Sonos - your help and thoughts please

[Patrick's Dad]

I've got my thoughts turning to a Sonos system for my home. (I'm here in Oz)
Just 2 zones, the living room with a Zone Player 90 and a pair of reasonable floor standing speakers and an S5 for moving around the house. Of course I'll have a ZoneBridge too.
My questions: If I listen to say BBC Radio 2 from the UK via the internet, how much of my internet download limit will it use? Is it simple maths i.e 32kb per second for say 2 hours ? Or does it use next to nothing?
Next one – if I team the ZP90 with a pair of reasonable floor standing speakers, (500 quid ish) will it be a reasonable sound system, comparable with say 1000 pounds worth of stand alone HiFi gear?

Cheers chaps and chapesses.

[Plotloss]

Yep, simple maths, bitrate x time.

The amps in the zone players aren't great, so what you gain in convenience you lose in outright sound quality.

[Patrick's Dad]

Thanks Plotloss,

To my untrained ear - the last HiFi I had was a Pioneer X5 system in 1982 - will it sound pretty good?
I like a bit of Floyd and Acdc at volume and want a bit of a kick in the lugs from the speakers in the lounge.

[Bullett]

As with anything it will depend on the source.

Assuming your music will be on a server, the format you rip to will be critical. MP3 or any lossy codec being not as good as FLAC or another lossless codec. The trade off being storage capacity vs quality. However with storage being cheap as chips now it's not really an equation that makes sense.

Encoding the best quality from the start will still pay off regardless of the quality of the other elements (DAC, Amp, Speakers) and those parts can be upgraded as an when you want to.

[Plotloss]

I've not listened to them for extended periods but they aren't particularly articulate, under which Floyd would suffer and they're a bit weedy which doesn't make them particularly suited to metal.

They're a good convenience product, akin to a good quality iPod dock or a Bose WaveRadio rather than a genuine HiFi component.

We do a lot of upper mid two channel stuff though which I freely admit skews my frame of reference. If there's a dealer local to you who will be able to show a ZP along with a hefty pair of efficient speakers your best move would be a decent demo with your music.

[Plotloss]

Bullett said:

Encoding the best quality from the start will still pay off regardless of the quality of the other elements (DAC, Amp, Speakers) and those parts can be upgraded as an when you want to.

Not in a Sonos, it's a single box.

The stream client, DAC and Amp are all in one box, so you're stuck with it.

[Patrick's Dad]

I suppose I'm looking for the ideal match of good sound with portability and convenience. Maybe that's not really obtainable.

I went to my local HiFi dealer a couple of weeks ago (on spec) and listened to some Dire Straits from a CD and through a pair of Mordaunt Short Carnival speakers.
The chap in the store said the cd player which in fact was a hard drive Amp type affair - Yamaha - was worth about $1500.
I was shocked at how good this sounded - bear in mind my 25 year old terms of reference! It was a real eye opener and if I could acheive that quality for 1500 quid wether it be Sonos or stand alone, i'd be over the moon.

[Plotloss]

Google Logitech Transporter.

Now that's a digital media player.

Needs an amp and speakers obviously but it's performance is utterly breathtaking. It'll take the Pepsi Challenge with just about any two box transport and DAC I've ever heard.

[Bullett]

Zoneplayer 90 needs an amp and has both analogue and optical outs (which I assume you could connect a dac to). I remember looking into this before opting to go Squeezebox.

[Plotloss]

If you turn a Sonos into a DMP though, it makes it very expensive all of a sudden though and the SQB is the better choice (which it is anyway but I'm not opening that can of worms)

[Patrick's Dad]

Good tips, thanks chaps.
whilst I've got you here, Orb or Anthony Gallo for a home theatre system? Or maybe neither?

[Plotloss]

We do a lot of Gallo sets.

Their performance is great, they've got amazing wife acceptance factor and they're a bit of fun.

[E31Shrew]

Dont forget, if you dont already know, tha tthe ZP90 needs an external amplifier whereas the ZP120 has one built in. Currently in the UK there is a discounted package deal for a ZP90 or ZP120 with the CU200 controller. Might be available in OZ too

I personally find the ZP120 a tad weedy so would advise a 'proper' amp with a ZP90.