Third Party DACs to Sonos Amp

  • 23 March 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 136 views
H

I understand the AMP will digitized the analog signal created from the analog line in internally and then transcode it again to analog and send it to the passive speakers. 

Can I connect a third party DAC to the Sonos Amp and hoping to improve the sound quality of the entire setup?Has anyone tried this? 

Many thanks!

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3 replies

H

Thanks for the reply!

I am streaming mostly on Tidal Master. I know that Sonos does not support MQA decoding natively. I see that some external DACs support MQA decoding, would it help if I add a DAC with such function to the Line-in before the Sonos Amp?

ratty

I very much doubt it. Firstly the ADC on the Amp’s Line-In will digitise at 44.1kHz, lopping off any ‘unfolded’ (and inaudible) ultrasonics. Secondly MQA is regarded by many as a fundamentally bad approach.

ratty

You could connect a third party DAC to the Line-In, but it won’t ‘improve the quality’ unless the DAC has some euphonious (read: inaccurate) sound characteristic of its own which you appreciate.

Conversions can only degrade, they can’t resurrect what’s been lost or create what never existed in the first place.

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