Connect no longer bit-perfect?

which is why we have the output stream being mucked with. Sonos has not demonstrated they are serious about audiophile systems.
If you truly believe the latter part, sell the kit and move on if you are an "audiophile" and wish to remain so.

For other readers here, this might be of interest:

"Audiophile" is a very fuzzy word. One audiophile could find that the Connect is not worthy of being audiophile kit unless it was attached to an external DAC costing a lot of money. Another could find that even then, it is not worthy of being audiophile kit unless it was modified by changing its internal componentry - there are people that offer this service and audiophiles that buy it from them even today, at the cost of loss of reliability.

And some ex audiophiles - I was one for over a decade, dabbling around with heavy valve amplifiers, external DACs, expensive cables and monster speakers - find that a play 1 pair + Sub can beat any audiophile kit for sound quality at up to 2-3 times the price point of the former. With kit like the various play units, I find that the Connect is now obsolete from a features point of view - but not from that of sound quality.

Depending therefore on what kind of audiophile you are, Sonos kit is/isn't meant for you.

I just noticed this thread and I can concur that there is something wrong
with the Connect. I have been streaming AIFF rips via itunes (from a NAS)
to an airport express, to an emotiva DAC via the optical output on the air
express. I've bee doing this for years.

I purchased a Sonos Connect a few weeks ago, with the idea that I would get
the improved user experience that Sonos advertises, but with the same audio
quality by streaming the same AIFF files to the Sonos then to the Emotiva
Dac via the optical output on the Sonos. Note that I have fixed volume
turned on, no EQ or cross fade.

The Emotiva Dac has two optical inputs, so it is easy to do an A/B
comparison.

The bottom line is that going through the air express is sounds far better
to me. The Sonos is less detailed, almost muddy. Not very pleasing at all.
It seems to me that the Sonos is transcoding along the path, which is quite
unexpected given what I have read.

Oh well, convenience matters and when I am in the mood to listen at more
then background volume, I can use the air express path.

So much for my letter to the CEO, he quit. Followed the 100 laid off employees out the door, I guess.

So much for my letter to the CEO, he quit. Followed the 100 laid off employees out the door, I guess.

No, he's remaining an employee

Give it a couple of weeks and send another mail to the new man

Two letters and an email to Sonos about the issue that started this thread have gone unanswered. Four months ago, Sonos staff member, Ryan S. suggested that an option to allow a bit perfect stream was being considered. It's overdue and I'm tired of waiting.

It wasn't this thread that started me wondering why my music started sounding worse. I moved during October and November of 2015 and was remodeling for months. When I could finally listen to music, I thought maybe it was the smaller room or wallboard walls instead of the log ones in my house. I hung a quilt behind the sofa, moved things around and finally gave up and didn't listen to much music. Then I stumbled upon this thread.

I used the word "audiophile" in my first post and one member assumed I must be one of those that will spend $500 on a gold-plated wall socket and other such things. No, I mean audiophile in the ancient 1960s sense of wanting something better than a Zenith console to play my records. I have Peachtree Nova SE65, used Dynaudio Contour 1.8 MKII speakers and a used Oppo DV-981DH DVD/CD player. I sit myself in the sweet spot on my sofa, turn down the lights and do nothing but listen to the music. That's audiophile to me.

I used to rip my CDs with iTunes to Apple Lossless. Now I use dbPoweramp and clean up the tags with MP3TAG. I highly recommend both, not so much of a difference in quality, if any (the bit streams compare identical), but to better organize and maintain a collection.

I started searching around for a replacement that will do what the Sonos Connect was sold to me to do when I bought it in early 2015. I won't go into a sales pitch for what I found, but it is very important to say that the high-end audio store (Hanson Audio Video in Kettering, Ohio) where I bought the Connect was unaware of the change made in the November 2015 release. They, and all of the salespersons at the dealers I spoke with (Crutchfield, for example) were unaware and, concerned. To quote one, "We sell a lot of Sonos Connects as bit-perfect streamers."

A good friend recently bought a Connect based on my recommending it well over a year ago. He returned it and it trying a Yamaha WXC-50. I have decided to go with an Auralic Aeries Mini and a 240GB internal SSD drive I installed. I was no longer using the drive with my PC. No network except to tell the Aeries what to play. So far, so good. It is night and day better than the Sonos. Simply stunning. Clarity and bass bowled me over. I'll stop there, no audiophile terms.

I have a Sonos PlayBar for my TV in the great room (living, dining and kitchen combined) and will still use it for that and casual music listening (mostly Pandora) like house cleaning, cooking or parties. It’s plenty good enough for that. Sonos makes quality products, but it's obvious their priorities are not my priorities.

Your needs might be different, but I refer back to the post that started this thread. It is about users of the Connect that bought it to deliver a bit perfect stream. Most of us who bought it for that purpose don't care that it has a DAC and analog output. It that's not you, please don't flame me for agreeing with the first post, expecting a resolution and running out of patience.

As to the Connect DAC - before I boxed my legacy audiophile kit after buying Sonos, I did a lot of testing, admittedly imperfect, but good enough for my decision making. I compared the sound quality from analog output of the Connect with that from my SACD player, both into high end amplification and Kind of Blue was one of the test albums. I found no difference in quality and decided that I did not need the SACD player. Nor have I heard of anyone that has been able to pick out the Connect DAC in a well constructed level matched listening test against any other DAC - not even ones with five digit price tags. I therefore believe that the Connect DAC is audibly straight enough. As are many others - indeed I strongly suspect that a modern DAC is no longer a factor, having become a reliable commodity at a low price point.

Ironically, going by your findings, it would appear that those that don't think so, and want to use the Connect into another fancier looking external DAC may be ill served by Sonos while doing this, with audibly poorer sound quality than they would obtain via the analog outputs on the Connect!
Quoting myself here, in response to what may be happening with the Connect, because I doubt that any changes have occurred to the sound signature from the analog output of my Connect.
As another audiophile in the sense that I often listen to just music late at night, I have noticed no change in my sound since the time of the quoted tests. The last quoted sentence is a guess, no experience to back it up.
PS: And to highlight a word in the quote that may be skipped over - " level matched". If the signal voltage from the external DAC is higher than that from the Connect analog outputs by even a very small amount, it will be enough to have the amplifier set at the same volume control position to deliver sound levels that will be higher than more than 0.2 dB in comparison to when the analog outputs of the Connect are in use. Once that happens, all bets are off; a 0.2db level difference is all it takes for louder to sound better, including all the jargon that is used to describe better. There is a simple solution to this of course - the volume control on the amp needs to be set a little higher when using the analog outputs of the Connect to restore sound quality levels to that delivered by a DAC with a higher signal output voltage.

Hi Kumar

As far as I can tell, the analog output audio from the Connect is also compressed, with no option to turn this off.

Cheers, Peter.

p.s. Why AFAICT? When comparing the original wav file with the output of the digital outs, it is possible to exactly line up individual samples. It is more difficult to line up the original and analog output signals since the latter go through the additional DAC stage in the Connect, then an ADC stage to get back into my computer. Somewhere this screws up perfect alignment.

Peter, while that may well be the case, what matters to me is what my ears pick up to deliver the listening experience I obtain. Which has seen no change in 5 years of Connect use, so I tend to pass over this level of investigation and analysis, preferring to trust my ears.
Caveat: My ears are not made of gold but of lead and I get equally brilliant music now from my Connect Amp and 1 pair+ Sub equipped zones. So there is that.

Kumar,

With 4,370 replies, I expected you would reply first. That's a boatload of forum time! I cleared said "Your needs might be different". Yours are, so why concern yourself with mine?

The simple solution would be to put it back where it was and let me continue to be satisfied using the DAC in my Peachtree amp, or choose the new enhancements they decided worked best in a Sonos environment. It's not unlike taking you car in for maintenance and being told the gas mileage will improve but the performance will be less because they decided to upgrade the car's firmware. Maybe it was bought because of the performance. Same idea. I bought the Connect to transport my files unmodified and now it doesn't. It doesn't matter if a majority of owners are satisfied, even thrilled. I've be hoodwinked!

DAC chips come with a fairly large number of settings that equipment manufacturers can make, so any one DAC can produce different output in different equipment. Your argument they are all pretty much the same conflicts with the chip manufacturers offering so many different settings. What could they be for other than changing the sound of the analog output?

If you are satisfied, good for you. I am not and nothing you say will convince me otherwise. You are saying how it SOUNDS, which is 100% subjective, I am unhappy with how it now WORKS, which is 100% objective. Transparent is what I want. I don't give a hoot about its DAC and analog output.

Yours are, so why concern yourself with mine?


Because it isn't just you that will read what I have to suggest, others read this forum as well, and some may well find it making sense to them.