Sonos Products

I agree with both Byron and Larry above. For $450 (the price of the Bridge + ZP90), you get an incredible device and experience -- one which really makes music widely available in new, often unexpected ways. It's really great.

And I'll heretically suggest that the sound you end up getting from this-- even with fresh lossless files, doing everything right -- roughly approximates that of a $500 CDP.

I've got about $2k in 'improvements' to the basics - Cullen mod, a Monarchy DIP and NM24 Dac, good cabling and power, and again, I'd say that cost/value/performance is about equal to $2500 worth of 'real' CDP/DAC gear. Which is to say, it sounds just fantastic.

IMO you can definitely get there with Sonos...but it's arguably not its highest and best use. YMMV.

I do wish Sonos would do a good player unit. Their interface is really stellar, especially in terms of engaging spouses, the rest of the family, and guests.

To be able - while seated at dinner -- to call up a Lou Reed Pandora Radio station because your guests mentioned liking that sound, or to shuffle play through your own Reed collection...without them even knowing you pushed any buttons? How is that not worth $450?

Bertico0357, at least in my experience, the Cullen mod is worth it. I've A/B'd both modified and unmodified units in front of a modest Monarch DIP>Monarch NM24 DAC>Jolida 302 integrated>Aerial Acoustic 5B system, and the difference is pretty significant. I sincerely wished that were not the case, but there it is.

I've also tried deleting the DIP, thinking maybe there's too much stuff in the signal chain, but it too consistently improves things. IME.

Pkubica, I agree -- it's very very slick and it's FREE.

Can you tell me why you prefer CD? What is it that you're hearing, or not?

I've been able, occasionally, to detect differences from my CDs vs. Lossless files. Not always, not all files, no real reason or pattern I can detect, which is interesting at best and frustrating at worst. But generally I can only detect 'different,' not necessarily that one or the other is actually 'better.' I might prefer one over the other, depending upon the track and the file, but it's not an across-the-board indictment of one over the other.

I'm not blessed with audiophile language to describe particularly accurately what I'm hearing (when there is a difference), but it's something around the space surrounding bass notes, and/or the attack of these same notes. The generalization would be verrrry slightly more of both (more space, sharper attack), but again, this is not always a net benefit to my ears by any stretch of the imagination. I know should be able to describe what's being sacrificed when I hear these changes that would make me prefer 'less space and less crisp attack,' but I can't.

I've only got that it sometimes sounds different, and different is not always better.

So any specific language you can share about what it is that you're hearing differently off disk vs. from your files would be very interesting to me. Thanks!

Not directly answering your question here, but if you're using variable output on the sonos, the biggest gain (no pun intended) you'll get is to switch it to fixed output. If that requires a preamp, ok, but that variable out is where a huge amount of the veiling is on the sonos, IME.

So preamp, DAC, Cullen would be my suggestion.