External DAC with Connect

it appears to have turned you into an arrogant *** ...
This thread is getting out of hand, and there are too many people being lured into becoming troll bait.

I'm going to close it for a while.

Sonos need not play "compressed music from compressed sources", it can play FLAC, which is completely transparent to the source. It can also play WAV, which is the source

I'm going to be pedantic and disagree here. WAV has no right to be considered "the original" or "the source" than any other file format. It is uncompressed, but that's about it. WAV is an encoded file format, just like any other. You could just as easily use AIFF.

In fact I would argue that, as both FLAC and WAV cannot be played by any DAC known to man without first being "decoded" info samples, they are functionally identical and equivalent. FLAC is just as valid a source as WAV.

Of course the level of decoding required by WAV is significantly less than FLAC, but decoding is needed in both cases. There is nothing about WAV that makes it a "purer" choice for audio.

Of course I'm being hyper pedantic here, and your main point stands.

Cheers,

Keith

This "stone age tech" has a frequency response of DC - daylight, no Nyquist Theorem required. Sonos is just a very convenient internet radio player..

Errm, that's not true at all. In fact it's completely false.

All practical implementations of analogue systems and media have very specific limitations on both lower and upper bandwidth. They also have very specific limitations with respect to dynamic range. In some cases (e.g. vinyl) these limitations are quite severe.

These characteristics of bandwidth and dynamic range are exactly the same for all audio whether it is derived from analogue and digital sources. It is possible, and valid, to freely and directly compare the specifications of analogue and digital systems based on these characteristics. Ultimately it all ends up as analogue because that is how we hear. Digital is merely a convenient format to encapsulate the audio.

But all practical audio systems, including our ears, have specific limits based on these fundamental characteristics. "DC to daylight" is a myth.

There are some ignorant people, of course, who believe that an analogue signal derived from an analogue source is, somehow, more continuous within these limits, more "analogue" than a signal derived from a digital source. And, of course, this is totally false: within the limits of bandwidth and amplitude, analogue audio derived from digital sources is just as continuous, just as "analogue" as audio derived from analogue sources. People who claim otherwise are merely showing their lack of clue about the fundamentals of audio.

Cheers,

Keith

Hey.

I have a rotel ra-12 with the Wolfson WM8740 24 bit/192kHz DAC. And I am planning to buy a Sonos connect for it.

I heard the DAC in the Sonos isn't that great.. When I connect it through toslink, will it use the DAC on my receiver or the DAC from Sonos?

If it is using the Sonos DAC, is there a way not to and is this recommended?

Thanks in advance!

Hey.

I have a rotel ra-12 with the Wolfson WM8740 24 bit/192kHz DAC. And I am planning to buy a Sonos connect for it.

I heard the DAC in the Sonos isn't that great.. When I connect it through toslink, will it use the DAC on my receiver or the DAC from Sonos?

If it is using the Sonos DAC, is there a way not to and is this recommended?

Thanks in advance!

If connecting via toslink, then it will use DAC in the Rotel.

If connecting via toslink, then it will use DAC in the Rotel.

Do you know which is better?

Do you know which is better?

Only you will be able to tell by listening, you will be surprised how good the internal DAC of the Sonos is.

Only you will be able to tell by listening, you will be surprised how good the internal DAC of the Sonos is.
A lot of listening has convinced me that it is as good as it needs to be.
I am not sure whether your kit will allow a valid comparison to be made. The Rotel may well take the analog signal from Sonos and do ADC>DAC on board before amplification, instead of passing it on directly.
If you really want to do a comparison of sorts, you can easily do it for the cost of a interconnect - which too by the way does not need to be expensive - and see what you like. Simpler and faster way to enjoy the music may be to pick one route at random, wire it up, and forget about this subject.

This is a touchy subject. Let your ears guide you. Personally, I use an external DAC and I think that it makes a difference.

This is a touchy subject.
Indeed.
I came across a forum today, Hydrogen Audio that is firmly on the side of the blind testing based approach, to the extent of incorporating that in its Terms of Service.
See attached, in particular post #9.
http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php?showtopic=3974
Given this, it would seem to be a place where there is little discussion about anything, but that isn't so, it seems to be a busy place at first glance.