Sonos Products

I agree with the above poster. I have a couple of their products including the ZP90.
Great to listen for a party or just pulling ups some tunes to listen to.

It does not compete with my main system. I actually mainly use it on my back porch with an old Tandberg receiver I recently picked up. I actually like the different radio applications on the Sonos. Found some cool stations from Europe. The sonos systems make listening fun.
I do not use it for critical listening. I do think it sounds fine for what I use it for. Keeps me from lugging cd's around.

Remember if you want to go "wireless", one piece needs to be hardwired to your computer first.

I use Sonos in my computer based system, including the handheld Sonos controller. I am very happy with it.

But, as the other posters mentioned, there are issues with sound quality of Sonos. To begin with, I would avoid using the dac in the unit, and instead use the digital out and an external, higher quality, dac. However, the Sonos digital out suffers from a high level of jitter, which itself needs to be addressed if you want high end sound quality from the unit. Jitter can be addressed with either (1) internal modifications to the Sonos; (2) a downstream dac that is relatively immune to jitter; or (3) an external reclocker after the Sonos but before the dac. I chose to use a reclocker, which allows you to get very high level performance out of a computer based setup, but this approach is rather expensive.

Good luck.

Agiaccio......I don't believe that the above posters are giving Sonos the kudo's they deserve. Sonos provides an excellent platform for your computer based music. It's relatively inexpensive, it's easy to use and install, product support is excellent, and on and on, just can't say enough positive about the product itself....As to the quality, good as purchased, but not high end, however, you can take Sonos to just about any level you want utilizing dac's, reclockers etc. Sonos run through a good system and a $500 dac provides some very nice sounds.

I agree with both Byron and Larry above. For $450 (the price of the Bridge + ZP90), you get an incredible device and experience -- one which really makes music widely available in new, often unexpected ways. It's really great.

And I'll heretically suggest that the sound you end up getting from this-- even with fresh lossless files, doing everything right -- roughly approximates that of a $500 CDP.

I've got about $2k in 'improvements' to the basics - Cullen mod, a Monarchy DIP and NM24 Dac, good cabling and power, and again, I'd say that cost/value/performance is about equal to $2500 worth of 'real' CDP/DAC gear. Which is to say, it sounds just fantastic.

IMO you can definitely get there with Sonos...but it's arguably not its highest and best use. YMMV.

I do wish Sonos would do a good player unit. Their interface is really stellar, especially in terms of engaging spouses, the rest of the family, and guests.

To be able - while seated at dinner -- to call up a Lou Reed Pandora Radio station because your guests mentioned liking that sound, or to shuffle play through your own Reed collection...without them even knowing you pushed any buttons? How is that not worth $450?

Agreeing with soundgasm

I have sonos playing through cullen modified PS Audio dac and PS Audio preamp and wyred4sound st-500 amp (a bunch of work on the cabling side also). It is very good and definitely audiophile quality.