Interesting problem with Amp and turntable

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Father in law gave me a nice vintage turntable so I ordered the Sonos Amp and received it with much excitement. B&W speakers are on the way but for now I don't have passive speakers which made trouble-shooting interesting... 

TT and phono stage to line-in on the Amp streaming to my Arc and one SLs in the other room and... uuuggh... a quiet, harsh, tinny sound with ZERO bass.

So... after hours of fooling around I'm still at square one. In a nutshell this is what I've done:

-Tested the turntable (phono stage has a separate headphone jack... sounds great)

-Used other line-in sources to the Amp... my phone, cd player... all sound great.

-I even hooked up an audio interface to the turntable and then to my Amp. It has a line-out so I was sure I was getting a line level signal. This also sounded great. There's obviously some ADC going on in there and this solved the issue... not sure how?

As soon as I put the exact same same line-out from the phono stage back into my Amp directly I get the quiet tinny sound again. Any ideas of what i might have missed?

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51 replies

jgatie

Tinny sound with no bass is a sign of hearing the raw RIAA mastering applied to records to give them higher dynamic range.  In other words, you are hearing a phono output instead of a line output.  Phono output is made for phono inputs, where it is converted to standard line input.  Sonos only has line inputs. 

Does your turntable have a setting for Phono/Line output?  If it does, switch it to Line.  If not, you need what is called an external Phono Pre-Amp to go between the phono output on the turntable and the line input on the Sonos.  This will convert the RIAA mastering of the record to standard line-in.  You can get them for under $25 US on Amazon. 

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Initially I thought this was the issue as I've never owned a TT and I've now tried it with two different phono pre-amps. The first one had a switch which was set to line. The second one doesn't have a switch, but the manual has assured me the output is line level.

jgatie

Initially I thought this was the issue as I've never owned a TT and I've now tried it with two different phono pre-amps. The first one had a switch which was set to line. The second one doesn't have a switch, but the manual has assured me the output is line level.

 

It’s the issue.  Double check the wiring and configuration of the preamps, something is wrong in that area.  

Ken_Griffiths

@swisser,

If not done already, perhaps also raise the line-in source level in the Sonos App to level 10, (Settings/System/[Amp Room Name]’ that’s once you have the pre-amp/TT setup/working correctly. 

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tbh I've tried all these settings in the app. I'll have to try again with wired speakers... I'm just being impatient. While scratching my head, I managed to recorded the entire A side of "Time out" onto my laptop from the exact same output and it sounds great... full sound. Not sure what my interface is doing that the Amp isn't.

Ken_Griffiths

tbh I've tried all these settings in the app. I'll have to try again with wired speakers... I'm just being impatient. While scratching my head, I managed to recorded the entire A side of "Time out" onto my laptop from the exact same output and it sounds great... full sound. Not sure what my interface is doing that the Amp isn't.

The fact you mentioned earlier… "Used other line-in sources to the Amp... my phone, cd player... all sound great” seems to clearly suggest it’s the TT, Pre-Amp or the cables in between. I don’t see how adding the B&W passive speakers is going to be relevant, as that’s just a further means of outputting the line-audio. I’m guessing the cables haven’t changed, so maybe look closer at the TT and Pre-Amp products.

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@Ken_Griffiths 

You're totally right. But after hours of going after the TT/preamp I'm just just convinced that's it's not the issue and I need some wired speakers to prove it. What are the chances two different phono pre-amps haven't worked? Especially after trying different cables and settings on each. The reason I came here was to determine whether it could realistically be an issue in my network? 

 

Ken_Griffiths

@Ken_Griffiths

You're totally right. But after hours of going after the TT/preamp I'm just just convinced that's it's not the issue and I need some wired speakers to prove it. What are the chances two different phono pre-amps haven't worked? Especially after trying different cables and settings on each. The reason I came here was to determine whether it could realistically be an issue in my network? 

Okay, well I hope you sort it - if not, then just to say here’s a link to contact/speak with Sonos Support Staff if you find you need to go that route later…

https://support.sonos.com/s/contact

Let us know if you sort it. 👍

buzz

No, a network issue would cause missing, not distorted audio.

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@buzz

Actually the audio I'm getting through the Arc is not distorted. It's clearly just missing some lower frequencies. The rest actually sounds okay... maybe a bit quieter than it should be, but no distortion, or extra humming/buzzing.

For example on "blue rondo a la turc" everything seems to be going well until the 5th bar when the bass player quite literally just doesn't come in... 

 

buzz

Check the cartridge wiring.

J

This is a slightly left-field suggestion.  It is just that this rings very faint and distant bells from another thread.  Could you try removing the surround speakers from the Arc and just play through the Arc.  Or try setting the Autoplay room in the Amp settings to one of your One SLs.

I have absolutely no technical justification for this suggestion and it will probably be a waste of your time.  It is just that I have sometimes successfully worked to the principle of “when all possible explanations have been ruled out, start looking at the impossible ones”.

Edit - or just try directing the audio to another single speaker in your system if you have one, rather than deconstruct your HT system.

J

Check the cartridge wiring.

If this were the issue, would audio through the headphones work?  As it sounds like it does.

buzz

I’m having some trouble interpreting the reported symptoms. The observation that one low frequency instrument is missing could be due to a room acoustic issue. If the cartridge is wired out of phase there will be some odd cancellations.

S
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I think @John B is trying to say that if there was an issue with the cartridge, the signal through the headphone amp in the phono stage would have the same symptoms. But this isn't the case, it sounds great. Also the turntable was tested with my father-in-law's Sony amp and speakers before it was given to me, and it also sounded great. While it did do a trip across Paris in between... I doubt that caused a rewiring of the cartridge.

S
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This is a slightly left-field suggestion.  It is just that this rings very faint and distant bells from another thread.  Could you try removing the surround speakers from the Arc and just play through the Arc.  Or try setting the Autoplay room in the Amp settings to one of your One SLs.

I have absolutely no technical justification for this suggestion and it will probably be a waste of your time.  It is just that I have sometimes successfully worked to the principle of “when all possible explanations have been ruled out, start looking at the impossible ones”.

Edit - or just try directing the audio to another single speaker in your system if you have one, rather than deconstruct your HT system.

I'll give this a shot. Thanks.

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side note: my neighbour lent me his era 100 and told me there was a line in port. I was about to try it with my own usbc-3.5mm adaptor but turns out you need the Sonos one.... what's that about!!

jgatie

side note: my neighbour lent me his era 100 and told me there was a line in port. I was about to try it with my own usbc-3.5mm adaptor but turns out you need the Sonos one.... what's that about!!

 

Because generic USB to 3.5 mm adapters are line-out, not line-in.

S
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So does that little adapter do the ADC? Shouldn't that be in the speaker? 

jgatie

So does that little adapter do the ADC? Shouldn't that be in the speaker? 

 

I imagine it would have to be.  USB can do analog output, but I’m pretty sure it can’t do analog input.  

S
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This is a slightly left-field suggestion.  It is just that this rings very faint and distant bells from another thread.  Could you try removing the surround speakers from the Arc and just play through the Arc.  Or try setting the Autoplay room in the Amp settings to one of your One SLs.

I have absolutely no technical justification for this suggestion and it will probably be a waste of your time.  It is just that I have sometimes successfully worked to the principle of “when all possible explanations have been ruled out, start looking at the impossible ones”.

Edit - or just try directing the audio to another single speaker in your system if you have one, rather than deconstruct your HT system.

Tried this in many different combinations with my one SLs (stereo and individually), Beam Gen 1 in another room and my neighbours Era 100. The one SLs just gave me distortion and a faint hint at the audio from the turntable. The era 100 sounded much more high pitched than the arc but no distortion. The fact that they all sounded so different smells fishy... 

S
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So does that little adapter do the ADC? Shouldn't that be in the speaker? 

 

I imagine it would have to be.  USB can do analog output, but I’m pretty sure it can’t do analog input.  

I just assumed it was sort of pin to pin and the respective devices handle the rest... interesting.

buzz

Depending on which SONOS USB adapter you use, the adapter will also support an Ethernet connection.

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Update:

I now have a pair of bookshelf speakers hooked up to the Amp and the turntable (plus preamp) to line-in on the Amp. As I suspected they sound totally fine. 

I am still getting the same poor sound quality when playing the turntable on the Arc and Beam in another room. Just adding the speakers seems to have magically fixed the issue when I send it to my One SLs, but this only when they are paired in stereo. If I separate the One SLs I get static and no audio when trying to play the turntable on either of them.

In short, it's all messed up and I suspect it is a network issue. Desperately in need of help/ideas because this is sort of the main reason I bought the Amp.

 

AjTrek1
Userlevel 7

Hi

Vintage TT can different things to different people. What brand is the TT.  Also important to note is the type of cartridge being used MM (Moving Magnet) or MC (Moving Coil). The later is more finicky although produces a better sound. Below is a link that explains the difference.

Your pre-amp should have a setting to MM or MC. Make sure it’s set correctly.


https://sumikophonocartridges.com/turntable-cartridge-types/

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