sonos users must read...

tonyb

Clipdat wrote: »

"Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) 50 to 65 dB"

No me gusta.

tonyb wrote: »

Came across this, might be worth a shot for the 15 bucks.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1133814-REG/technical_pro_usb2rca_digital_analog_audio.html/?c3api=3679,bing,81020275396831,4584619890722573

Saw that....hopefully the dac in the Cambridge would eliminate some of that. Either way, the OP needs a dac, or a different streamer.

dannylightning

i was looking at the really small inexpensive laptops a bit more, unfortunately most of them only have about 32 gigs of storage or less unless you want to buy a expensive small one so i am not sure i wan to go that rout. and guess would i need a computer with the Cambridge DAC software installed on it for that dac built into my amp to work

so a external dac or a new streamer is probably something i need to look into.. i been reading some node 2 v sonos reviews.. lots of people say the node sounds better and has a warmer tone to it. so its probably gonna be one of those are maybe a different DAC. i dont know. ill think about it for a bit and figure out what i want to do.

Clipdat

Yeah man, at this point it's looking more appearing to just cut your losses and try to sell the unit on eBay. That way you can get a little money for it and look into something that's design goals are focused on audio quality, instead of ease of use/mass market appeal like Sonos is.

dannylightning wrote: »

so a external dac or a new streamer is probably something i need to look into.. i been reading some node 2 v sonos reviews.. lots of people say the node sounds better and has a warmer tone to it. so its probably gonna be one of those are maybe a different DAC. i dont know. ill think about it for a bit and figure out what i want to do.

dannylightning

so this is interesting. i unplugged the unit for several hours. it seems like the distortion issue is gone. i unplugged it twice before and after about 10 minutes i plugged it back in and it did not help so i don't know why a few hours did.

overall the distortion may be gone but the high end still sounds still sound kind of off and not very natural like they did., its nowhere near as warm for example.. before the update it had this sort of sound..



and after the update the sound change dramatically so its more of this type of sound seems and it seems to to focus on the higher end of the mids and really reduced the low end on the mids..



i just adjusted the eq on my pc to try and represent about how the tone i am hearing was sounding before and after the update than i took a screen shot. its not a EQ that is actually on the sonos... but that is about how i think the EQ would look to acheive a tone i was hearing and the one i hear now. i had a EQ for abotut 15 years till it went bad so

if you have a used a EQ before you will get a idea of how that would probably sound by looking at it. actually i probably should have lowered the 250 and 500 slider a bit more on the 2nd photo..

tonyb

In your settings, did you turn it to "uncompressed " ? If not, do so...

dannylightning

tonyb wrote: »

In your settings, did you turn it to "uncompressed " ? If not, do so...

yeah its set to uncompressed and i have tried the different channels but that does not help..

to get it to sound flat or i guess balanced instead of bright i now need to adjust the EQ on the connects software like this.. that makes it sound similar to how it was but not quite as warm in the mids.. makes the low end bass sound slightly muddy.. but that is better than bright i guess. highs still sound a little on the hard side instead of natural too

tonyb

That could be attributed to other things in your system also. Least you made some headway unplugging it. Now do the same with the router, unplug it for 30 minutes. Supposedly that also resets something in the sonos box to do with the wifi signal.

dannylightning

tonyb wrote: »

That could be attributed to other things in your system also. Least you made some headway unplugging it. Now do the same with the router, unplug it for 30 minutes. Supposedly that also resets something in the sonos box to do with the wifi signal.

unfortunately i have unplugged the router, the modem and the bridge twice now and that did not change anything...

unfortunately i can't hardwire it either, we have one room in the house with a ethermet connection, my room is one the one end of the hose and that room is on the other end of the house. the room mate is not wanting to install Ethernet in the other rooms.. something about drilling holes in the floors and what not.. its his house so it is what it is i guess. i got to use wireless for everything.

Clipdat

Oh man, those vague unlabeled sliders for treble and bass would not work for me at all. Way too unknown on what range of frequencies it's actually affecting.

dannylightning

Clipdat wrote: »

Oh man, those vague unlabeled sliders for treble and bass would not work for me at all. Way too unknown on what range of frequencies it's actually affecting.

starting on the left you have the deepest lows.and on the far right you have the highes highs.. its pretty easy just to adjust one at a time and you can hear if you like the adjustment or not.. so there pretty easy to use

i wish they sill made some good quality EQ's any time i had to put my stereo in a new room it sounded different. they were kind of like a manual room correction tool. mine still works but there is a loud pop at some spots on a few of the sliders so i figured its time to retire it before it blows out a speaker..

dannylightning

another sonos update.. it said it fixed a performance issue and some other stuff.

it seems to sound better now, its sounding allot cleaner and the highs are not as harsh, but its not nice and warm like it used to be.. still sounds like they adjusted a EQ to make it sound brighter.. i think it went from a pretty high quality sound to sounding like a cheap-0 music player, to me it seems like they really messed something up

the sonos customer support really seems to have no idea about audio equipment at all, they are focused on your network which they cant seem to find any issues with, they seem to say that a update is not able to change the way the unit sounds. they keep insisting if i adjust the bass and treble on your home stereo it will Chang the sound quality and fix my issue. its pretty sad..

so yeah.. currently i am looking at different options. i think i a just going to get a small laptop, install j river and connect it to the DAC built into my amp.. anything else that looks good cost too much so a laptop is probably the easiest option.

tonyb

Like I said, Sonos is not SQ focused. I used to belong to their forum, and the Sonos corporates, rabid followers, just didn't understand audio in general. Dacs don't matter because Sonos has a high quality dac, all amps sound the same and the ones in the Sonos units are just as good as any other amp. Cables don't matter, blah blah. You get tired after a while beating your head against a wall.

dannylightning

tonyb wrote: »

Like I said, Sonos is not SQ focused. I used to belong to their forum, and the Sonos corporates, rabid followers, just didn't understand audio in general. Dacs don't matter because Sonos has a high quality dac, all amps sound the same and the ones in the Sonos units are just as good as any other amp. Cables don't matter, blah blah. You get tired after a while beating your head against a wall.

yeah.. im about to give up on the sonos i think. its sounding pretty good just not great like it was.

now i was thinking. i cant find my usb A to B cable to test out the dac on my amp using my laptop to see how it sounds but at one time i used it, that was before i got the sonos.. from what i remember the EQ on my computer still changed the sound i heard on the stereo so i think that means the computers sound card is still being used.

basically the way my amps built in DAC is set up i install a driver on the laptop and any sound playing on my computer gets sent to the stereo, and this has me thinking, generally stock sound cards in computes are not the greatest. i once had a tower and i bought a nice sound card for it. the difference in audio quality was huge between the stock card and the sound blaster so i am wondering if the sound card in the computer i get would make a difference if i go with the lap top send the audio to my stereo..

msg

The sound card in a computer shouldn't matter once you connect a USB DAC. The USB DAC essentially becomes the computer's sound card. I think the way it works is just like any other source with a digital output - the computer is handing off the digital audio to the DAC over the DACs audio driver. There should be no audio processing going on within the computer's onboard sound hardware, otherwise what would be the point of using an outboard DAC? Using an outboard DAC with a computer is like attaching a USB sound card to your computer.

Clipdat

Yep, this. As long as you are going out over USB A->B from your laptop to your Cambridge, you'll be good.

msg wrote: »

The sound card in a computer shouldn't matter once you connect a USB DAC. The USB DAC essentially becomes the computer's sound card. I think the way it works is just like any other source with a digital output - the computer is handing off the digital audio to the DAC over the DACs audio driver. There should be no audio processing going on within the computer's onboard sound hardware, otherwise what would be the point of using an outboard DAC? Using an outboard DAC with a computer is like attaching a USB sound card to your computer.

dannylightning

msg wrote: »

The sound card in a computer shouldn't matter once you connect a USB DAC. The USB DAC essentially becomes the computer's sound card. I think the way it works is just like any other source with a digital output - the computer is handing off the digital audio to the DAC over the DACs audio driver. There should be no audio processing going on within the computer's onboard sound hardware, otherwise what would be the point of using an outboard DAC? Using an outboard DAC with a computer is like attaching a USB sound card to your computer.

i found a basic printer cable since its digital im not really sure if that really makes a difference or not but it works, i think you are correct, the computers built in sound cards volume and EQ are disabled.. the EQ and the volume on the program that is playing the music still works.

it seems to sound a good deal better than the sonos

Viking64

dannylightning wrote: »

i found a basic printer cable since its digital im not really sure if that really makes a difference or not but it works, i think you are correct, the computers built in sound cards volume and EQ are disabled.. the EQ and the volume on the program that is playing the music still works.

it seems to sound a good deal better than the sonos

Maybe you should invest in a keyboard with a functioning "SHIFT" key.

Clipdat

Clearly he has a functioning shift key, EQ is capitalized.

Viking64 wrote: »

Maybe you should invest in a keyboard with a functioning "SHIFT" key.

dannylightning

Sorry you do not like my typing, I know its not the best but dyslexic people have trouble with spelling and reading and typing too.

After a test of a CD (cheap blue ray player), the sonos and the PC all playing the same song on my stereo i think the laptop hooked into my amps DAC seems to have the best sound quality out fo the 3. both the CD player and the sonos were using a set of the same audio quest interconnects for the test..

due to the fact i was using a bottom of the barrel usb cable and it sounded better than the rest ill probably just get a AQ Forrest usb cable and just use that for a while, i think a 10 footer would work just fine without needing to buy a second computer. the 6 footer i found was in the way since i could not run it behind the TV to keep it out of the way but i think i can make it work with a 10 foot cable.

Viking64

dannylightning wrote: »

Sorry you do not like my typing, I know its not the best but dyslexic people have trouble with spelling and reading and typing too.

Hey, you do what feels best for you. I'm just vying for the Club Polk Monty Python-esque Smart-a$$ Award of 2017. And there is just over 2 weeks left!

Clipdat

It's worth making a post in the WTB section that you're looking for a high quality USB cable. Perhaps someone has upgraded and has their old one sitting around that they would sell for a nice price!

Glad you are sorting out your audio issues and moving on from Sonos. Did I miss what music player you're using on the laptop? I tried the JRiver free trial recently but ended up going back to Winamp with the Maiko WASAPI plugin.

dannylightning wrote: »

due to the fact i was using a bottom of the barrel usb cable and it sounded better than the rest ill probably just get a AQ Forrest usb cable and just use that for a while, i think a 10 footer would work just fine without needing to buy a second computer. the 6 footer i found was in the way since i could not run it behind the TV to keep it out of the way but i think i can make it work with a 10 foot cable.

dannylightning

Clipdat wrote: »

It's worth making a post in the WTB section that you're looking for a high quality USB cable. Perhaps someone has upgraded and has their old one sitting around that they would sell for a nice price!

Glad you are sorting out your audio issues and moving on from Sonos. Did I miss what music player you're using on the laptop? I tried the JRiver free trial recently but ended up going back to Winamp with the Maiko WASAPI plugin.

dannylightning wrote: »

due to the fact i was using a bottom of the barrel usb cable and it sounded better than the rest ill probably just get a AQ Forrest usb cable and just use that for a while, i think a 10 footer would work just fine without needing to buy a second computer. the 6 footer i found was in the way since i could not run it behind the TV to keep it out of the way but i think i can make it work with a 10 foot cable.

j river is a nice player, i like it. i never liked win amp but i cant recall why lol.

digital signals are different than analog, im not sure digital cables make a difference in audio quality, maybe they do but over the years i have tested some different digital audio cables vs each other and they all seems to sound very similar from what i remember and the cheap o printer cable i found laying around sounded great.

what do you all think. do some digital cables sound better than others ?

ZLTFUL

Having watched JRiver crash time and time again on a home theater crawl back in February in Kansas City (8 theaters using JRiver, 6 of those theaters crashed multiple times during demos) I am glad I never jumped on the JRiver bandwagon and stuck with Plex instead.

As for the Sonos issues, I have received each of the updates you have and have yet to hear and differences with either the Sonos Connect or the Sonos Connect Amp.

Clipdat

That is a very controversial topic!

My personal opinion is that yes there is a difference to be had from going from an OEM pack in USB A-B cable to a well made cable like Audioquest Forest or similar.

I have used this one with good results: https://www.turntablelab.com/products/oyaide-neo-class-s-usb-cable-1-0m-white (also check out TTL if you haven't they have some cool stuff)

Here is a cheaper one from Oyaide that I've also tried: https://www.amazon.com/Oyaide-Neo-Class-USB-Cable/dp/B003TN74S6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1513278086&sr=8-1

I don't think it's worth spending over $100 on HDMI or USB cables, but again, this is just my personal opinion.

dannylightning wrote: »

what do you all think. do some digital cables sound better than others ?

dannylightning

ZLTFUL wrote: »

Having watched JRiver crash time and time again on a home theater crawl back in February in Kansas City (8 theaters using JRiver, 6 of those theaters crashed multiple times during demos) I am glad I never jumped on the JRiver bandwagon and stuck with Plex instead.

As for the Sonos issues, I have received each of the updates you have and have yet to hear and differences with either the Sonos Connect or the Sonos Connect Amp.

interesting, its been several years since i used it, never had it crash in the past when i used it. once i got the sonos i quit using a pc for playing music

tonyb

Yes, digital cables differ in SQ just like RCA's, maybe not to the same extent though, but very noticeable. One I can recommend is the blackcat, used around 60-80 bucks and sounds pretty darn good.

If your going to use your laptop, try Jriver, as most seem to really like it.

lightman1

Viking64 wrote: »

dannylightning wrote: »

Sorry you do not like my typing, I know its not the best but dyslexic people have trouble with spelling and reading and typing too.

Hey, you do what feels best for you. I'm just vying for the Club Polk Monty Python-esque Smart-a$$ Award of 2017. And there is just over 2 weeks left!

You should see some of my posts from years ago. But....keep up the good work. I like your style.

dannylightning

Viking64 wrote: »

dannylightning wrote: »

Sorry you do not like my typing, I know its not the best but dyslexic people have trouble with spelling and reading and typing too.

Hey, you do what feels best for you. I'm just vying for the Club Polk Monty Python-esque Smart-a$$ Award of 2017. And there is just over 2 weeks left!

here you go... lol

dannylightning

ok i found the big long article that goes into crazy detail about my amp it says what my DAC chip is.. not sure if that is any good or not.. anyone know if thatch a good one?..


Behind every input there is a NE5532 chip that acts as a buffer, but also does a preliminary amplification. Standard solution is to switch the signal first and than to amplify it – that's a cheaper solution. But this solution is a better one – first buffer and amplify and than switch, as in such case source impedance does not matter any more. Toshiba's selector is soldered on the opposite side of the PCB. It receives signal either from inputs or from USB port. The latter is mounted on a small, separate PCB, which sports also a Burr Brown PCM2704 chip (that's been on the market for quite some time). It is a USB-S/PDIF converter and DAC at the same time. Other elements are soldered using SMD technique. After selecting an input signal it is firstly amplified by another NE5532 chip and only than send forward. Same PCB contains quite advanced power supply circuit – some voltage regulators, rectifier and some smoothing capacitors.

tonyb

The only criteria to determine if the dac chip is a "good one" is your ears.

That said, your bottleneck may be that USB input, it won't do any higher rez formats but you should get cd quality out of it.