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Avid Contributor II
September 2, 2016
Answered

Should I replace my hifi separates with a Sonos system?

My system comprises an all British set of separates, including a pre-amp and mono blocs. It still sounds great after twenty years, but things change and technology marches on. Whereas I used to listen to CD's, I now stream my music via AirPlay. A Cambridge Audio DAC is the interface between the hifi and Apple TV. I'm considering selling the whole system and replacing it with Sonos kit, principally for music but also to integrate and upgrade my TV sound. My question is, should I expect the Sonos units to be truly comparable to the high end hifi I've known for years?
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    KumarAnswer
    September 2, 2016
    My system comprises an all British set of separates, including a pre-amp and mono blocs. It still sounds great after twenty years, but things change and technology marches on.
    Another angle on this: I don't know what make these separates are, but I know of one make - Quad - that is brilliant in supporting their kit for decades. Their UK service set up in particular, is excellent and can run a check on all electronics ever made by Quad and bring it back to As New, with even a limited guarantee. I have used this service from as far as India, and I know people from EU that also have nothing but praise for Quad service.

    The reason I say this is that from a sound quality perspective, there has been a lot less audible progress than one might think. Depending on what and how good the passive speakers are, of course. Where Sonos has added features is in making a lot more music easier to access and to play. There may therefore be a case to keep this set up, and add just a Sonos front end in the form of a Connect. You could also add the cheaper Chromecast Audio, but having used both I think the easier to use Connect - even just the few control buttons that the Connect has - easily justifies the higher price when use over a few years is taken into account.

    As I said, just another point of view to take into account.

    82 replies

    Avid Contributor I
    October 1, 2016
    You dont need the sub for music.
    October 1, 2016
    Umm....with small active speakers that don't do much below 100hz, I certainly need a Sub for music of the highest sound quality in the home, even for the kind of music I mostly play, acoustic jazz. And not having to struggle to do what little they can with these frequencies allows these speakers to then be better at what they do well. The Sub also does a lot to add depth to music played at low volumes much better than the loudness switch does. Another advantage is that placing two full range speakers that both put out a lot of low frequency energy can be a bigger challenge than doing the same thing for one Sub. With the Sub in place, little needs to be done for the satellites beyond making sure that they are aimed in the general direction of the listening area.

    But proper integration of the Sub with the satellites is a must if this is to work.

    I haven't tried a 5 pair with/without Sub, but there are some here that think it adds value to that as well, for music. But with the 5 capable of decent energy down to 40-50 hz, I agree that the Sub may not be necessary. I don't know enough of the 5 units to say more than that.
    October 1, 2016
    OK, at gig levels they're not as clean as my old system
    This may well change if you add the Sub - just a thought, I haven't any experience to back this up.
    October 1, 2016
    Slightly unfair as the NAD is not an amp to drive big ATC speakers
    Digressing a little: presuming this to be the 370, why isn't it good enough for these speakers? I ask because I have used smaller NADs extensively in the past and still use the excellent 325 for my TV audio . The 370 was too heavy and powerful for my needs.
    October 1, 2016
    You dont need the sub for music.

    I may be wrong, but I thought that Kumar espoused the use of 2 x Play1 + a sub...

    These are the same Play 1s that you have evaluated - "I've already dismissed the 1s as anything more than a hi fi kitchen speaker, as a replacement for a top flight separates not a chance". Yet Kumar refers to them as "highest sound quality".

    I learnt many years ago that we're all different, and have very different quality standards when listening to music. I used to have a Quad + Kef setup. Nothing exotic, but not too bad for the time. I was astonished when a friend admitted that they couldn't hear any difference whatsoever between this setup and their own combined mini system (IIRC cost about £100) other than my system went louder. To me, it was chalk and cheese - their system sounded horrible...

    IMHO, it's almost impossible to have a meaningful discussion about perceived sound quality in an on-line discussion....
    October 1, 2016

    I may be wrong, but I thought that Kumar espoused the use of 2 x Play1 + a sub...

    Yet Kumar refers to them as "highest sound quality".

    I do espouse that set up and it is what convinced me of the merits of satellite speakers + Sub set ups configuration in general.

    I don't remember ascribing "highest sound quality" to it though, or to anything else - I only said it is as good as any I have heard in the room of the kind I use them in, for the music I like, but I would not be surprised if better sounding ones exist because there is so much kit out there. But from my experience of many kinds of kit I am quite happy in the knowledge that nothing will offer me more listening pleasure to the extent I have to keep looking.
    As always, YMMV. I should put that acronym in a signature, I think:-).
    October 1, 2016
    I don't remember ascribing "highest sound quality" to it though.....

    Sorry, perhaps I misunderstood your "I certainly need a Sub for music of the highest sound quality in the home"
    October 1, 2016
    You certainly did. I meant that to get the highest sound quality a low frequency limited satellite speaker like the play 1 can provide, a Sub needs to be in the system. That's some way away from "highest sound quality ever delivered by any system ever made anywhere in the world, for any price"!:-)) Which is what you understood.
    Again, feel free to put that down to my poor English communication skills.
    October 2, 2016
    And for the benefit of others that may chance upon this thread and find their way here:
    I replaced a USD 7500 hifi system with a play 1 + Sub; a system that was the last of a few I have been lucky enough to own over the last couple of decades. In my living room that can comfortably seat 8 people, I found very little loss of heard sound quality and none to the extent that it affected my listening pleasure - which actually has increased substantially after installing Sonos because I now listen to a lot more music, a lot more often than ever before.

    I found the play 1 pair to be close but not equal to the mid range that my legacy set up delivered, while the Sub did a better job with instruments like the double bass in a jazz trio and in providing a better sense of presence overall to the music during low volume level listening. The combined effect was good enough for me to not regret making the change even for a day. Perhaps things would have been different if I had a living room large enough for all the advantages of the legacy set up to come through, but I don't, so that point is moot for me. And even in that case, a 5 pair + Sub would probably be enough to compete on level terms. Not that surprising really, when one considers the many years of difference in technology - passive speakers based kit is technology from the last millennium. And when one analyses the reasons why it is still priced as high as it is, reasons that have nothing to do with objective sound quality delivered.

    For completeness, I have to say that I took as much care over speaker/Sub placement as I would over any hifi kit I have used but that was also a lot easier to with the 1 pair + Sub than with any other kit I have used in the past. And finally, Trueplay did the last little tweaking to take care of what still needed to be done to take room response into account.

    So to the question posed in the thread title I'd say - it depends - because to start with, the phrase "hifi system" is fuzzy and inadequately defined. That said, I'd say that in most cases there is a very good chance that replacing the hifi system with Sonos can be done without a sound quality compromise. And in every case, i'd suggest that given the potential benefits of a replacement, and given that Sonos kit is returnable in many places if found inadequate at home, the effort involved in listening to an appropriate replacement set up from Sonos at home is very worthwhile and with care in selection and placement, will most probably be successful.

    What Sonos will NOT provide are the psychological underpinnings as to why the legacy hifi kit may still sound superior to some, including the eye candy like dancing backlit VU meters, glowing tubes and the like. For those that need that to complete the listening experience, Sonos isn't the answer, though a Sonos Connect can still bring many Sonos advantages without losing any from the legacy kit. Disadvantages of legacy kit like messy cables, large footprint, dedicated furniture to keep its components on, probable absence of instant start and the like will however remain.
    October 2, 2016
    I found very little loss of heard sound quality......

    Yet others dismiss the Play1s - "as a replacement for a top flight separates not a chance".. Clearly there is a vast disparity in the criteria for sound quality. The fact that you personally found the Play 1s an acceptable compromise in your particular environment is great - but that doesn't mean that everyone else will.

    I don't recall seeing any double blind tests to prove the sound quality issues one way or the other, only personal anecdote. It would be really interesting to see what would happen. As I'm unlikely to get approval to put electrostatics in my living room, it would be wonderful (and much cheaper) if I could get identical sound quality simply by using Sonos kit.