditioned ATC SCM11s speakers paired up with a Musical Fidelity M3si amplifier.

I'm in the process of moving into a new apartment and am considering the setup in the living room. As I mostly listen to music using Apple Music, I was considering connecting my amplifier to a Sonos Connect. This will also give me the flexibility of adding surround sound to the TV and an 'ok' speaker in the kitchen should I opt to do so. The other alternative would be controlling my music via my MAC and just connecting the amplier straight to the computer.

Any suggestions? I fear that by adding the Sonos Connect into the mix I might be compromising the quality of the speaker/amplifier pairing.

Thanks!

as I've never owned an Apple product in my life and don't think I will.

You will require a source beyond what Apple offer I assume... I've never auditioned Sonos but I gather on this forum and within the magazine it's well regarded gear. My guess is it wouldn't corrupt or polute the sonic harmony between amp and speakers.

 

[insider9]

Sonos Connect is great in terms of UI. Sound quality is average to good but easily improved upon by using an external DAC. Considering your other components I'd go with a better streamer or Connect paired with an external DAC.

If you're buying new there are other better sounding alternatives at that price and slightly above.

Depending on functionality you need there are other streamers that are touted as better sounding than Sonos. Auralic Aries Mini and Bluesound Node 2. I'd also include Yamaha WXC-50 as used it with Sonos and I can confirm it improves the sound quality of a Sonos.

 

[Frank Harvey]

You are correct, you will be compromising the system. As Insider has already mentioned, adding a DAC will improve things, but if you want a stand alone streamer without ading a DAC, a Bluesound Node II will sound far better in your system than a Sonos Connect will - I own a ZP90 (Connect) and have compared it directly in two different high quality systems - no contest. the Node II has a surprisingly good DAC.

 

[hybridauth_Facebook_10154086561718989]

Thanks guys

So to summarise, despite the Musical Fidelity amplifier having a built in DAC, I will have to buy an external one if I want the Sonos Connect to perform well.

Unfortunatley buying a separate streamer won't work as they're not comptabile with Apple Music (if I understand correctly)

An alternative could be perhaps to just use my airport express and stream the music through airplay?

 

[luckylion100]

going back to the Yamaha WXC-50 again (adding it I should say). It is a quite superb little piece of kit. I'm still getting used to the presentation of the Oppo (which is superb but very different) however I miss the Yamaha sound, the control app that is MusicCast, EQ functions if you want to mess around without seriously delving into room correction etc are great, connectivity again bang on. It's got the lot for a relatively small outlay.

Edit, I didn't realise your amp was without an inbuilt dac.

 

[insider9]

Eventhough your amp has a DAC it's only got an USB type B connector. Sonos Connect outputs via optical. You would need to convert digital optical signal to asynchronous USB. I don't know of any boxes that do that. Even if you can find one I'm not sure this is the best way to do it.

 

[Barbapapa]

As you already own an Airport Express I would suggest simply trying it out and see how you like it. I was in a similar position. The set-up was simple to use, but I found in my home that the connection was too unreliable, I frequently had drop-outs. A wired connection (i.e. Ethernet) for the streamer (in my case the Bluesound Node) proved to be much better.

One disadvantage of Airport Express is that it works primarily through iTunes. I'm not sure how well it works to stream the Tidal desktop app (or similar) through the Airport Express interface. Furthermore, it adds to processing for your computer and also uses up Wifi bandwidth.

 

[insider9]

Thanks guys

So to summarise, despite the Musical Fidelity amplifier having a built in DAC, I will have to buy an external one if I want the Sonos Connect to perform well.

Unfortunatley buying a separate streamer won't work as they're not comptabile with Apple Music (if I understand correctly)

An alternative could be perhaps to just use my airport express and stream the music through airplay?

Not quite, in terms of Apple Music. Sonos can do Apple Music. Yamaha could also do Apple Music via Airplay.

Are you sure you will stay with Apple Music though? And not move over to a lossless service?

 

[ChrisIRL]

Does the mac have aptx Bluetooth? You could connect an Arcam rblink, not the mini one, to your amp and connect your mac via Bluetooth. I found the rblink to perform brilliantly with a standard Bluetooth connection, I'm sure for iTunes it would be hard to tell the difference. Advantage is you could use your mac wherever you wanted to in the room then.

 

[hybridauth_Facebook_10154086561718989]

Having looked into everything it seems that buying the Bluesound Node 2 and running Airplay via my mac is probably the most sensible solution. Thanks for all your feedback!

 

[davedotco]

Does the mac have aptx Bluetooth? You could connect an Arcam rblink, not the mini one, to your amp and connect your mac via Bluetooth. I found the rblink to perform brilliantly with a standard Bluetooth connection, I'm sure for iTunes it would be hard to tell the difference. Advantage is you could use your mac wherever you wanted to in the room then.

Sadly Apple do not implement Bluetooth well in their laptops or desktops. The simple answers are,

Use your Mac connected by wired usb, best possible performance. Downside is that you will have to select and play tracks on the Mac itself, wherever that is.

Choose a different amp, one with optical spdif connections and use an AEX, if you are careful with your network setup, dropouts are virtually nonexistent. You may be able to use a Chromecast or similar device to access your online sources directly, you would need to check for you specific requirements.