Is Sonos the next revelation/genesis in Hifi Chapter

[shado]

In layman terms I am looking at purchasing a Hifi system for 3K for CD/Amp/Spkr. My last nostalgic system was nearly 1.6K but covered CD/Tuner/Cassette/Spkr/Amp plus periphs......

Sevenoakes demoed Cyrus 6XP and Cyrus 6SE CD with KEF iq30 against Sonos - yes I listened to B&W 685 but they are to civilised/polished for my taste and the KEF has more Bass/Character.

Anyroad I listened to some itunes CDR compilation I possessed to the Napster version on Sonos and the Sonos was the winner. OK no surprise there.

I therefore listened to CD version of Def Leppard/Xanadu Soundtrack/Annie Lennox that was played in consecutive/parallel with the Sonos Napster equivalent so that I could tell and the Sevenoakes Rep against both versions. Even with swapping speakers midway there was no difference between the one armed drummer.

Jokes aside if a 1.8K Cyrus cannot make a substantial difference between CD and Napster at what level does? Is it 5K, 10K, why would I spend this much if I can achieve the aim at this level. If I can enjoy Hifi at this level how far downwards can I go before it is a compromise (Arcam Mini Solo) or Squeezebox/Ripserver/AVA RS3. I think this reality frightens the HiFi circle!

 

[Anonymous]

Audio from music servers/computers/media centres/MP3s is gathering momentum... and standalone CD players are on the retreat.

 

[The_Lhc]

shado:In layman terms I am looking at purchasing a Hifi system for 3K for CD/Amp/Spkr. My last nostalgic system was nearly 1.6K but covered CD/Tuner/Cassette/Spkr/Amp plus periphs......

Sevenoakes demoed Cyrus 6XP and Cyrus 6SE CD with KEF iq30 against Sonos - yes I listened to B&W 685 but they are to civilised/polished for my taste and the KEF has more Bass/Character.

Anyroad I listened to some itunes CDR compilation I possessed to the Napster version on Sonos and the Sonos was the winner. OK no surprise there.

I therefore listened to CD version of Def Leppard/Xanadu Soundtrack/Annie Lennox that was played in consecutive/parallel with the Sonos Napster equivalent so that I could tell and the Sevenoakes Rep against both versions. Even with swapping speakers midway there was no difference between the one armed drummer.

Jokes aside if a 1.8K Cyrus cannot make a substantial difference between CD and Napster at what level does? Is it 5K, 10K, why would I spend this much if I can achieve the aim at this level. If I can enjoy Hifi at this level how far downwards can I go before it is a compromise (Arcam Mini Solo) or Squeezebox/Ripserver/AVA RS3. I think this reality frightens the HiFi circle!

You keep going on about Napster. Do you actually mean that all you were listening to was stuff being streamed off the net through the Napster service? You didn't listen to any local lossless files at all?

Because if that's the case I don't believe you that it sounded better than CD. Napster through my Sonos is ok, but it's not even close to listening to my own flac files though the same system.

As to whether Sonos is the next evolution? Well they do have one small problem, no support for 24-bit files. Sonos has a 24-bit output but 8 bits are used for volume control, so it's 16-bit only and Sonos aren't saying whether or not they're ever going to support 24-bit (they never comment on future features). That'll be an issue as this kind of source becomes more popular.

 

[Anonymous]

I have a Cambridge Audio 840 CD/Amp combo, with a Sonos system connected to the CD player via optical (& various zoneplayers scattered around the house). I mainly use the Sonos with the Napster music service. I have noticed that if the music I am streaming from Napster is recently created, or has been remastered, then it can sound suprisingly good. In fact, sometimes, it can be difficult to spot the difference between the CD and the stream from Napster

 

[shado]

Gen dit, no ****, IHC, the dealer would search for the relevant tune from the napster website on the sonos controller and was sent to the Cyrus to play simultaneously with the CD version. There was roughly less than second lag between the two but he would switch between the two stating which one was either Sonos or CD during the track. Even he was beaming at the outcome and stated they were selling a lot of Sonos equipment.
A good example is the Annie Lennox WHY track where all the relevant instruments stood out clearly in both media.

As I have just bought the Mag today, there is a good piece reference computer based media and the readers listening test. Looking forward to going back to Sevenoakes next week to try out some other configurations. Hifi has just got exciting again