ExactAudioCopy ripping software

Apple Airport Express and Slim Devices Squeezebox both have analog and digital outputs so the results depend on how you use them. I can't speak for quality of the Airport digital out, but the Squeezebox SPDIF output quality is excellent, and improved even further with some simple modifications. Using the digital output, the sound is pretty much determined entirely by the quality of external DAC you choose to use.

Thanks for the correction Kjg. At present I'm using a USB DAC so I'm tethered to my computer but I'm going to look into the Squeezebox. Do you have more info/links on the modifications?

Hi Herman - are you saying that I will have a quality problem if go with both compressed and wireless ?

Because thats what im planning: using the Sonos wireless with a high quality DAC and Amp. etc.(once Sonos finally provides for a DAC bypass).

Please advise

It looks like the Sonos ZP-80 player has digital outputs so I don’t see why it would compromise the quality when fed to a good DAC. It isn’t clear from their literature what the output format is and I am no expert on these products, but if it works like the Squeezebox then it should be just fine.

Don’t take me as the final word on all of this. I’ve researched this stuff quite a bit but I’m still learning. I’m not saying it was a bad choice but I'm curious why you chose the Sonos over a Squeezebox? They look about the same to me and the Squeezebox is a bit cheaper. I would start googling both players and they both have user forums on their sites which have a lot of info.

I’m curious when you say you bought a Sonos system with a 500 gig drive. It looks to me that none of the Sonos systems have storage, they just get the data from your computer.

Herman, you state:

Compressed lossless means when it is played back that it reconstructs the original data perfectly so they are effectively the same, but compressed takes up less space.

This sounds very nice in theory, but does it work in actuality? Will I hear a "loss" of musical information? Isn't there some sort of loss in any compression/expansion scheme?