Sonos Connect. Still worth buying???

Hi all, just to update this thread. I picked up a Connect unit on eBay yesterday. It should arrive Thursday. I’ll let you know how I get on. Thanks to all for your valuable input.

Ha, just googled the Naim. Think that may be a little over budget for me. I bet that sounds absolutely amazing! I bought the Dac second hand. The guy I bought it from said he’d only run it for about 50 hours max. I’m going to leave it running for a week & see if it sounds any better. I’d really like to keep the connect as I really like the App & the flexibility of the systen.

This needs a postscript, because of a small "problem" in the Connect; the analog output signal voltage is slightly lower than that of most CD players and DACs - 2 volts against 2.2/2.4. How this affects the sound quality heard and the easy fix follows:

The human hearing/brain are such that music heard at sound levels that are lower by as little as 0.2 dB, even 0.1 db is not heard as lower volume, but as lower sound quality until the difference become a lot larger. Thin sounding, lacking presence...all the usual pejoratives are perceived just because of this little difference. This little nugget is well known to all salesmen of stereo kit - the well trained ones of high end kit, at any rate. Which is why the controlled blind test has to be done using instruments to exactly match the sound levels of the two alternates being evaluated.

If therefore the Connect is wired to the set up I referred via both analog and digital outputs, with analog outputs going direct to the Quad preamp, and digital ones going to the Marantz and thence to the Quad, switching back and forth in the sources on the Quad has it receive a slightly lower voltage from the Connect, automatically leading to slightly lower sound levels from the Harbeths, at the SAME volume control setting on the Quad. No prizes then for guessing which sounds inferior. But the easy fix I referred to is bumping up the volume controls just a tad where the Connect analog output is being used. Approximating exactly what would be done in a blind test.

And I am not just a Sonos fanboy. If I was, I would not say this: the DAC in the Chromecast Audio, that costs 10% of the price of the Connect, has a DAC that is audibly just as good as that in the Connect, or as that in the USD 2000 Marantz player. So if one can live with the feature set of the Chromecast, there is no need to buy the Connect. As to the Marantz, along with CDs and SACDs, it now obsolete because what it plays is obsolete media.

What can muddy the waters here is that many external DACs are sold with filters that also shape the sound, like the EQ settings on the Connect do. But for an apples to apples comparison of just DAC performance, these have to be disengaged on both sides. Such external DAC may still prevail as a purchasing choice, if its filters do more to shape/customise the sound than the EQ of the Connect can. But then what is prevailing isn't the DAC, but the extended range/sophistication of the filters.

With these bolt on filters out of the frame, in today's audio kit, a DAC is a DAC is a DAC. Just a cheap commodity.

Finally, that sound from audio kit, other than some brands of new speakers, changes or improves over time is a myth. What happens is that the brain adjusts to the new sound signature, leading to the improvement of the kit illusion. The rest of the improvement heard is psychological as well - Confirmation Bias at work.

Reinforced by one common trait in audiophiles - they desperately want to believe all the marketing that has driven their spend. Or to be able to continue with the hobby of churning their equipment, using music as just a test signal.

Lol. Because you are, sensibly, more interested in the music.

I was on a kick years ago of ripping my CDs primarily to FLAC. Then one day I got to listening to it’s 320 kbps MP3 counterpart and comparing. No discernible difference to my ears. None. Converted the FLAC to 320 MP3 and enjoyed the extra TB of real estate on my NAS.

I'm certainly not telling the OP to go out and spend lots of money. On the contrary my advice is to enjoy the connect, it's a very good device.

The good thing about music is there's equipment out there that lets you enjoy it at all price points and the beauty of the Connect is that you can add the Sonos ease of use to equipment you already own and enjoy. Different equpiment does sound different, whether that's better or not is a whole different debate, but I do believe that using a connect on an existing HiFi is better sounding than buying Play speakers, and will be much cheaper too, So no real downsides for the OP.

The OP did say they prefered the sound of their Airport Express, so in my view there's no reason not to experiment a bit with differnent ways to see if they can get closer to that. There's always a chance over time that they'll get used the Connect and stop noticing anyway.

At the end of the day, what's important is that you're happy with how what you have sounds, and then remember to just enjoy listening to music on it, which is mostly why we buy this stuff in the first place. If you're happy with it then it's not for anyone else to say it's rubbish, as enjoying music is a good thing, full stop... 😃

The OP did say they prefered the sound of their Airport Express, so in my view there's no reason not to experiment a bit with differnent ways to see if they can get closer to that. There's always a chance over time that they'll get used the Connect and stop noticing anyway.

There is no objective reason for the AEX to sound different or better. Speakers have sonic signatures, leading to valid subjective preferences, but not things like AEX. AEX is just as good as Connect on the sound quality front, when it works well; the reason I dumped it for Sonos in 2011 is that it kept dropping the music stream, stuttering and stopping.
As to experimenting, I am merely sharing my views based on over a decade of experience that this can rapidly take you down the rabbit hole, facilitated by audiophiles and marketing that targets their all too human tendencies of being dissatisfied all the time, for no valid or scientific reasons.
If the OP still chooses to dive in to Alice's Wonderland, that is his business of course and odds are on his doing so; perhaps someone else coming across this thread will be aided to dwell on what matters - the music. And Connect is as transparent as it needs to be to allow that.

The Sonos one’s I have in my dining room are totally fit for purpose but they are in no way comparable to my Hi-Fi nor did I expect them be.

The Connect does not sound as good as the Airport Express to my ears. I don’t even think this is ‘subjective’ it was clear as day ( to me) that the AEX has a clearer sound with better separation than the connect..
I am posting here because I really want to keep the connect & enjoy the functionality.
I find my play 1 pair + Sub to be as good a USD 7000 HiFi system they have replaced. Just saying.

But that isn't the purpose of this post. Since you seem to be sincere, let me ask some questions on the AEX.

Describe the system in which the AEX is/was set up. What was the source? What was it connected to?

The AEX is connected to the aux port of a classic NAD 3020 which is feeding a pair of Monitor Audio RS1 bookshelf speakers. I stream music from my IPhone 7 Plus to this via my WiFi network. The connect is connected to the Tape in of the same set up. I have made sure when a/bing both of these sources that the input volumes were as similar as I could with my ear. Both sources are streaming tracks from Apple Music.

Yes to all of the above. The connect is set to variable output. I have not tried the Connect in the Aux port. I shall try this tonight.

I think the value question with the Connect is the functionality it brings to an existing system.

The question of value vs sound quality is always much harder as I think different people have different thresholds for value.


It may be useful for others that reference this post in future to see a general answer to the titled question of this thread, that also pulls in the two quotes above.

In short and in general, ever since a play 1 pair has been available for the price of a Connect, the latter is no longer worth it.

The Connect is essentially a Sonos launch product, designed to be used with HiFi systems of that day - circa 2004. The thing is that active speaker technology has since obsoleted passive systems that were around then, along with the CD players used as a source. Even in what is often derisively labelled as an all in one budget Sonos speaker, advanced active tech is employed. Each speaker has two drivers, each with its own amp. The midrange/bass unit does high excursions, allowing for the same bass to be delivered as from a larger speaker with low excursion units. And all of this is supervised by DSP of a sophistication that passive tech simply cannot accommodate, including room response based Trueplay tuning.

Why then is what is labelled as HiFi kit, even when it uses obsolete passive tech, so highly priced? The simple answer is diseconomies of very low scale manufacture and marketing, that drives per unit costs of such kit having to be much higher for ROI to be obtained to the extent that business survival is possible. On the other hand, the defining trait of electronic tech is how severely its price drops within a couple of years of launch of new tech. Add in to that the many economies of scale - manufacturing, marketing and distribution - from a billion dollar in annual sales that Sonos now enjoys, this delivers a double whammy on the price front that traditional HiFi kit can only cope with by trying to challenge the HiFi credentials of Sonos. The resultant message is also one that works on the mindset of the audiophile set that wants to believe that HiFi = High End = High Price. And that Mass Market and HiFi: a contradiction in terms. It is just marketing baloney, this message.

Which is why there is nothing to be surprised at if a USD 1000 Sonos set up can successfully challenge a USD 7000 traditional HiFi set up with the latter price also including USD 2000 for a CD player that is obsolete, and that the Sonos set up does not need anymore.

Moving on then, to someone that has a system like what the OP does: install a play 1 pair in the exact same space in the exact same room, run Trueplay on the 1 pair, and the sound quality obtained from it from the exact same source will be the same - all that will be different are two speaker sonic signatures and as many people that prefer one are likely to prefer the other. Given that, for the lot that prefer the Sonos signature, adding a Connect to the existing system makes no sense at all. Might was well give the existing system to a friend for free or to charity. The resultant decluttering and elimination of messy cables is just a free bonus.

Throw in a Sonos Sub and even the 1 pair + Sub will take on traditional HiFi kit at many price points above, for all the reasons aforesaid. The 5 pair + Sub will go even further in larger rooms. And offer a line in jack for integrating something like a turntable if desired.

To my mind, the only remaining case for Connect is if one wants a Sonos interface to a pair of active speakers that are much more capable that a 5 pair + Sub. If one can find these. Or if one is sentimentally attached to existing passive HiFi kit. Or if one has a Bill Gates kind of home that can accommodate and needs speakers that are taller than a human that cost 5 digits or even 6, to fill the space adequately. Although one could argue that many play 1 units employed all over the space would do the job better: said monster speaker set up will still suffer from the large space problems of music having to be too loud close to the speakers for it to be heard in distant parts of the room.

And while I agree on the subjective differences in value thresholds that are rooted in reason, those related to sound quality are rarely so. These are largely eliminated in controlled blind testing, having been created just by clever "HiFi" marketers and their tools - the media that is sustained by their advertising, including the online versions of it.

Yes I have debated for some time replacing with the cleaner look of having 2 Play:5s in their place. Because I currently have a tv cabinet in that area the wired system and amp don’t really don’t get in the way so I haven’t tried for wireless there yet.

I don’t disagree that a pair of play:5s and sub may give that wired system a run for its money.

But - if the implication that a connect is obsolete because same price as Pair of play:1s doesn’t compare here. To equal my current system the price of a connect is far cheaper then buying a new pair of play:5s and a Sonos sub.

I do beleive though the connect remains at a fairly premium price. Although that could be because of volume of scale in that they sell far less of them then play units (driving cost/price up).

I do not disagree that a pair of play:1s makes sense in a lot of situations. And the amount of legacy equipment beingbrepirpsoed to sonsonwoth a Connect will most likely decline in coming years.

Personally I feel the connect needs a more powerful replacement. I have long Called the superconnect. With digital and hdmi input that services 7.1 speakers all wirelessly.