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punch5
Contributor I
December 14, 2024
Answered

Overcoming the weak equalizer of the Amp

  • December 14, 2024
  • 11 replies
  • 483 views

I have a AMP with 2 speakers attached. The overall sound is not good for me as the equalizer is too poor. To have an acceptable sound i push the 2 levels at max … For such an expensive device it is a bit disapointing.

To overcome this issue I would like to have an active equalizer between source and the Sonos AMP.

I have found 2 options and your feedback would be greatly appreciated before shopping:

Option 1 (expensive): i buy a Sonos Port and a EQ901 Equalizer from Deer Creek Audio. Setup would be:

Sonos Port out → EQ901 → in Sonos AMP → speakers. I would manage music from the Port and the active equalizer from EQ901.

Option 2: I buy an Bluesound Node Nano and the setup would be:

Bluesound Node Nano → in Sonos AMP → speakers. I would manage music from my iphone via Airplay 2 (AM in lossless most of my usage way) and use the equalizer from the Bluesound.

Makes sense ? Thank you in advance.

 

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Best answer by Antifon

How recent are the speakers? Do you know their history?

If you haven’t already done so, I would connect a separate (non-Sonos) amplifier to them and see if they sound correct. Another suspect could be damaged components in the speaker’s crossovers or (heaven forbid) blown drivers in the speakers. I have had that happen to a pair of ATC floorstanding speakers with an amplifier (not Sonos) that put one power supply rail’s worth of DC across the speakers. Result: it made almost no noise, but two blown bass drivers. It was expensive to fix!

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punch5Author
Contributor I
December 26, 2024

I did test thoroughly my speakers and they working thankfully good. It seems that my issues are related to AirPlay maybe (not a Sonos issue). Still figuring out. Maybe a DAC issue. 

 But I learned many things since :). I was listening to Spotify via AirPlay to benefit from all the features of the Spotify app.

Then I discovered Tidal and Qobuz featuring higher sound quality (FLAC 24 bits/48 khz). The issue now is that AirPlay or Bluetooth are limiting the bandwidth to CD quality max. But you can play Qobuz (or Tidal) from the Sonos App with, they say, 24 bits/48kHz quality. The thing is that you are unable to know at what bitrate you are listening music and also only part of the features of Qobuz or Tidal are implemented by Sonos.
To go further, I’m testing a Bluesound Node Nano a wireless music streamer. It has a good DAC and I plug the RCAs into the AMP. I play Qobuz music from the bluOS app and the output is just amazing. I’m Rediscovering my music.

Now I’m testing Roon as they did a better integration of different music services. Looks good  

 

 

 

 

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