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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
gsherwood53
23 posts
 
I am a little late on this thread but have some experience with SONOS + DAC.

I have two SONOS systems, one in our CT condo and a 2nd in our FL place.

In CT I have a Cullen modded ZP90 into N.Star 192 DAC (SPDIF input) into CJ tube pre and Krell SS amp. My iTunes library is on a NAS. Most all cables are Furutech. I believe the SONOS system sounds as good as my Marantz SA11S1, when both play the same track.

In FL, I have a stock ZP90 into Benchmark DAC1 (same cables) also into CJ tube pre and a Parasound SS amp. Music library also on a NAS. I thought it sounded as good as my Marantz SA11S2. Then I bought a Esoteric SA-50 and used its internal DAC, everything else the same. Now I thought the music sounded better. I have no idea why...but the sound was great (after breakin of course). My friend, a serious classical buff, thought the same.

I'm not sure what I have proved, except the Esoteric SA-50 DAC is pretty good. I also have a Benchmark USB DAC, and I plan to experiment with this new DAC1 vs. the SA-50 when we go back to FL in November.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Glenn
erikminer
433 posts
 
Suggestions.. simple the Esoteric as you found sounds better than the Benchmark. I think what you might want to consider is getting a really good Dac. I tried a Benchmark and didn't care for it at all, sort of bright sounding and a bit flat. From the Benchmark I went to Lavry DA10, then the PS Audio DLIII then Modified DLIII ( Cullen ) then the new W4S Dac 1. That ones a killer for the $$$. I also have the PS Audio PWD and should be getting the Bridge for it soon. I've also been doing the Sonos thing for a few years ( Cullen mod helped a lot) and can't imagine going back to spinning discs. The PS Audio/PWD with the Bridge is a music server on steroids :-) I'll keep the Sonos zone players for parties but my main system will be fronted with the PSA setup
gmunn
1 posts
 
what do you think of running a sonos through an oppo BDP 105. would i still need to address the jitter issues
audioengr
3,282 posts
 
Probably. Even the Oppo has a mod board available that you can add to reduce jitter from the S/PDIF output. See Dec TAS for review.

Also, this is a cheaper option:
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/empirical4/1.html

Steve N.
Empirical Audio
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