Sonostically speaking

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Multi room music streamimg - the ultimate compromise or the future ?

Any one experience of the Sonos ZP 90 into an existing good quality stereo amp ( hi fi with quality speakers ) . Thinking about this option with my Nait XS into Spendor A6's as one part of a multi room, Sonos based system, elsewhere.

Pros- can utilise my exisiting equipment and have the benefit of streamed music Sonos style

Cons- but how compromised will the sound be ( I can take a line from the Sonos to the aux of the XS )

Pros - could do something similar in different rooms with new , but currently redundant, PMC DB1i's and B and W 684's speakers by using the Sonos ZP 120

Cons - as above ( although given the current non use of these quality speaker don't seem to be any ! ) Guess I could buy an equivalent stereo amp for the money spent on the Sonos 120 . But that's independent not integrated music.

Thoughts appreciated

 

[richardw42]

Hi

I have just set up a Sonos system and am using 2 x ZP90s.

Firstly, set up was one of the easiest things you could come across. I didn't even use the instruction book, it was all so straightforward.

I hae one in my TV room connected via optical into a Yamaha AV amp (using the Yamahas DAC) and it sounds more than passable.

The other is connected via an Arcam rDac into a Musical Fidelity stereo amp and it sounds superb. It not far behind my CD player and that was a £900 item. Maybe try a ZP90 straight into your amp, if you're not entirely happy you could add a DAC and I'm sure the combination of sound quality and user friendliness will convince you, you've done the right thing.

 

[Dan Turner]

I think that a Zp90 into a decent DAC is around about the same quality wise as a £1k ish CD player in my experience. So in my system whilst I'm aware it probably isn't quite doing justice to the rest, it really does sound good and the convenience/user experience seals the deal.

 

[Anonymous]

Richard

are you able to send music from your cd player through the Sonos z90 /r cam dac to other Sonos zones ie I can see how you stream music into your " best " system but can you send it out ?

thanks

 

[Andrew17321]

Not a compromise: even without a DAC, using NAS stored lossless files it is at least as good into my Arcam amplifier with Spendor 5e's as with an Arcam CD player, and also with an old Denon amplifier - it really rejuvinated an older system.

Not the future: Sonos can't deal with higher than CD resolution music files as currently configured. It would probably have to seriously redesigned for higher bit rates and there is no evidence of this happening in the near future.

Bonus: (1) Ease of set-up and use; (2) Complete reliability; (3) CDs can be boxed away; (4) You'll find that you have a lot more interesting music on your CD's than you thought you had, and you will listen to it.

Tedious bit: ripping your CDs and cataloguing (but it is worth it in the end).

It is ideal for the present time, in my view.

Andrew

 

[The_Lhc]

peebs:
Richard

are you able to send music from your cd player through the Sonos z90 /r cam dac to other Sonos zones ie I can see how you stream music into your " best " system but can you send it out ?

Yes you can, anything plugged into the line-in on any Sonos ZP can be streamed to any other ZP (or all of them).

 

[The_Lhc]

Andrew17321:Not the future: Sonos can't deal with higher than CD resolution music files as currently configured. It would probably have to seriously redesigned for higher bit rates and there is no evidence of this happening in the near future.

There never is with Sonos though, they don't announce anything until right before it's ready. The Android app, for example, a relatively trivial thing, Sonos forum users have been bleating about wanting this for over two years, Sonos said nothing until this month, even though they hired an Android developer over a year ago. It's entirely likely Sonos are working on it or at least looking into it but we'll never know until it's ready to ship.

 

[sweety7272]

Indeed - the sonos system effectively has a line - in facility that allows you to pump music from another source round the house. I guess that the real use of this though would be to connect a non-digital source eg FM or Turntable as if you've got it on CD, you might as well have it ripped to where-ever you are keeping the files and just put it on through the sonos!

Agree with the comments about the ZP90 sound quality. I have tried the A/B testing against my Cyrus CD6SE and genuinely struggled to hear the difference. Both sounded great, and I would not like to have to pick out which was which in a blind testing (but maybe that's just my cloth ears...!).

I've got an external DAC on order, and I'll be intrigued to see if that makes a difference. If that improves things further, then I'll be seriously thinking of selling on the Cyrus CD player as I never use it (maybe making room for another amp on the rack ie go mono!). Add Spotify into the mix (which also sounds pretty good, maybe a slight notch behind lossless rips) and you kind of wonder why you need a CD player at all, other than for backup purposes.

Basically, Sonos has been the best thing that's happened to my music listening since I got a proper separates system in the 90s!

As a final thought, if you do buy into it, and don't get along, then the boxes really hold their value so you can sell on ebay for 70-80% of the retail price no problem. What's to lose?!