Sonos DAC or AVR DAC

Lee H

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Oct 7, 2010
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Hi all,

idle curiosity has got me speculating about my set-up. Currently, I have a ZP90 hooked up to a Denon 1911 AVR via digi co-ax. The idle specualtion kicks in around the connection and which part of the chain is decoding. My (probably wrong) supposition is that the AVR is handling the D>A piece as it's connected via co-ax. Would replacing the co-ax with analogue cables mean:

a) The ZP90 would handle the D>A conversion?

and

b) would there be an appreciable difference in the sound?

which I guess leads me to

c) which of these 2 links in the chain has the better DAC
 

The_Lhc

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Oct 16, 2008
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Lee H said:
idle curiosity has got me speculating about my set-up. Currently, I have a ZP90 hooked up to a Denon 1911 AVR via digi co-ax. The idle specualtion kicks in around the connection and which part of the chain is decoding. My (probably wrong) supposition is that the AVR is handling the D>A piece as it's connected via co-ax.

Correct.

Would replacing the co-ax with analogue cables mean:

a) The ZP90 would handle the D>A conversion?

Yes.

b) would there be an appreciable difference in the sound?

Dunno, there was in my case (my AVR sounded MUCH better, the only caveat is that I was using crappy free RCA cables when I tried the analogue connection).

c) which of these 2 links in the chain has the better DAC

Realistically the only way to find out is to connect it up both ways and switch between the two inputs on the AVR. Obviously you have the ZP90 set to fixed volume output don't you?
 

Lee H

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The_Lhc said:
Lee H said:
c) which of these 2 links in the chain has the better DAC

Realistically the only way to find out is to connect it up both ways and switch between the two inputs on the AVR. Obviously you have the ZP90 set to fixed volume output don't you?

Yes, it's fixed. I was curious whether anyone had experienced this before I started buying cables. I know the AVR is at the budget end of the scale so I'm not sure if the DAC will be better than the ZP90 or not.
 

scene

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Lee H said:
Nothing attached. There may be one in the "man drawer" but it'll only be a freebie from an old purchase

"man drawer" :grin:

I have two large Really Useful Boxes full of cables in the garage + some other cables hiding in the AV cabinet...

With my AVR250, my experiences were that the coax->AVR DAC was better than ZP90 DAC->AVR using chord crimsons (using lossless rips). It wasn't a vast difference, but definitely noticeable.

However, a caveat. With the AVR250, there is a stereo direct mode (no Digital circuitry). This requires a direct analogue feed and with this in place, the analogue route was better (the AVR250 is a great stereo analogue amp). If your Denon 1911 has pure direct (I think it does, IIRC), then you may want to try this before settling on the coax approach...
 

moosey

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Oct 22, 2009
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Hi Lee

i have a zp90 connected via optical to a marantz av amp/ kef 3005se and the sound is great for my needs.

i also have another zp90 connected to an older marantz stereo amp and tannoy standmounts, and have tried both the rca connection and optical via a spitfire2 dac. initially i was disappointed with the sound, but i had used the rca cables supplied with the sonos. I swapped these for some £30 cables i had in my 'man drawer' and the sound was transformed. To be honest, I can't tell the difference now between the two set ups. Also comparing to cd playback throught the same amp, i cannot distinguish which is which.

All i really learnt was that the sonos packaged cables were holding back the sound.
 

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