Best Sonos ZP-80 Mod?

Hi Folks. I had the Cullen Mod done to one of my ZP-80's. I am still conducting my evaluation and will report back in another week (or so.)

Cedar, I sent Joseph an email, quite a while back (before the Cullen mod was available) and did not hear back from him.

Does Joseph's PS mod improve the sound from both the analog and digital outputs?

Thanks

The current ZP-80 mod by Cullen Circuits will not improve performance from the analog outputs. The re-clocking benefits the digital outputs to your DAC.

My findings with the Cullen modded ZP-80 match up pretty well with what has already been reported.

However, after doing some comparrison, I do feel that results will vary, based on the system that it is being used with.

In comparing the stock zone player vs. the modded player, I feel strongly that the DAC & digital cables, etc. play a major role in how much the performance improves.

Though the mod is a noticable improvement over the stock ZP-80, we could not get it to match the performance of our reference cdp's.

My goal is to eventually replace my cdp with Sonos. For me, we are not quite there yet.

Hi Jeff:

Yes, my goal is to have my Sonos system perform at least as good as some well respected & pricey cdp's.

My reference cdp is Electrocompaniet EMC-1 (24/192,) which had a $5K MSRP. This reference source was compared to the modded dac, driving $1K Dac's from PS & Monarchy and the $2250 Electrocompaniet ECD-1, which is essentially the Dac section of the EMC-1UP cdp. Amplification components used to evaluate were from: MBL, H2O, Cary.

In a second system, the modded ZP-80 fed the digital inputs on an Audio Aero Prestige Cd/SACD (I beleive that this lists close to 10K.)

Though the modded ZP-80 did sound better than the stock player, in both systems, the original cd definitely beat the Sonos playback. Furthermore, the improvements were more noticeable with the pricier AA player's dac & all tube Joule Electra amplification. Could this have been because the AA has a better dac section? Could this have been because of the nature of the J-E tube gear???

Again, I think that this is very system dependant. Your milage may vary.

I hope this helps.

I need to clarify that though I have not yet been able to acheive the level of performance that I desire from Sonos, I do feel the Cullen mod is a worthwhile improvement over the stock zone player.

The modded player with a good dac ($1K or under) very well may be comperable to cdp's that aproach $1-2K.

Again, I strongly feel that the benefits of the mod are system dependant.