Sonos and Naim DAC

Hi John.

I havnt heard the Naim DAC with Sonos, but i did have a sonos setup for a year or so (inc ZP90).

The thing i most enjoyed about the Sonos, was the ease of use, that first Controller (was it CR100??) was a joy to use. The Sonos on its own i found was rather lacking in the sound quality stakes, but that soon changed when i added a Musical Fidelity KW DAC, it being comparable to a good £1000 CD Player.
I also found a very good upgrade was ditching their el-cheapo mains lead and getting myself an Isotek / Russ Andrews type - i cant remember which one though, or whether the Sonos mains lead came with a transformer attached. Sorry, my memory's stuffed !!

I've used a ZP90 through the Naim DAC. It sounds good. Not quite up to CD555 standards but well on the way.

Previous testing of a ZP90 vs Mac Mini concluded that the ZP90 via coax sounded better than Mac via optical. These tests were with a Lavry DAC. Haven't retested with the Naim DAC, or with a Mac running Amarra. From reports the 3rd party software on Mac would elevate about ZP90.

For the money a ZP90 and coupled with the fantastic remote and the software remotes freely downloadable it makes a great streaming source.

Graham

sonus.iphone ripnas ndac great result for a £240 FRONT END

Is it my imagination or weren't Acoustica in Chester demoing this very combination for a day or weekend recently?

Mike

Mike

From re-collection Acoustica didn't have the Sonos hooked up to the DAC, well not whilst I was there.

I have tried the Sonos with the DAC and thought it was very good. I have a custom built PC as a source for my DAC using Foobar and thought the Sonos was on a par. The lack of hi-res playback on the Sonos put me off although very impressed with quality and simplicity of solution.

I had a zp90 for a while, loved it though the lack of high def playback is a shortfall. My money would be on a linn sneaky ds for a naim dac front end.

I found the zp90 as good as my pc (custom built)which was better than my mac and ps3.

and then there's 16/48 wav file vs 24/96 lossless of same.

quote:

Originally posted by js:
and then there's 16/48 wav file vs 24/96 lossless of same.

tried .there is a different in presentation with the dac,but how long do we have to wait for a massive collection of high.res albums. i did not that sun records are starting to offer them

I agree the lack of hi-def playback could be an issue for some people depending on their setup and music preferences. There is so little hi-def stuff out there that until hi-def is a little more "mainstream" its not an issue for most. And I'g guess when it is more prevalent Sonos will have a hi-def streamer ready. The magic of the Sonos is the ease of use and the Rhapsody streaming subscription service, which surprisingly on occasion, depending on recording sounds amazingly good. iPad app is also going to be a nice addition to the system.

Anyone have any thoughts on how good Sonos/Naim Dac sounds compared to Naim's top quality CD players. CDX2? CDS3?

Hello ... I have the naim DAC/ZP90 setup now for a few days. I traded my CD5X/FC2X for this combi. Cable is a audioquest eagle eye ... All sounds very good and the user friendly-ness is brilliant.

quote:

It sounds good. Not quite up to CD555 standards but well on the way

Sound quality however is (at this moment) not on par with my old combo. Is this because the DAC needs to runn in for at least 3 weeks (recomondation of my dealer). I was a bit surprised by the quote of Graham.

Is my dac going to develop so much more during the upcoming weeks?

To Sound dust: You can't go wrong woith the DAC/ZP90. I've now listened to cd's wich I haven't heard for a long time, ut imo at this moment my old cd5x/fc2x sounded better ... (but as mentioned i'll hope this will change in the upcomming week ...

To get the best from the dac it needs a 555PS, which is an expensive upgrade.

quote:

Originally posted by Graham Russell:
To get the best from the dac it needs a 555PS, which is an expensive upgrade.

and for most far too expensive, and the total cost bring the dac into other top end dacs too.
the differences are not massive either.

For to expended indeed

Since I only owned the cd5x with my flatcap ... At what level does the naim dac play (i.e. with the sonos). At this moment I still miss my punch and drive. It has however very good detail.

Now to get a bit controvercial...

I assume you are playing flac files through the Sonos. I certainly hear a difference between different flac compression levels with Sonos. There seems to be an issue with the hardware decoding. Try playing flacs with compression level 0, which is least compression and largest files.

Also try playing the equivalent wav files. Hopefully you will hear they sound even better.

I agree and it's not just the Sonos, Graham.

quote:

At this moment I still miss my punch and drive. It has however very good detail.

Yes the Sonos into my SuperNait DAC is nice and very listenable, but I'd say below par to my CD5i and definitely lacking that punch and drive that the Naim CD players have. Good for casual or not so serious listening.

Really hoping a NaimDAC with Sonos will give me CDX2 level performance. My impressions from various posts around the forum is that the NaimDAC is at that level or better. Does anyone think this is realistic or is the Sonos holding it back.

quote:

Does anyone think this is realistic or is the Sonos holding it back.

CDX2 level of performance (and above) is very easy to achieve - Your Supernait DAC is the bottle neck.

quote:

Originally posted by sound_dust:
Good for casual or not so serious listening.

Stop being so formal and serious, have fun, and enjoy what you have. I am sure it sounds fabulous.

Not that I haven't said something similar but.... I always chuckle at the "serious" listening comments.
-p

sound_dust
Re: Sonos into SuperNait DAC .... below par to CD5i and lacking punch & drive of Naim CDP

How is it connected. I was helping a friend set up his Sonus system with 282/DAC/200 a few days ago & was surprised at how much better a digital cable was over a Toslink.

Any others readers with info on this gratefully received as I am going Sonus with my Supernait/HC some time soon.

quote:

Originally posted by Mike-B:
sound_dust
Re: Sonos into SuperNait DAC .... below par to CD5i and lacking punch & drive of Naim CDP

How is it connected. I was helping a friend set up his Sonus system with 282/DAC/200 a few days ago & was surprised at how much better a digital cable was over a Toslink.

Any others readers with info on this gratefully received as I am going Sonus with my Supernait/HC some time soon.

ZP90 into SuperNait via Coax with Neat Momentum 3i speakers. Sounds great to me and better than my MacBook Pro via Optical (with / without Pure Music software handling the playback) or Airport Express.

I used a Sonos with a Cambridge dacmagic and then upgraded to the naim dac when it came out. I think I was one of the first to get the naim dac. I am using it with the dc1 digital interconnect,2x powerlines and a hiline.

I am very pleased with this setup. I have a cds3 with a 555ps attached and have tried this on the dac. It does make a huge difference but don't let that put you off using the dac with its native supply. At the moment I do not use the 555ps on the ndac on a regular basis and am still very happy with it. The Sonos interface is excellent.

If you want a good vfm upgrade for the dac add a powerline.