|
Audio Asylum Thread Printer Get a view of an entire thread on one page |
For Sale Ads |
98.195.102.49
In Reply to: RE: Sound quality - Squeezebox vs Sonos Connect - digital out posted by cawson@onetel.com on May 03, 2015 at 04:50:08
Yes, that thought had occurred to me. The incoming bitstream is compressed MP3, and each respective player (Sonos or SB3) takes this bitstream, decompresses it and produces a 16 bit 44.1 KHz output. So as you say there is likely a difference in the digital processing. The SB3 seems to do a better job resulting in more/better bass and a more coherent sound, like all the different frequencies are better aligned in time with each other (if that makes sense). And yes, I am using the coaxial digital out in both players.This also agrees with my result using the uncompressed WAV file. Since there was probably NO additional processing required (no de-compressing), this bitstream was likely passed on unaltered in both players.
If this is the case I may end up returning the Sonos today and investigating other options such as the one you mentioned. If the SB3 would still support Rhapsody I would still be using it, the sound quality through the external DAC was very good. I want at least this same quality in its replacement.
Edits: 05/03/15 05/03/15Follow Ups:
Is that really true of the SONOS Bridge?
SONOS goes to all the trouble of circumventing your home WiFi system in order to move CD quality music from your computer to the SONOS speaker system and then uses MP3 encoding to move the data?
Are you sure?
No, I am listening to Rhapsody and Pandora which are compressed streams. Pandora is 128k mp3 and I think Rhapsody is 192 AAC. When I listen to the WAV file I ripped on my computer as a test, there is no MP3 involved. The MP3 is between the music service (Pandora for example) and the Sonos.
Spotify premium is 320kbps Ogg Vorbis while TIDAL premium is hopefully Lossless FLAC.
What happens between the SONOS Bridge and the SONOS speakers or CONNECT I can only guess.
My Connect doesn't need the bridge, it connects directly to my wireless router. And its digital output goes into a Behringer SRC2496, which feeds a DEQ2496 (contains the DAC) where it is finally converted to analog and sent to the preamp. A convoluted path, but it allows room EQ in the digital domain. All my sources (Streamer/CD/SACD/phono) get the same EQ applied by the DEQ2496 to remove room resonances (it's a small room).
if I added the Connect.No need for competition with everything else in the house that's on WiFi.
Edits: 05/03/15
> The incoming bitstream is compressed MP3, and each respective player (Sonos or SB3) takes this bitstream, decompresses it and produces a 16 bit 44.1 KHz output
Well, I was under the impression that MP3 was a lossey format so, hard as one tries, the signal will never return to Red Book standard. I've ripped all my CDs to FLAC which is lossless and have found the Sonos to be pretty good, although not quite as good as putting the CD in the Mark Levinson player and pressing Play! Streamers need to do some processing whatever format the files are stored in. The streamer asks for packages of data from the NAS or other network-connected storage and processes it to provide an accurate digital stream of data for the next stage - the DAC. How well they do this determines the quality of the music.
Using the NAD to process the files offers a much better sound than the Sonos or other streamers I've tried.
I've not investigated the relatively budget streamers, but I hear good things of the Bluesound stuff and, as I mentioned before, their PC Controller is much better than most others, although I'm not so keen on their smartphone app.
Peter
I know the Sonos is putting 16-bit 44.1 KHz out on it's digital output (I can see this from the SRC2496 it is connected to), but as you say that 16-bit 44.1 KHz stream does not contain all the original redbook data. When the compression occurred at the source end some bits were thrown away and you can't get them back.
Post a Followup:
FAQ |
Post a Message! |
Forgot Password? |
|
||||||||||||||
|
This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors: