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So I setup my Sonus Faber Sonetto 1 with my newly acquired AMP. 

It sounds clear, but I have to agree with the many posts in this forum that complain about brightness and listening fatigue. The Loudness button seems to be at odds with the ‘HI-FI’ pretenses of the amp, is it really a good idea to be turning on loudness by default?? 

But even more glaring are the boosted highs! As soon as I googled “sonos amp bright” i found a number of threads and articles that mention this. Although there is some debate about this, it seems that the amp being bright is a common observation, including for me.

After a bit of tweaking, I found that most reasonable response is achieved with loudness off and treble down to -2/-3 - in line with many other commenters. But I am now concerned about how my tweaks have affected the response curve! Because Sonos doesn't actually show me this vital information. What is the rolloff on the treble adjustment curve???

Sonos is about to release their S2 updates, are there any plans to enhance the EQ section? I need to be able to control things more precisely. I need to roll off specific frequency ranges and see how my tweaks affect the response curve! not just a treble/bass slider! I need to know how many DBs im reducing with each step. I need to be able to tune my speakers to compensate for room! Since the smartphone adjustment is only limited to the iphone and sonos branded speakers...

Anyway, i’m seriously considering returning the Sonos AMP and going with Bluesound, I hear it has an inferior app - but much more neutral sound with its A/B amplification. I would gladly sacrifice app design for a more neutral response! Or at least a way to tune things with greater precision.

 

Ok. After further listening the issue seems to be tied to the quality of the stream. 

When streaming HD content the songs that I found objectionable ( too much sibilance ) all of a sudden sound quite good! 

I am even able to listen to these with loudness enabled and I can almost hear spit flying - with no sibilance. But as soon as I stream out of the Sonos APP, same songs need treble turned down to -2 with loudness enabled or ( -1 with no loudness ) to reduce sibilance!

Also, I'm not sure if this amp needs break in. I see lots of conflicting reports about class D break-in, but it's starting to get smoother after about 8 hours of medium volume playback.

P.s. One thing I don't like about the loudness setting is that it seems to hurt my center image focus. (Maybe the boosted mids are just asking for some room treatment).

When streaming HD content the songs that I found objectionable ( too much sibilance ) all of a sudden sound quite good! 

I am even able to listen to these with loudness enabled and I can almost hear spit flying - with no sibilance. But as soon as I stream out of the Sonos APP, same songs need treble turned down to -2 with loudness enabled or ( -1 with no loudness ) to reduce sibilance!

What exactly are you streaming, and with what app? Reference to ‘HD’ makes me wonder whether it could be Amazon. 

Sonos via the Sonos controller app (which is just a controller, it doesn’t actually play anything) causes the player to fetch lossless if the system has Amazon HD installed. On the other hand I believe the native Amazon app ‘casts’ to Sonos player in SD, i.e. lossy. 

Lossy content could potentially be more ‘mushy’, depending on the quality of the equipment.  

Sonos may fetch lossless from say Amazon HD, but it isn't playing lossless.  At least that’s how I’ve always known it.

Sonos may fetch lossless from say Amazon HD, but it isn't playing lossless.  At least that’s how I’ve always known it.

When started from the controller Sonos streams Amazon HD as FLAC lossless. I’ve measured the bandwidth.

I can’t conceive of how Sonos could possibly fetch lossless and decode it to anything other than lossless.

Sonos may fetch lossless from say Amazon HD, but it isn't playing lossless.  At least that’s how I’ve always known it.

When started from the controller Sonos streams Amazon HD as FLAC lossless. I’ve measured the bandwidth.

I can’t conceive of how Sonos could possibly fetch lossless and decode it to anything other than lossless.


Not disagreeing as I don't know the answer, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard Sonos can play lossless music

Supported audio formats.

this is the first time I’ve ever heard Sonos can play lossless music

Sonos has played lossless (16/44.1 Red Book or 16/48) library music from the very beginning. I wouldn’t have bought into it in 2007 and ripped my CDs to FLAC otherwise.

According to your profile you’ve been a forum/community member since 2010. I confess I’m astounded if this system capability could have passed you by.

If, however, you’re referring to streaming services well these are of course a more recent innovation. Nevertheless Sonos has played lossless from Deezer, Tidal & Qobuz for many years, and now from Amazon.

I rarely come on here but yes I did mean Hi Res not lossless.  I use an NAS drive with my ripped FLAC files

I rarely come on here but yes this passed me by. Every forum I’ve read on different sites has stated they do not play lossless and/or Hi Res. 

 

Lossless, yes.  Hi-Res, no.  But there are rumors about Hi-Res in the future, despite it being a sham.

Yeah. So i am using Amazon and Chromecast is noticeably less sharp than going through Sonos.

I actually bought the Sonos amp because of the promised s2 update and it's supposed future higher fidelity capabilities - I was torn between bluesound and Sonos. But so far Sonos seems to be adequate for me. Not sure if it's psychoacoustics but the amp seems to have gotten smoother since initial setup. Even with loudness enabled. Not sure about the whole "loudness" thing. Seems to add sibilance.

 

Update.  

It was the cheap Amazon basics cables. Replaced them with bluejeans belden 12awg and wow.... I am a believer in quality cables now. These are 4ohm speakers and I read that the copper coated aluminum is a bad choice for the application. I thought it was BS honestly, since I'm a know-it-all and wire is just wire, right?Just blame the "cheap" class D amp. 

 

But at 80bucks it's not that much of a stretch. So I got a set of 6ft with the locking bananas just to see what all the hype is about. 

 

The difference was obvious immediately ... with the Amazon basics, at 50% volume I could not stand the sibilance and high frequencies of very specific tracks. The only thing that tamed them was setting the treble to -2. I have a dedicated seat for listening, so you know I take this shit somewhat seriously. I didn't alter anything other than replacing cables and setting my eq to 0. Now all the tracks that gave me a problem before are totally tolerable. Even my GF heard the difference (from the kitchen lol - I kid) 

 

So before blaming your Sonos amp for being too bright, make sure you use decent cables. I was a skeptic before. Now I'm a believer. 

 

I still refuse to spend more than 100$ on wires though. As far as I'm concerned. I think that the Sonos amp is a fantastic piece of kit and it is more than adequate to drive my intermediate budget speakers with my intermediate quality ears ( and a high end girlfriend ).

 

BTW. Sonus Faber is awesome. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

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