Author Topic: Sonos Music System  (Read 16722 times)

Offline richidoo

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Sonos Music System
« on: June 13, 2008, 09:02:41 PM »
I hooked up my new Sonos today. I got it from John at Black Sands - and he autographed it in silver paint pen! I love it! Very cool John!  8)   He did his secret hyper-cryo treatment on the ZP-80. On first impression it sounds better as digital transport than the SB3, but I have been rolling tubes also, so I really can't say for sure. Based on the improvement to a stock SB3 when hyper-cryoed I'm sure there is improvement to this also, whether it is audible over a digital cable, I don't know yet. Comparing slim and sonos analogs will be fun for next G2G.

All I can say about this Sonos system is whew! What a relief. All the hype about easy to setup and use is true. It just works. Instant reaction to anything, even trying to fuck it up with multiple commands per second, it just does the best it can to keep up until I stop - it does not crash. It is very stable, very fast, direct connect to nas without a separate server, easy GUI interface, very solid feeling remote. So far I'm very impressed with it. The nas is lightning fast, no lag at all.

One thing I was worried about losing when going to Sonos was the ability to rewind and FF inside a song, to repeat the last 5 seconds, or play only the last 5 seconds of a track easily. The FF and RR buttons are much easier to use and position withing a song is precisely indicated in seconds on the display, while you are rewinding. The rewind is silent which is fine because you can see the clock. It is possible to rewind a song by as little as only 5 seconds. There are three different speeds of extended FF, so if you need to get through a 20 minute track for some reason, it speeds up and the fastest advance is extremely fast. This is a nice improvement from what I am used to on typical CDP and slim. The ultimate would making the scroll wheel control rewind and ff by twirling the wheel LIVE during a song playback. I'm not waiting for that pro feature.

I got the 130 bundle with the ZP-80 and ZP-100 players and a controller. I connected the amped player to the porch speakers so wifey can listen to brain rot out there, while I listen to real music inside, both streaming at the same time from the nas. Eventually I would like another remote, one for upstairs or the occasional inside/outside duel. But adding new players and controllers is extremely easy. There are no IPs, no settings, no WEP, no nothing. It is possible to run it without a PC, but the GUI is very useful, lightning fast, and has all the settings to control the system. Windows or Mac. It runs fast and smooth like a native, professionally compiled Windows application, not a cloogey web app fighting for resources inside the IE mothership. Again, there is no waiting for anything. It is ergonomically transparent to the job it performs.

The fancy remote charging cradle that you see in the ads is not included in the bundle, but I think I would like to have that to be able to hide the charging cables, or mount the cradle on the wall. But it is not necessary. I'll learn a lot more about it in the next months, but I am confident that it will be a positive experience.

Coming home from the track tonight the amps were still glowing at 10:30, Julie had been listening. She said how much she really enjoys using the Sonos compared to the SB. She has been wanting to try Sirius and Rhapsody or Pandora, so that will be fun for her to use the little remote to browse their ginormous catalogs easy as pi and explore new sounds.

The Sonos system is more expensive, though. About $800 (I think?) for the same functional features as the Duet which is only $400. The small Duet remote is very nice, and the charging cradle is nice too. I'm sure the boys at slim will have the code worked out very soon, and it will be a great product as was the SB, especially considering the price. Soon I'll be selling a SB3 and a Duet or two at a nice "lightly used" discount, in order to fund more Sonos.
Rich

Offline Carlman

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Re: Sonos Music System
« Reply #1 on: June 14, 2008, 08:59:42 AM »
Huh.. so... you're saying you like this new Sonos?   :lol:
Man, I'm glad to hear you've got something that connects you the music better.  It's relief to read your relief. ahhhhhh.  Goes with the 'just enjoy the music' theme.  Great news! thanks for sharing the finer points of your experience.  Keep us posted on it.

Looking forward to checking it out.  I would imagine there will be more of these systems as time goes on... Slim-itech is smart to get in the business now. Sonos and Slim is like the Sirius and XM of the technology right now... Except I think this technology will catch on with consumers a lot faster.

-C
I really enjoy listening to music.

rosconey

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Re: Sonos Music System
« Reply #2 on: June 15, 2008, 11:54:14 AM »
do you supply the dac like you would with a duet?

Offline richidoo

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Re: Sonos Music System
« Reply #3 on: June 15, 2008, 02:45:14 PM »
I am using an external DAC, but it has analog outs also, like a squeezebox or duet.

Phil

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Re: Sonos Music System
« Reply #4 on: June 15, 2008, 03:11:43 PM »
Rich,

Looking forward to further reports from the technology front.  The fact that your wife likes it too is good news.  Personally, if my wife cannot use the system too, it is of limited value.   We both really enjoyed the internet radio on our main system when we had the Duet (and it was properly setup and working - which wasn't often).

Hey, you can add up 32 devices.  Lots of room for audionervosa!  :lol:

Phil


Black Sand Cable

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Re: Sonos Music System
« Reply #5 on: June 16, 2008, 01:46:11 PM »
Hey Rich,

Glad to hear that you are digging the Sonos!

It is more money but when you directly compare it to the SB3 and more so the Duet, I really think it is a case of you get what you pay for! The Sonos works bug free as advertised and does almost everything well (nothing is perfect) but it's close and the folks at Sonos actually listen when people ask for changes.

Enjoy it.  :D

« Last Edit: June 16, 2008, 01:47:50 PM by Black Sand Cable »

Offline richidoo

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Re: Sonos Music System
« Reply #6 on: June 16, 2008, 02:54:50 PM »
Thanks John. As always, dealing with your company is easy and pleasurable. I will be ordering the charge cradle soon.

Phil, I know what you mean about simplifying for ease of use. Everybody in the family wants to be able to enjoy the music system, so it should be really easy. I'm considering simplifying the whole system to make it as easy to use as this sonos remote control. Reaching behind tube amps to turn them on and especially off (when they are hot), and the family trying to remember which order to turn things on and off, what knob do I turn to make it louder, etc. with new equipment all the time nobody knows what to do. So there will be more changes and a stabilization of components. Keeping it sounding this good as it is now with all tubes will be the challenge. But in the end sharing music with the  family is the reason we have a stereo, so it has to be easy and reliable, preferably on and ready to go all the time.

One cool thing about the Sonos. It has a Queue, which remembers the tunes you played in the past. So you can go back to the previous tune or remember what you were playing half hour ago. When you add tunes to the playlist they go onto the end of the Queue with the song currently playing in the middle of the queue shown with a cursor.  You can manually edit the queue as needed, or clear it completely.  Each player has its own separate queue, all on the remote.

I also like the instant response to commands. The remote goes into sleep mode quickly when not in use, so you have to shake it or hit a key to wake it before it takes a command. If you leave it untouched for a longer period it shuts off, shaking or keypress starts a reboot. Power management is pretty good. 2nd day now since last charge I am down to 2/3 power left.

Offline richidoo

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Re: Sonos Music System
« Reply #7 on: June 30, 2008, 12:34:38 PM »
Sonos still working like a champ. It has been very reliable.  It did choke twice last week, still don't know why, but plugging in the charger cured it within 5 seconds, and not happened again since. Listened to some internet radio last night. Nick checked it out too. The sound of the 50wpc amplified player ZP100 is vastly better than the 80 wpc Audiosource amp. One thing I wanna check out is whether it is dithering into the 16 bit signal when it digitally attenuates the volume. I haven't noticed any gritties yet with the volume as low as half.  I also like that I can turn down the lcd and button brightness separately, so dim that it doesn't blind me when I am listening in pitch black, except for the tubes     8)  But it's still visible in daylight, might save some battery? Keep algore smilin. hehe

Another thing I wanna do is compare ZP100 to SB3 and duet as digital transport. My subjective impression on first listening was that it sounded better, but no reason it should. And then also compare the ZP100 digital out to the BlackSands treated ZP80 digital output. Something pepped up the system in the last month, not sure what, but a few changed made.
Rich

Black Sand Cable

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Re: Sonos Music System
« Reply #8 on: June 30, 2008, 04:01:09 PM »
Sonos still working like a champ. It has been very reliable.  It did choke twice last week, still don't know why, but plugging in the charger cured it within 5 seconds, and not happened again since. Listened to some internet radio last night. Nick checked it out too. The sound of the 50wpc amplified player ZP100 is vastly better than the 80 wpc Audiosource amp. One thing I wanna check out is whether it is dithering into the 16 bit signal when it digitally attenuates the volume. I haven't noticed any gritties yet with the volume as low as half.  I also like that I can turn down the lcd and button brightness separately, so dim that it doesn't blind me when I am listening in pitch black, except for the tubes     8)  But it's still visible in daylight, might save some battery? Keep algore smilin. hehe

Another thing I wanna do is compare ZP100 to SB3 and duet as digital transport. My subjective impression on first listening was that it sounded better, but no reason it should. And then also compare the ZP100 digital out to the Black Sands treated ZP80 digital output. Something pepped up the system in the last month, not sure what, but a few changed made.
Rich

Rich did you sign up for the Napster trial yet? If not.....you should. I'm addicted to it now. It's very cool to have a song pop into your head and do a Napster search and seconds later be listening to it (that is of courseif you don't already have it on your pc).

The files are of average audio quality but it's cool none the less.

When it comes to the end sound, I currently have a SB3, Duet, Transporter and full Sonos system all hooked up and the edge goes to the Transporter but (and I mean this very seriously), my modded ZP80 is very close and even a stock ZP80 is close. It shouldn't be but to my ears and also a few other peoples ears, it's darn close.

The ZP80 along with a PS Audio DLIII (to me at least) is on par with the stock Transporter. I also have a few modded Tranporters (not mine) kicking around and again the ZP80 along with a standalone DAC rivals every one of them with the one exception being the ZP80 along with the Benchmark DAC. For reasons I have yet to figure out this combo (once again...to me at least) does not work at all and to be brutally honest, I have trouble listening to the combo. I swear it's like somebody cranked the treble or something. Odd but it is what it is. It doesn't happen with the PS Audio, Lavry or any of the other DAC's I'm fooling around with at the moment.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2008, 10:58:33 AM by Black Sand Cable »

Offline richidoo

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Re: Sonos Music System
« Reply #9 on: June 30, 2008, 07:22:58 PM »
Thanks John. I have still never heard the Benchmark. One almost came to a G2G but he forgot. It is firmly targeted to pro audio buyers, and hifi market is secondary gravy feeding of the name hype. So any voicing is toward pro's "taste." The best way to torture an audiophile is to make him sit in a mastering engineer's seat for 30 minutes.  But it's what they need to do their job. Hearing, not listening. Shit for all I know the Benchmark could be the ticket, maybe I'll get to hear it if they come back to RMAF again this year.  I rode to the airport with their engineer who was quite impressive in his technical knowledge, at least to me... not saying much... haha

Overall I am still happy with the sound quality of the Altmann DAC, even though my system has improved a lot this past year, it can still hang in there. I might tweak the caps as tanchiro suggested. But I am also keeping my ear to the ground for the new Bryson BDA-1 which should be coming out within a couple months.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2008, 07:33:14 PM by richidoo »

ik632

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Re: Sonos Music System
« Reply #10 on: July 03, 2008, 12:00:07 PM »
I did get a chance to play around with it a bit. I like the Sonos, it's definitely robust. Having said that, there are two schools of though.

1. Use the Sonos as the big screen large controller for everything.
2. Use the Duet as a small and more portable solution.

The interface is definitely much more polished than the Logitech device. I do like how the SB Controller is smaller and easier to carry around though. I can just leave it in my pocket or stick it in the cradle. I don't see doing that with the Sonos. I think that it will be an interesting market as Logitech improves on the Duet system and makes them more stable but the Sonos seams to work very smoothly currently and for most users, that's the main issue.

Offline richidoo

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Re: Sonos Music System
« Reply #11 on: July 03, 2008, 02:28:57 PM »
I had the same impression when I first got the Sonos - BIG!  But I have gotten used to it, and now I like the way I can navigate with two thumbs, I like the bigger screen for reading with no glasses. I can run the remote with only one finger since it has rubber base and heavy enough to not slide under a button push. For me, the large white remote is easier to find and doesn't slip into the cushions as easy as the slim remotes, but can't carry in the pocket, I miss that too.

Offline richidoo

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Re: Sonos Music System
« Reply #12 on: July 23, 2008, 12:30:19 PM »
OK, here's the final installment on the initial Sonos review, with more to come as events unfold in the future. I would like to experiment with wires, DACs, etc, but at least the transport system is stable and working well.  I am a happy convert.

When I was having troubles with the Duet I called slim to try to figure out why it was so flakey. Top tier support engineer went through the motions, reset everything, reload, but no changes, got it working, but offered no permanent fix. I said what about upgrading the latest beta? They said no that won't help but the new gold release will improve it in a month or so.... It didn't help. Reading the new gold details, there is nothing in there about networking or dropping connections. I gave my Duet to Nick to "explore" mercilessly. If it is my problem at my house with my technical curse then he will figure it out. Nope, still flakey for him too, after 2 months of trying everything and despite different dedicated servers and nearly laboratory controlled testing. Nick (ik632) is a gentle soul, but when it comes to computers misbehaving he can be quite methodical and ruthless. :D

So I get the Sonos, works fine for about 2 weeks. Then ohmygodimgonnakillsomeone, it starts acting flakey too!  :shock: It froze a couple times, woke slowly from deep sleep, and dropped zones a couple times. I brush aside thoughts of a curse and suicide, and called my dealer. John at Black Sands answers email seemingly within 15 minutes night or day. He offered his experience with Sonos, some logical things to try, contact info at Sonos, and most importantly to someone as emotionally immature as me, reassurance that no matter what I would be forced to remain a loyal and happy Black sands customer. He stuck with me through the whole deal, curious about the cause and cure of this very rare Sonos burp.

I was hesitant to call Sonos tech support because I assumed based on experience with other consumer electronics support experiences that it would just be a big waste of time and I would have yet another enemy to reconcile myself at the Pearly gates by the end of it. I looked online for clues to my problem "frozen remote."  A couple hits of threads on forums always included a post by a SOnos tech guy, prowling the forums looking for trouble. In a couple cases the same confident invitation, like "We REALLY wanna  fix this, we really wanna know what is happening with your remote, please call tech support so we can make you happy.... blablabla." So I figured I would give it a try. 

I called Sonos. The tech support guy was new. Uh-oh...  Over the next few hours that kid did more research, had more patience and called me back (even after it was fixed) more times than any other service I have ever received. He initially offered to RMA me a new remote. But apparently that offer was denied internally because higher tier support suggested things he hadn't tried that would fix it. so he called me back. By that time, the thing was a brick, not even functional enough to fix. While he had me on hold to ask for advice, it came alive for a second, and I was able to apply the patch that he had activated for my Sonos on his support server. By the time he came back, it had rebooted, started like lightning, worked fast and perfect. A month later it is now still running perfect in every way. He would not tell me what the patch does, but it is for the frozen remote problem, so they know what is wrong, apparently it is very rare, but they are prepared anyway. He called again a couple hours later to give me more advice about my 2.4GHz cordless phone. He citrixed into my PC to check network settings (all OK) and moved the wireless channel away from Sonos.

John also recommended upgrading my 16 year old phone to Dect 6 which I just got yesterday. With the old phone, music would pause whenever anyone talked on the cordless. Crutchfield hooked me up with scratch and dent Panny for $80, 2 handsets, message recorder, talking caller ID, etc. shweet  8)

So, overall I have been thrilled with my Sonos experience, and once again my Black Sands experience. I highly recommend both. 2 weeks after the tech support instance with Sonos, John emails me this morning, "How's it working??" You just can't beat that.

ik632

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Re: Sonos Music System
« Reply #13 on: July 28, 2008, 12:07:11 PM »
Thanks for the compliment Rich, I think it's a compliment anyway  8)

We have a few "hot fixes" like that for our customers. They typically aren't for everyone since they only address specific conditions at the install site. I wonder what the fix actually did though, now you've got me wondering.

Offline richidoo

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Re: Sonos Music System
« Reply #14 on: April 14, 2014, 04:43:49 PM »
Here'a golden oldie... Actually not so golden, but definitely old!

I finally came to the end of my Sonos rope today. I have a new amp on audition which laid bare a problem with the Sonos digital out. I always thought that the Buffalo DAC's ESS chip could cure whatever jitter was on the SPDIF, but there is a limit. Actually the ESS white paper spells out the limit in nS. I'm assuming it's too much jitter, but it could be DSP or EMI or anything. The Sonos innards are not to be looked at by any audiophile or you will turn to stone - that bad... But the interface is cool and the software is great so it lived here for a long time.

The problem is that the Sonos as digital transport emphasizes the treble, makes a bump around 6-8kHz which makes everything sound hard and etched. Until now I have not had system transparent enough to identify the Sonos as a culprit, but with my previous 'peak of the mountain' type system, circa 2008, I did hear this EQ and blamed it on everything but Sonos. My then Altmann DAC wasn't nearly as transparent as Buffalo either so I couldn't nail it down. With the newly upgraded Buffalo DAC, Kairos speakers, and Samet I60 amp I could hear the EQ easily and swapping to an old Oppo CDP for transport cured it. The old baby Oppo is terrrible for analog out, but I guess it is good enough for the ESS to clean up the mess whereas the Sonos' mess is just too much.

Sonos is still great for its intended purpose, spreading the joy of music all over the house. When played with speakers and amp of similar pedigree Sonos does a good enough job, more than worth the price.

But IMHO it's not good enough for an audiophile system, unless you apply a true reclocking-jitter-fixer to it.