New floorstanding speakers for Sonos Amp.

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Before purchasing the Sonos Amp, I was pairing my B&W CM7 floorstanders with Creek Destiny amp, and the source was Sonos Connect via Lindemann DAC. I have bid farewell to the Creek, the Connect, the DAC, and now very much enjoy the simplicity of Sonos Amp + CM7, but also find that my previous system sounded better, with more texture and details.

Since I love the Amp’s versatility and want to spend my life with it, do you think a better pair of speakers will improve the situation? I am willing to spend up to 3000$, but I am not sure if the 649$ Amp is able to drive such hi-end speakers to their finest. In most reviews I have read, they usually pair the Amp with sub-500 or sub-1000$ speakers only.

Many thanks for your insights.

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K

Kumar

But I am not a believer of burn-in theory, anyway.

Amen to that. One could just as well argue that the burn in time is the time it takes for psychological biases to dissolve, or, in the case of some speakers where some burn in may be real, to get used to the new sound signature.

No one does blind tests of a brand new amp and the same model 100 hours down the line - too much trouble involved in doing that.

On the other hand, there are claims for burn in for things like speaker cables as well…. :zipper_mouth:

For what its worth, there are some makes of some kit that say that their product needs burn in. Sonos does not say so, not even for its speakers.

W

wrbluepearl

Lyricist II

The idea that there’s no human-ear observable difference between solid-state amps is laughable. The AMP is a Class D design, and trust me, there are good ones and horrible ones out there, and they do NOT sound like Class A or Class AB solid state designs. If you don’t believe me, go on Amazon and order a Lepai LP-2020a and compare it to the Sonos AMP. Throw in the inevitable signal processing (analog or digital) in any audio product and...yeah, stuff sounds different for a lot of different reasons.

My experience has been that the Sonos AMP seems to do well with speakers with decent sensitivity. I’m using the AMP with the KEF LS50, which are notoriously difficult to drive, and it does have difficulty providing enough current to make loud sections of music loud. When used with other, less-demanding speakers (including, shockingly, antique KEF Reference 104/2s), it does better. Your CM7s, like the LS50s, are considered to be relatively low sensitivity (88dB for the CM7, 85dB for the LS50, 92dB for the Reference 104/2) and I suspect that the AMP’s Class D amplifier circuit has trouble delivering enough current.

I’d say, in your search for a new pair of speakers, read some reviews and try to find measured sensitivity figures that get you up above 90dB. Not sure about Bowers and Wilkins’ more recent offerings, but I know that KEF’s current offerings are all well below 90dB sensitivity and super power-hungry.

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