External DAC with Connect
I am looking to add a DAC to my SONOS - Nak RE1 - KEF Q70 system, and am considering the Schiit Bifrost. My source is a wide range of ALAC, MP3 and AAC material. Any advice, is it worth it? Am I likely to hear the "wider, more detailed, deeper, etc." sound the reviewers write about.
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To be fair though, it is quite possible that listening pleasure is enhanced for some people when the kit looks good, and one knows that it is well built/ engineered even if one knows it may be over engineered - psychoacoustics is a well researched and acknowledged subject of study. And those of us with money in our pockets usually tend to spend it something else that may be non essential too - I know I am guilty of that often. Others reading such threads can decide the way they want to go based on what floats their individual boats.
It is absolutely true that the psycho-accoustic effect may be at work here. Which is fine, if that is your thing. If it sounds better because psychologically you assume sound quality increases with the amount of money you spend, fine. Just don't tell me that it is actually better outside of your own psychological biases.
Userlevel 2
This "stone age tech" has a frequency response of DC - daylight, no Nyquist Theorem required. Sonos is just a very convenient internet radio player.
But ErikM's comment about this being a forum of fanboys and help requests is dead on.
But ErikM's comment about this being a forum of fanboys and help requests is dead on.
You still haven't answered the following:
As to your claims that the switch "that will impart it's own signature to the system", if a switch can impart that much of a "signature", why spend thousands on a cable? Certainly the temperature of the room, the carpets on the floor, the accoustical treatments on the walls, the postioning of your head, etc. etc. (all things which have been proven to actually affect sound) are far and away more important than spending thousands on an effect that is so easily masked by a little ol' switch, hmmm?
Also, does the fact that the effect is so easily masked not lay waste to the claims that the difference between lamp cord and $7000 cables is "night and day" as claimed by the flowery prose in the decidedly biased audiophile press? So which is it? Is it a "night and day" difference that one can justify spending thousands and thousands of dollars on, or is it so subtle as to be masked by any and all testing methodology, no matter how carefully constructed?
Surely someone who is as versed as you in the fine art of audiophoolia will be able to answer a question posed by us brainwashed "fanboys", right? Or are you just here to call people names?
Guys, please keep things civil.
Good science does not claim to have all of the answers. New ideas are always welcome and will be incorporated into the body of knowledge -- after they are vetted. Audiophiles seem to have trouble with the vetting process. Any discussions between the science types and the audiophiles degenerates into "my dog is better than your dog", everyone goes home mad, and nothing is learned. It's a shame.
While I am not a regular, compulsive attendee at high end shows, I find most of the rooms to be as dreary as their neighbors' rooms. Each of the designers seems to have some sort of axe to grind and will optimize his (yes, I say "his" because I have never seen a female presenter at one of these shows -- and typically the guiding light is a lone wolf) design along this coordinate, making classic mistakes along other coordinates. They all have some sort of story to tell, but in my opinion the results are usually dreary. Occasionally, a team will show up with something interesting. The best teams either overtly talk about their room acoustic treatments or quietly just apply them. There haven't been any true breakthroughs in amplifier design for a while, it's a matter of attention to detail and following well established design rules. Analog vs. Digital? Regardless of the number of bits, poor grounding techniques will wreck a bunch of bits and that 24 bit design might not perform any better than a 14 bit design. And, in my observation, relatively few individuals know how to correctly set up a turntable.
From an interview with Edgar Villchur:
[indent]Lander: However long gone you may be from AR, you maintain strong views about hi-fi. In fact, you initially balked at doing this interview because you feel that many aspects of high-end audio, such as expensive cables and equipment break-in, are meaningless.
Villchur: The concluding paragraph of a talk I once gave at an Acoustical Society meeting sums that up. I'll read you part of it: "Scientific method allows investigators to form hypotheses in any way they please: out of a cold assembly of facts, intuition, or a drunken stupor....Once a hypothesis is proposed, however, it must be demonstrated rigorously. The audio discipline needs to be brought back to the world of reason."
Lander: Is there room in that world for subjectivity?
Villchur: Objective measurements in audio are primary, but they're useless unless they've been subjectively validated as predictors of musical accuracy. The validation method we used at Acoustic Research was the live-vs-recorded, or simulated live-vs-recorded, comparison. The standard I use today is set by our Woodstock chamber music concerts.[/indent]
If you have some time, read this and the companion Roy Allison interview. I bumped into Roy at a couple of shows and it was amusing when a self styled audiophile "expert" challenged him. Roy was always very polite, but there were no prisoners or hostages after Roy was done with his concise reply.
Good science does not claim to have all of the answers. New ideas are always welcome and will be incorporated into the body of knowledge -- after they are vetted. Audiophiles seem to have trouble with the vetting process. Any discussions between the science types and the audiophiles degenerates into "my dog is better than your dog", everyone goes home mad, and nothing is learned. It's a shame.
While I am not a regular, compulsive attendee at high end shows, I find most of the rooms to be as dreary as their neighbors' rooms. Each of the designers seems to have some sort of axe to grind and will optimize his (yes, I say "his" because I have never seen a female presenter at one of these shows -- and typically the guiding light is a lone wolf) design along this coordinate, making classic mistakes along other coordinates. They all have some sort of story to tell, but in my opinion the results are usually dreary. Occasionally, a team will show up with something interesting. The best teams either overtly talk about their room acoustic treatments or quietly just apply them. There haven't been any true breakthroughs in amplifier design for a while, it's a matter of attention to detail and following well established design rules. Analog vs. Digital? Regardless of the number of bits, poor grounding techniques will wreck a bunch of bits and that 24 bit design might not perform any better than a 14 bit design. And, in my observation, relatively few individuals know how to correctly set up a turntable.
From an interview with Edgar Villchur:
[indent]Lander: However long gone you may be from AR, you maintain strong views about hi-fi. In fact, you initially balked at doing this interview because you feel that many aspects of high-end audio, such as expensive cables and equipment break-in, are meaningless.
Villchur: The concluding paragraph of a talk I once gave at an Acoustical Society meeting sums that up. I'll read you part of it: "Scientific method allows investigators to form hypotheses in any way they please: out of a cold assembly of facts, intuition, or a drunken stupor....Once a hypothesis is proposed, however, it must be demonstrated rigorously. The audio discipline needs to be brought back to the world of reason."
Lander: Is there room in that world for subjectivity?
Villchur: Objective measurements in audio are primary, but they're useless unless they've been subjectively validated as predictors of musical accuracy. The validation method we used at Acoustic Research was the live-vs-recorded, or simulated live-vs-recorded, comparison. The standard I use today is set by our Woodstock chamber music concerts.[/indent]
If you have some time, read this and the companion Roy Allison interview. I bumped into Roy at a couple of shows and it was amusing when a self styled audiophile "expert" challenged him. Roy was always very polite, but there were no prisoners or hostages after Roy was done with his concise reply.
But ErikM's comment about this being a forum of fanboys and help requests is dead on.
He also referred to a third category of people.
Oh jgatie, you have no idea what kind of system I listen to. But I bet you've got nothing like it. For me, Sonos is just a glorified internet radio, nothing special about it. I find these heated arguments amusing. Hope you enjoy the extra money in your pockets. I imagine it lets you buy a lot of extra junk.
This thread demonstrates why the Connect Amp is such a brilliant little box. No need to tie oneself into knots about things like external DACs!
Now that I am able to use it the way it is meant to be used by leaving it on all the time, I have realised the benefit of the auto sensing line in connection on it, for a largish lcd TV and Spendor S3/5 speakers in the bedroom. Very good music from the net/NAS, with the added bonus of getting free 2 channel HT using the same speakers for TV without any effort other than stopping the music and turning the TV on.
Now that I am able to use it the way it is meant to be used by leaving it on all the time, I have realised the benefit of the auto sensing line in connection on it, for a largish lcd TV and Spendor S3/5 speakers in the bedroom. Very good music from the net/NAS, with the added bonus of getting free 2 channel HT using the same speakers for TV without any effort other than stopping the music and turning the TV on.
Userlevel 1
I don't think any of us would want to as it appears to have turned you into an arrogant *** but if it pleases you to massage your ego in that way then feel free to illuminate our lives with details of your amazing system, you obviously have some serious anxieties you need to ease, so carry on...
Nothing I need to air with you, *******. The word is blocked, but I think you get my drift.
It is just home audio, we seem to losing perspective here:).
I can understand the heat in a discussion between Darwinists and Creationists, and though this one is on similar lines, it isn't worth the fight.
I can understand the heat in a discussion between Darwinists and Creationists, and though this one is on similar lines, it isn't worth the fight.
Userlevel 1
Nothing special then? Thought as much...
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.
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
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
Userlevel 2
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!
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!
+20
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.
Userlevel 2
Do you know which is better?
+20
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.
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.
My experience with external DACs has been mixed. When I used the highly regarded Rega DAC, I really could not hear a difference. I think that DAC is likely best with high resolution sources.
When I now occasionally use my oppo 105 coax inputs, there is a very significant difference. Surprisingly so. Even so, I rarely use it, because its kind of a pain to have turn the oppo on, and select the right input. If there was a cheap, dedicated DAC that I could be sure would sound as good as the oppo, I would use it for the connect.
My system consists of the oppo105, the sonos connect, a brio R integrated amp, and PSB T2 speakers.
I can identify with this post. I bought an Oppo BDP - 95, it's one of the Sabre DAC models. Everything that I played though the Oppo from a locally connected NAS sounded far, far superior to the Sonos. Recently, I loaded some of the same ALAC material (Kith Jarrett's Sun Bear concerts) that I play through the Sonos to the NAS drive and did an A/B test. Simply unbelievable! The resolution, clarity, bass definition and the sheer musicality of the Oppo just grabbed me by the emotions.
I use Sonos to bring digital music from my upstairs office to my downstairs living room but I do not use it to play music in other locations (they all have their own independent music systems - 7.1 surround in my media room, 2.0 Emotivas in my office etc.).
Last weekend, I bought a MOON MiND 180 digital streamer and replaced the Sonos with it. The MOON, as did the Sonos, plays through an Audiolab M-DAC to a Quad 99 pre and Quad 909 power amps. I wish that you could hear the difference that MOON makes in supplying the Audiolab with an unadulterated digital signal - absolutely incredible.
The Sonos has stood me in good stead for the past five years or so but its time to retire it or move it to my bedroom.
Last weekend, I bought a MOON MiND 180 digital streamer and replaced the Sonos with it. The MOON, as did the Sonos, plays through an Audiolab M-DAC to a Quad 99 pre and Quad 909 power amps. I wish that you could hear the difference that MOON makes in supplying the Audiolab with an unadulterated digital signal - absolutely incredible.
I can't see a reason for this - you aren't talking about DAC quality, but digital signal quality from the Connect compared to the MOON into the M-DAC. I don't know this device - are there any selectable filters employed that may be causing this difference?
This sounds like a classic case of confirmation bias. On Fixed Volume a CONNECT doesn't even touch the samples, so how can it possibly adulterate them.
That leaves jitter, and IIRC this was measured some years back and found to be low. In any case a decent DAC would re-clock.
Hi Kumar. The MOON MiND does not include any selectable filters and it does not do much except give you a well though out control app and negotiate moving the signal along from my eternal drive and NAS to the Audiolab DAC (the job that was previously done by the Sonos except that the Sonos first ran the signal through its own DAC). There are a couple of points here. First the MiND is very neutral and you don't "hear" it - that's good. Second removing the Sonos and allowing the signal to pass straight to the Audiolab DAC HAS without doubt changed the output, it's as though a very thin veil has been lifted from the music. Look, it's not that the Sonos (DAC) is bad - I'm not saying that. I have enjoyed it tremendously over the past four years or so. But alternating back and forth between the Sonos and the MOON MiND reveals a difference.
So, I wondered (of course) whether the difference in subjective assessment was caused by "adding" to the signal path by daisy chaining the Sonos to the Audiolab. I took the Audiolab out of the chain and connected the Sonos directly to my preamp. Yup, the thin difference across the audio spectrum was there. The difference is mainly in the higher regions where (for example) in Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, the high-hats and symbols are more distinct.
My wife and I know the Fleetwood album very well (she far, far better than me!). She is a complete non-audiophile but she could nevertheless hear the difference in those highs. I'm not into smoke and mirrors and I am extremely wary of snake oil sellers. I enjoy my system and I rarely introduce changes in to my system. I do not look for differences - but when I hear them, they are there.
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