Sonos ZP90 or Stream Magic 6?

[HDNumpty]

Hi all and Merry Christmas

I have an iPad 4 on order and I'm looking to set up a streaming system and put the CDs somewhere else to make room for the family's DVD/Bluray collection...

My streaming quandry is

1) do I add a Sonos ZP90 Zoneplayer and NAS and play it through my CA740c DAC, controlled with the iPad OR

2) Buy a Streamagic 6 and possibly consider selling my CD player and Bluray player and replacing with a universal player, to be used on its own or through the Streamagic's DAC?

Anyone got any comparisons between the CA 740c and the Stream magic? As far as I can see it uses the same Wolfson dual DACs, with an updated upsampling engine. Better components possibly?

One thing I do use (in winter as least) is Spotify Premium, the Sonos system has this built in whereas the Stream Magic doesn't.

Many thanks for your advice/opinions

 

[woodster]

I have used a multiroom sonos system for quite a few years now and have found it very versatile with my itunes/nas based apple lossless library and spotify premium. I have no experiance withthe cambridge, except that it has been well recieved in most forums. I would suggest auditioning both before making a decision. Be aware though, the stream magic6 does not handle apple lossless files!

 

[John Duncan]

Yes it does (handle Apple Lossless). Or at least it does with the firmware I've got - because I'm part of the beta testing team I'm not always clear which firmware is public.

To be honest though, unless you want to totally rethink how you're doing things (along the lines of my sig, for example), and are not interested in high res music (Sonos only supports 16/44), I'd get a Sonos and plug it into the 740.

 

[woodster]

Please read this-

http://www.whathifi.com/review/streammagic-6/user-reviews

 

[John Duncan]

Personally, I've never had those issues and have found it perfectly reliable, but then I don't have a 45,000 track library.

 

[HDNumpty]

Well I'll be using iOS6 so shouldn't have the problems that the Android user has been having. Neither do I have a 45,000 track library - more like 4,000+. The software reliability issues do worry me though because this seems to be the weak point in all CA kit.

Thanks all for the initial feedback. I am wondering how useful the ability to play hi-res audio is, if I can't play hi-res audio other that via the type-B USB input (which I would only use from a computer and my basic Acer laptop seems to resample to 20-bit/44.1Khz in any case, so useless).

Maybe I should go with the cheap-as-chips (relatively speaking) Sonos for now and wait till the streamer market properly matures and they can all play 24/192 via uPnP, USB-A or any input capable of doing so