Sonos to Mod or not to Mod

[JohnThomas]

Well I finally broke down and bought a sonos this week. My butt finally got tired of getting off the couch to change a cd. I put one Z90 and zonebridge in the main system and Z90 in the workout room. I also have on order the new sonos S5 for the bedroom. The controller is real cool and easy to use. Well so far my ears and butt like what they are hearing. I'm wondering if it's the unit or my system(I know it's the system). So now I look at this Z90 and wonder how to make it even better. I've read about the cullen circuits mod SONOS ZP-80/90 MOD ONLY (ZP-80 MOD) - Digital Music Systems - Cullen Circuits Also Empirical Audio Pace Car Reclocker > Products : Empirical Audio I'm assuming my dac would handle all of this jitter and wouldn't need either one. Well for now I order a IEC to C7 adaptor from Voodoo cable $19.00 since I have two or three old Synergistic Research power cords laying in my audio hope chest. VooDoo Cable Power Products & Accessories
Has anyone upgraded their Sonos?

[two dot]

No, but I LOVE my Sonos's and have thought about the upgrades....

We need a beta tester... there are a lot of Sonos users here.

[1KW]

Play it through your MDA1000 and your done.

[jdandy]

Originally Posted by 1KW

Play it through your MDA1000 and your done.

+1 on what David said. I use two ZP90 zone players, one in the main system, with the digital output to the MCD500, and the other ZP90 in the studio all tube system, with the digital output connected to the MCD500 in that system. Both Sonos zone players sound very good. I also like the access to my MS750 server's FLAC files that transmit wirelessly to the ZP90 in the studio.

Personally, I would not mod either of my ZP90 zone players, or my ZP120 amplified zone player. I like them just the way they are.

[Still-One]

I agree with david and Dan, just run it thru the 1000. With the 1000 the limiting factor is the bit rate you have your source material saved, not the SonoS.

[JohnThomas]

Thanks for the insight. I have been running it thru the MDA directly since I run the MDA directly to the the amps. After listening for 3 days straight I can say it a great and enjoyable toy. But the bass sound on my speakers seem pretty muddy with the sonos system (I guess the trick is not to get on it to hard). I did get the C-7 adapter today so I will try an old synergistic cable on it today and see if I can hear any better results. Plus side is Rhapsody, Napster, etc and finding new music. Does one provider provide less compression than the others?

[j3brow]

I just subscribed to Rhapsody this week, predominately accessing it thru my iPhone. I LOVE it. Great service especially for previewing albums as my wishlist is always a least 100 deep.

The Rhapsody experience is pushing me ever closer to grabbing a Sonos system. I played around with the new controller at my local dealer's shop. They had it "hard wired" with Ethernet/CAT 5 (same thing?) and the response time between songs and switching sources was impressive ...very snappy. I have built in wiring in my rooms but lament adding another cable in my room simply from an aesthetic point of view. Anybody compared response time wireless vs hard wired?

Btw, I asked Rhapsody customer service this week and they claim 256kbs MP3s. When listening on my iPhone/iMac, my own mp3s sound better (ripped with EAC/LAME VBR with a minimum 192 max 320 kbs...www.bestmp3guide.com
UberStandard.org :: Über Music Extraction Guide


Jason

[Still-One]

Originally Posted by JohnThomas

Thanks for the insight. I have been running it thru the MDA directly since I run the MDA directly to the the amps. After listening for 3 days straight I can say it a great and enjoyable toy. But the bass sound on my speakers seem pretty muddy with the sonos system (I guess the trick is not to get on it to hard). I did get the C-7 adapter today so I will try an old synergistic cable on it today and see if I can hear any better results. Plus side is Rhapsody, Napster, etc and finding new music. Does one provider provide less compression than the others?

I do not use the SonoS for critical listening. I do have one unit connected to my 2-channel system but that is for looking for new music on Rapsody (decent sound with their bit rate) or Pandora (sound is not too good and the volumes are all over the place from track to track). Besides using it to find new music the best part of having the SonoS is that it captures all of the music off my MS-300 and feeds my whole house system for background music or listening to SonoS playlists that I have created for potential purchases.

[JBT]

Originally Posted by 1KW

Play it through your MDA1000 and your done.

An old thread, but yes, get the Sonos modification. Here's what they say about it

"The Sonos Reclocker modification is now available. This upgrade entirely replaces the mediocre Cirrius Logic CODAC and the associated high jitter clocks. The mod was designed to integrate the SONOS system into a high end audio system thru an outboard Digital to Analog Converter"

I run my Sonos through a High End Dac and the mod did make a difference. My audio guy recommended it.

[jdandy]

JBT.......I use the Sonos ZP90 digital output to the digital input on my MCD500, which reclocks the signal as part of the decoding process. No mod is necessary for very good sound, considering the source is low to medium bit rate streaming off the Internet. Modding the ZP90 won't improve the bit rate of streaming input data.