Sonos sound quality vs CD

[oldric_naubhoff]

Recently I'd very much got in the habit of streaming music from my Mac/iPhone/iPod to my stereo. However I've just had the opportunity to pick up a NAD Masters M5 CD/SACD player at cost price, and partnered with a good amp and speakers I've been rediscovering my collection of 1000+ CD's and SACD's. I've even been burning stuff I downloaded onto CD for the pleasure of listening to it. The moral is don't write of your CD collection without trying a really good CD player. You might also want to consider trying something like one of the Olive players, or one of the current crop of cd players like the Audiolab 8200 or Cambridge Audio 840C where you can also plug your laptop in via usb and use their DAC to improve the sound quality of your ripped music files.

I must concur. I've got a Pathos Digit which is a great CDP. music played through computer and Sound Blaster sound card just sounds less spacious and live. I think if I got into streaming music I'd have to get at least as good DAC as Digit's to enjoy it. but that's too expensive for me now. anyway for the time being I'm enjoying CD playback and waiting for future development of the technology. I mean I don't want to multiply boxes at home so as long as there's no streamer with built in very good quality DAC (tubed most preferably) I'm staying away from streaming. just my opinion...

 

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has taken the time to reply with their opinion and their experiences. I love my CDs to bits so still a decision I'm pondering on !

Brian.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has taken the time to reply with their opinion and their experiences. I love my CDs to bits so still a decision I'm pondering on !

Brian.

 

[The_Lhc]

Recently I'd very much got in the habit of streaming music from my Mac/iPhone/iPod to my stereo. However I've just had the opportunity to pick up a NAD Masters M5 CD/SACD player at cost price, and partnered with a good amp and speakers I've been rediscovering my collection of 1000+ CD's and SACD's. I've even been burning stuff I downloaded onto CD for the pleasure of listening to it. The moral is don't write of your CD collection without trying a really good CD player.

I must concur. I've got a Pathos Digit which is a great CDP. music played through computer and Sound Blaster sound card just sounds less spacious and live.

Not being funny but neither of these have got anything to do with the sound quality of Sonos.

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

Recently I'd very much got in the habit of streaming music from my Mac/iPhone/iPod to my stereo. However I've just had the opportunity to pick up a NAD Masters M5 CD/SACD player at cost price, and partnered with a good amp and speakers I've been rediscovering my collection of 1000+ CD's and SACD's. I've even been burning stuff I downloaded onto CD for the pleasure of listening to it. The moral is don't write of your CD collection without trying a really good CD player.

I must concur. I've got a Pathos Digit which is a great CDP. music played through computer and Sound Blaster sound card just sounds less spacious and live.

Not being funny but neither of these have got anything to do with the sound quality of Sonos.

yeah, you're right. I presume SB X-fi doesn't match Sonos in terms of sound quality but Sonos would be light years beind Digit. or any other high quality CDP or SACD for that matter

 

[eggontoast]

Recently I'd very much got in the habit of streaming music from my Mac/iPhone/iPod to my stereo. However I've just had the opportunity to pick up a NAD Masters M5 CD/SACD player at cost price, and partnered with a good amp and speakers I've been rediscovering my collection of 1000+ CD's and SACD's. I've even been burning stuff I downloaded onto CD for the pleasure of listening to it. The moral is don't write of your CD collection without trying a really good CD player.

I must concur. I've got a Pathos Digit which is a great CDP. music played through computer and Sound Blaster sound card just sounds less spacious and live.

Not being funny but neither of these have got anything to do with the sound quality of Sonos.

NAD M5 = £1600, PATHOS = £2400, SONOS = £279 Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought they were silly comparisons.

 

[The_Lhc]

Recently I'd very much got in the habit of streaming music from my Mac/iPhone/iPod to my stereo. However I've just had the opportunity to pick up a NAD Masters M5 CD/SACD player at cost price, and partnered with a good amp and speakers I've been rediscovering my collection of 1000+ CD's and SACD's. I've even been burning stuff I downloaded onto CD for the pleasure of listening to it. The moral is don't write of your CD collection without trying a really good CD player.

I must concur. I've got a Pathos Digit which is a great CDP. music played through computer and Sound Blaster sound card just sounds less spacious and live.

Not being funny but neither of these have got anything to do with the sound quality of Sonos.

yeah, you're right. I presume SB X-fi doesn't match Sonos in terms of sound quality but Sonos would be light years beind Digit. or any other high quality CDP or SACD for that matter

What do you expect at ten times the price?

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

What do you expect at ten times the price?

you're slightly missing my point here...

the original subject was Sononos's SQ vs. CD. in my opinion SQ of a high quality CDP would be better than of a Sonos's. so obviously it's not a fair competition, true. you can easily upgrade SQ by adding an external high quality DAC. but for me PERSONALY it's not an option because I don't want too much clutter at home so I'd rather stick with a one box good CDP for the time being until the technology becomes wider acceptable or indeed the industry standard. at which time it'll be no shame to fork out a few Euro more for a more accomplished one box solution.

this may come sooner than I expect though. companies like Cyrus introduced recently some streamers, Musical Fidelity lounched its M1 click, Linn has completly turned away from manufacturing CDPs or other disc players in favour of streamers, Blacknote has it's DSS30i, to name but few. however, I'll still wait and see what happens mainly because right now it's even hard to get decent quality files. if you want FLAC you still have to buy a CD first and rip it. companies like Amazon or Apple offer mp3 dowloads, true, but 256kbps? some stinking quality... and it happens that the price for the whole downloaded album is higher than for a CD! (at least on Amazon). true, there are labels offering high qulality FLAC downloads and even hi rez FLACs but what they have for offer is still only niche music. not to mention prices. I mean 15E for a CD quality downolad or 23E for hi rez downlowd from Naimlabel? it's outrageous IMO, to pay that much for something which is essentially a data stream from the label. that means no cost of physical medium, no cost of distribution, no cut for the middle man and yet a CD quality download is more expensive than a new CD at Amazon...

so my point here is that it's still not worth it IN MY OPINION to transfer to streaming yet. mainly due to little choise of equipment and more importantly due to lack of source material.

however, I'm not intending on discouraging anyone from buying a Sonos or whatever. everybody's capable of making theirown mind. I just expressed my opinion on topic. well, maybe just a little bit off topic too.

 

[Overdose]

There are plenty of streaming options, from one box affairs to descrete players like Apple Express or Sonos, granted a DAC is also required for optimum performance. There are however, strong offerings from Linn and Naim, to name but two. Besides, one CD player plus one amp isn't just one box and a streaming solution need not be any more.

As for lack of material, if you are going to buy CDs to listen to on a CD player, there's no difference in buying to rip. In fact using your argument that high quality/high res downloads are too expensive, ripping Cds is the way forward surely?

 

[The_Lhc]

There are plenty of streaming options, from one box affairs to descrete players like Apple Express or Sonos, granted a DAC is also required for optimum performance. There are however, strong offerings from Linn and Naim, to name but two. Besides, one CD player plus one amp isn't just one box and a streaming solution need not be any more.

Quite, my ZP90 and the DAC I've borrowed are still smaller than any CD player (bar a Cyrus) and the ZP90 can be hidden for aesthetic purposes if you wish.

As for lack of material, if you are going to buy CDs to listen to on a CD player, there's no difference in buying to rip. In fact using your argument that high quality/high res downloads are too expensive, ripping Cds is the way forward surely?

Zigackly, I have recently just downloaded a few tracks from HMV digital (320kbps) because they were free but that's the first time I've ever done that, I still just buy CDs and rip them, just because you're using a streaming solution doesn't mean you have to settle for low bitrates.

 

[The_Lhc]

What do you expect at ten times the price?

you're slightly missing my point here...

No I'm not.

the original subject was Sononos's SQ vs. CD. in my opinion SQ of a high quality CDP would be better than of a Sonos's. so obviously it's not a fair competition, true.

So it's a pointless comparison then isn't it? It's like someone asking "what's the best CD player I can buy for £200?" and then you come along and suggest a £2000 player, it doesn't help anyone.

you can easily upgrade SQ by adding an external high quality DAC.

Yes and if you picked a £2k DAC it'd probably as good or better than your Cd player.

but for me PERSONALY it's not an option

If we were talking about you PERSONALLY that would be fine but we aren't this is a general discussion about the sound quality of a ZP90 compared to CD, not whether or not Sonos might require an additional box, you're just confusing issues, which, as I said, doesn't help anyone.

however, I'm not intending on discouraging anyone from buying a Sonos or whatever.

No, not much.

everybody's capable of making theirown mind.

Clearly not, otherwise this forum and others like it, wouldn't exist.