Sonos DAC

That's a good question. I contacted Joseph, the owner of Audio Horizons, to ask. I've been using protoypes of the power supply for several months and have posted my praise of it elsewhere. So, how about offering it to other people?

Joseph told me that he has reached his targeted performance level but that he is not yet satisfied with cosmetics of the unit. The power supply is external and includes an IEC input, too, so that power cord can be improved. He has been been waiting for cosmetic samples of the power supply enclosure - the box into which the power supply circuit and connectors are mounted. He told me the supplier has been slower than expected but that samples should arrive next week.

I hope the product will come soon because I'm confident that you and other Sonos owners will like it very much.

The Digital Lens is a good solution, but it was made for CD's, not streaming audio, and as a result it expects the music to stop after 10-15 tracks. If you have a long playlist, it will overrun or underrun the FIFO and start popping. A better solution is the Pace-Car which has a similar function to the Digital Lens, but can provide a clock to the Sonos. This will never underrun or overrun no matter how long the playlist.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

So I just learned the hard way about how poor the support is for WAV files within Sonos. I ripped my entire collection (300+) CDs and setup my Sonos system only to find that the only way to play tunes is navigating a file folder structure. Ugh!! I really wish I would have read the Sonos primer on their site first.

So now my question is...convert to FLAC or Apple Lossless. Given that I also have a few iPods, wouldn't Apple Lossless be the one to use? From what I've read, there is absolutely no advantage to FLAC from a metadata(tagging), file size or audio quality perspective. Is that right? Seems like most people use FLAC just because they don't want to support Steve Jobs and his quest for world domination. :-)

you should really listen for yourself to see if you can tell the difference between FLAC, apple lossless, mp3, ogg, etc. Personally, I noticed a slight difference between mp3 and FLAC which manifested itself in a lack of soundstage and a loss of microdynamics. However, given my large music collection (5000 cds), I thought it was worth it to rip to a smaller size file (256 VBR).