in the planning stages now for implementing house-wide 3-4 zone Sonos that will include at least one of their powered 50wpc zoneplayers and a couple of the non-amped players. so this leads to multiple questions: 1. speakers for the amped zp100 to go in non-critical listening kitchen placement that will probably demand a front ported speaker that is also less sensitive to directional placement (i.e. there will be no fixed listening position and will more often be off-axis); obviously not the place to drop big bucks, but I know nothing about the quality of the amp, probably marginal, and not a lot of juice, so would appreciate some suggestions for speakers that are not too hard to drive along with above criteria (bookshelf, not on stands); budget around $500 for the pair 2. posted a similar question in the dac-transport area but with so little traffic there, this is a cross-post with a twist, regarding the quality of the DAC in the Sonos players. The un-amped zp80 has a digital out, so I'm thinking of getting an outboard DAC for integration with my main system which is still really "under construction"--and after some thought (and deleting 500 words) I will spare you the tome about what I have now, etc. and ask where the best place in the forums to ask a question about the Sonos as a piece of a better quality (say $2500, not 25k), non HT system, assuming that it might be seen as an irritation here ...(the search engine did not yield much, and none of the normal categories seem to fit--or get much traffic, compared to the speakers) cheers, Marvin
In my spare time I'm a dealer of Sonos equipment. I have used the ZP100 successfully with more speakers than you'd credit. One of the most successful combinations is with the Totem Dreamcatcher. This is a remarkably good combination even though the Dreamcatcher can be a little difficult to drive, and they can work well close to the wall even though they're rear-ported.
I've also successfully matched the ZP100 with the Wharfedale Diamond 9.0 and 9.1, B&W 686 and 685, Focal 705V amd 706V. Each is different in presentation of course. My least favourite here is probably the B&W 685 since the B&W presentation is a little rich in the bass for my taste, followed closely by the Diamond 9.1. The rest have a more balanced presentation in my view.
Regarding the DAC portion of the Sonos, it's not the best so the ZP80 is OK but no great shakes. Putting a ZP80 through a high quality DAC has significant benefits depending on the quality of the DAC of course. We have used the ZP80 through a Chord DAC64 (£2000) into a high end system, and with FLAC encoded files, it sounds like a very good CD player indeed.
Obviously the encoding of the music files is absolutely crucial to quality here. We use a 250GB Buffalo NAS drive wired directly to the first ZP100. This cost us all of £100 or so. We've encoded the files in the highest possible quality which I believe is FLAC. Don't use any of the lossy compression schemes such as MP3 or AAC. FLAC, Apple Lossless, AIFF are the way to go. These make a massive difference to the sound quality. A 250GB disc can contain over 350 CDs, so two or three of these can contain a sizeable collection, and splitting that size collection means you don't have a single point of failure. Mirroring or Raid arrays are also highly desirable. It takes only a few minutes to rip a CD to a NAS drive, but a few minutes times 350 CDs is a helluva lot of minutes!
Frank, thank you for the reply; I had given up on the thread after nearly a week of silence. Excellent point about the mirroring of drives, for that ounce of prevention. I'm still unsure about the DAC in the zp80--or I should say I'm still unsure about how best to approach dealing with it (or even IF it needs to be dealt with, given the level of the other pieces in the system); certainly not 2000 sterling just for the outboard as the rest of my system--both current and planned, falls well below that level. Would you hazard a guess about how much one would need to spend for a reasonable improvement on the DAC of the zp80, assuming it will be fed into, say, a 2 channel amp (integrated or pre+) in the US$700-1000 range?--and a corollary to that, I would hope/assume that such an amp would be superior to the electronics in the ZP100. How would you characterize the latter? (beyond the suggested speaker pairings; would these indicate a warmer or brighter amp in the 100, for example?)
I probably should/will post these questions on a more Sonos-oriented forum, but having spent way too many hours reading posts by the regulars here, I feel I have a sense of most people's standards and biases, and must also confess (before Jan jumps in with his well-placed "what do you want to achieve?" probings-insert smiley face!) that I am really re-thinking every point in the chain (from source, amplification and speakers to room acoustics and placement) for every system in the house with the goal of a few Sonos zones that tie into a hi-fi (well, a proletarian mid-fi, really, under $3-4k) main system. The Sonos system is indeed seductive as you know, given that I rarely if ever have the luxury of plopping down for a nice uninterrupted listening session in a dedicated audio nirvana area, thanks to a 3 and 7 year old--the appeal of having access to all my music while in the study, TV room, or yes, in the kitchen as I get dinner together (my daily chore) overwhelms a single high end listening point (that still has a place in the 10 year plan). Which is precisely why I don't want a crappy under counter cd-radio mini system in the kitchen, after all!. ok, must stop the rant and babbling. thanks again for the reply
The ZP100's amplifier isn't bad! Is it as good as a separate 2-channel amp in the $700 - $1000 price range? I doubt it. Is it far off? Not sure. Bear in mind that the ZP100 integrates the ZP80 and its own fairly powerful amplifier. Sure I don't think it's as good as a Rega Brio. In fact I doubt that it's better than a NAD C325BEE. However, when you factor in the convenience of the single form factor and the fact it can actually drive Dreamcatchers well (which a NAD C325BEE cannot do), the argument for the ZP100 becomes more viable.
The built-in ZP80 DAC is not a major milestone in the history of digital electronics, but it is a good unit. It sounds fine. not amazing, but fine. Most DACs sound fine, not amazing, just fine to me. I believe this is somethign to do with the jitter created in transferring signal digitally between the transport and the DAC via the S/PDIF or Toslink interface. It affects me more readily. Hence the use of the Chord DAC which buffers and reclocks and seems less constricted than most. I don't think there's anything below serious money that improves hugely on the Sonos without impacting your overall spend. The DAC will always remain an option. I suggest you don't concern yourself at this early stage when I would argue that overall it sounds pretty good as it is, especially considering the outlay. If, in the fullness of time, you really can't get on with it on the bigger part of your system, then look into the Benchmarks, Cyrus, etc that are out there. Until then, this is a side issue in my view.
Finally, if you can't get demonstrations of the Sonos, I suggest you don't just go out and buy a 5-zone system. I suggest you buy a standard 2-zone bundle and see how it sounds to you and add zones later. This way you will knwo how it sounds in your context and whether it will do you. If it does, you can add ZP100s. If it doesn't you can choose more ZP80s with separate amps while relegating your sole ZP100 to the least important zone.
perfect answer Frank! I had already heard the Sonos in situ at my sister's place while on holiday in my home town of New Orleans (one reason music is in my blood!) and was quite impressed (not blown away, but given the form factor, as you said..) with both the ZP 100, which they had in a kitchen set up and the ZP 80 that was linked to a Rotel and some b&w's. One reason I was interested in the DAC was that upon analysis of my current system(s), it became obvious that a weak link was in the CDP which needed to be adressed first if I ever hoped to get good sound out of the rest, and given the cost of a good cdp (and its viability compared to the file server/library option), I was toying with the idea of using a DAC (either outboard or some kind of pre-amp or integrated) with a 2001 model Yamaha DVD-CD player that has digital out. Your answer tells me that neither the ZP80 or ZP100 would be the bottleneck in the system (and they certainly seem to have good build quality), so I'll be free to spend money in some better sources, peripheral amplification, and speakers. The Dreamcatcher looks nice; but we don't seem to have a dealer in the Cleveland area (talk about an exile for a New Orleanian!), so will have to figure sth. out on that front. My biggest issue as far as that goes is that I really prefer a leaner bass than bass bloat, which seems to be a problem in my current config (older house with 1. all hardwood floors and 2. the opposite of an open floor plan: lots of walls and smallish rooms.) Thanks so much, I have plenty food for thought now. cheers, Marvin
