XDA + Sonos?

[patrick]

Hi all,

I have just set up a Sonos system and have it connected to my USP-2 & UPA-2 combo. I was wondering if an XDA would make a noticeable SQ improvement. Most of my music library is in either Apple lossless or Flac.

Thanks

[Erwin.BE]

Not a mountain of difference IMO, but noticeable nonetheless. I don't have the XDA (yet), but I listened to Sonos and I want it in our new house (LAN wired mode). The XDA will be inserted in a few zones, except for the "lesser" zones like the terraces and the master bedroom, where I'd use the ZP120 with in-ceiling speakers

You could leave out the USP if you got no analogue sources. All this is pointless without good speakers ofcourse.

BTW: Love Brisbane, great city. We were there in July 2007. Even in the "winter", it was t-shirt weather. Nice and open public area's, great riverside and lot's of green. You're lucky!

[Porscheguy]

Monkumonku has spent quite a bit of time with his Sonos and XDA and he has told me there is little if any difference at all in the SQ between the two.

I'm sure he'll be along to comment :-)

[monkumonku]

Dec 18, 2010 12:20:16 GMT -5 Porscheguy said:

Monkumonku has spent quite a bit of time with his Sonos and XDA and he has told me there is little if any difference at all in the SQ between the two.

I'm sure he'll be along to comment :-)

Yup, here I am.. now you have to realize I seem to have lead ears because a lot of things people claim they hear a night and day difference, I either hear hardly any difference or none at all (when doing an A/B switch.. when going from memory then I think I hear bigger differences).

That said, I connected the analog outs from the Sonos box to one of the inputs on the USP-1. Then I connected the digital coax out from the Sonos box to the XDA-1, and from there to another input on the USP-1. The volumes sounded the same to me (I didn't measure them with an SPL meter). Through both my speakers (Mirage OMD-15) and headphones (Grado 325is, which I feel is a very detailed and revealing headphone), I could discern no real difference between the two. That goes for the tone/timbre of the instruments and voices, bass response, imaging, soundstage, "air" around the instruments, etc. I would not be able to tell one from the other.

Of course YMMV.

[patrick]

Thanks for all the replies, It's not that I'm unhappy with the SQ on the Sonos, it's just not as good as listening to the CD on the ERC-1 but it is better than the WD TV live.

If the SQ was the same with and without the XDA, does that indicate that the Sonos DAC is not too bad?

BTW my speakers are Monitor Audio RS6s, which I've been quite happy with and will keep until the CFO turns her back.

Brisbane is perfect in the winter, but the summers can be quite uncomfortable unless you love the humidity.

[monkumonku]

Dec 18, 2010 18:21:18 GMT -5 patrick said:

Thanks for all the replies, It's not that I'm unhappy with the SQ on the Sonos, it's just not as good as listening to the CD on the ERC-1 but it is better than the WD TV live.

If the SQ was the same with and without the XDA, does that indicate that the Sonos DAC is not too bad?

BTW my speakers are Monitor Audio RS6s, which I've been quite happy with and will keep until the CFO turns her back.

Brisbane is perfect in the winter, but the summers can be quite uncomfortable unless you love the humidity.

Like I said in my previous post my comparison should be taken with a grain of salt since I don't seem to hear the differences other people do when comparing new versus old or two different pieces of electronics. I don't think my ears are defective but who knows.. I can tell you if something sounds out of whack on a recording or if someone is off key or the timbres sound different but in this case they really sound alike. I haven't compared the sound from the Sonos box to that directly from a CD, though. I suspect the CD is probably better mainly because it is direct, rather than having been ripped onto a hard drive and converted to a different file format, then transmitted wirelessly, etc.

[Porscheguy]

Dec 18, 2010 18:21:18 GMT -5 patrick said:

Thanks for all the replies, It's not that I'm unhappy with the SQ on the Sonos, it's just not as good as listening to the CD on the ERC-1 but it is better than the WD TV live.

If the SQ was the same with and without the XDA, does that indicate that the Sonos DAC is not too bad?

BTW my speakers are Monitor Audio RS6s, which I've been quite happy with and will keep until the CFO turns her back.

Brisbane is perfect in the winter, but the summers can be quite uncomfortable unless you love the humidity.

Well, I'll have to be honest. I can hear very little difference between Sonos and my ERC-1 and I have tried and tried. I've downloaded many songs from iTunes and compared them to CD's playing through my Sonos and then ERC-1 and I'm hard pressed to hear any appreciable difference. Really......

I think Sonos is great. In fact I use it more than my CD's for that very reason, not mention convenience of having 6000 songs at my fingertips.

If a CD is a 100, then Sonos is 98. Its that close IMHO as long as I'm not sitting in the selfish seat....

[steviet1000]

I'm with porcheguy on the quality difference, it does seem to me negligable but I don't have top quality speakers. I've spent a year going backwards and forwards on and XDA-1 with a UPA-2 or sell the UPA-2 and get a Decco2 from Peachtree.