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help me make sonos better

you all know sonos does not serve the purity of detail/refinement market but it does do a fabulous job satisfying wife, kids, and even serious listener's who are working on "honey do" lists...

but there must be a way to make it better. read about the cullen mods and external dacs and am ready to dive into the water but for the life of me can't find the ultimate pool. can/will someone lead me to the right place? what and how much $ would be nice to know as well. many thanks....
bobf1717
pkubica
134 posts
 
Bryon... I used it initially as well and thought that at 100% it would have a gain of 1 and all is fine. However, above 75% I could hear distortion. It was overdriving the DAC. Also when set to Fixed the volume is at 60% - 70% of the variable mode. I called Sonos a few minutes ago and they also recommend the Fixed mode when going into a DAC.

I also have two of the Sonos S5 powered speakers and they are just fine with the volume control. Bought them for my wife. ;)

Paul
soundgasm
152 posts
 
Hur. My understanding is that part of what the Monarchy DIP does is to boost the outgoing signal from ~0.5V to ~5.0V, giving any downstream DAC a better/stronger signal to work with.

Is that completely unrelated to the pros/cons of using the variable volume output of the Sonos?

Like Bryon, I'm using the variable output with success, although I can't say I run it over 70-75% (as indicated on the visual display). Maybe I'm just in the safe zone.
pjohri
13 posts
 
Folks, what is the strategy when using a zp100? I don't believe these have any digital outs- would a dac go into the analog outputs, and if so, how would it sound?

I have a tube integrated Jolida and want to make my Sonos source sound at least as good as the cdp.
kbarkamian
647 posts
 
I don't think there's a ZP100. There's a ZP90 and ZP120, both have digital outputs.

There's a BR100, which is a "zone bridge" - basically a wireless distributor. The BR100 doesn't play any music, it just sends it to the ZP's.

In any system, DACs can't connect to analog outs; only digital outs. There are some DACs that allow analog pass through, like the Benchmark DAC1 Pre, but that doesn't convert an analog signal, its basically a pre-amp with DAC.
pjohri
13 posts
 
Kbar, thanks for your response. I do have a zp100 (had Sonos since the time it came out). Looks like I will have to get a new one with digital outs...
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