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is Cullen Mod beyond my systems and my ability?

Greetings,

I'm new to 'mid-fi' audio, learning a lot here, having a blast and listening to more music than ever before....Beethoven, Billie Holiday, Bob Mould...a pretty eclectic mix that includes pretty much everything except for contemporary pop and country.

With advice gleaned from you good folks, I've recently put together my first decent entry-level system with a Sonos front-end. The components are:

Sonos 90 (unmodified) w/ PS Audio Jewel AC cable
Anti-cable coax IC
Cambridge DACmagic DAC
Nordost Red Dawn IC
Jolida JD 302BRC w/ Gutwire AC cable
Rega R5 speakers w/ Rega SC42 cables

My listening room is a not-ideal (soundwise, anyway) living room, approximately 15x30, open at both ends and quite bright. Treating the room properly isn't in the cards at this time, unfortunately. My source files are a mix of 50gigs of unfortunately-encoded mp3s and a growing library of new, freshly-ripped Apple Lossless files.

My question is whether or not you think the Cullen modification to the Sonos would be discernible to me, given the rest of my modest system - as well as my green ears. It seems like the performance advantages it offers might be well beyond my ability to display, or maybe perceive, it.

Any and all thoughts welcome. And thank you all for the expertise you've shared here -- it's a great resource to newbies like me.
soundgasm
bryoncunningham
890 posts
 
I think modifying your Sonos is a good idea. I have a Sonos modified by Cullen. He added a slave clock to my Sonos to work with an external reclocker. The Cullen mod you are talking about is designed to accomplish the same thing - reduce jitter. I can tell you that reducing jitter in my system resulted in greater perceived resolution, better imaging focus, reduced shrillness in high frequencies, and a lower noise floor. YMMV, but I think your system is good enough to hear the improvements. And as far as your ears, if you're posting here, you already have better ears than most. Good luck.
magnumpi205
504 posts
 
Call Rick at Cullen Circuits. He' a straight shooter and as knowledgable as anyone around.
shazam
205 posts
 
The short answer is yes, your system is good enough that cleaning up the jitter from your source will make a difference. I would qualify that with a comment, though.

Doing this would then make your DAC the weakest part of your system (in my opinion). If you then look to upgrade your DAC in the near future, there are enough interesting options coming out that you might not want to keep using the Sonos as your source. For instance, I have the Cullen mod on my Sonos, but will be abandoning it once the Bridge is available for my PS Audio Perfect Wave DAC (same functions as the Sonos but with high res capabilities). More and more DACs are being made and designed with this in mind, as well as better and better USB connected DACS (especially the asynchronous ones like the Benchmark DACs).

Before you splurge the $600 on the mod, consider your path for your next upgrade or where you want to go in the future and that money may be best added there. If you are into classical, the amount of music you can get on high resolution downloads and HRx formats is growing fast and that is something the Sonos hardware does not support. If you have ever heard high resolution recordings - especially on classical pieces - they almost always make a marked improvement in staging, openness, and bloom.

Good luck!
soundgasm OP
152 posts
 
(resurrecting an old post)

Shazam, this is outstanding advice - thank you. After your comments, I looked hard at the PS Audio Perfect Wave (and future bridge), but ultimately had to decide that it's not in the cards for me - at least in 'this generation' of streaming audio. I've got too many brand-new Sonos zones in play, and can't really justify a truly separate system this year. I've got to pay my mid-fi dues for a while...

So I did pull the trigger on the Cullen mod. Will post back when it's in place and broken in.

thank you guys for your input!
soundgasm OP
152 posts
 
Closing the loop on this. All three of you guys were spot-on; thanks.

Spoke with Rick, shipped him a unit which was modified and back to me within 10 days or so. Very pleasant folks.

I'd been listening to an unmodified unit while Rick did his work. When I received the modified Sonos, I added it to the Dacmagic as a second digital source through an identical coax anticable ic. Switching between the two, playing the same apple lossless files, difference was immediately apparent. Really pretty extraordinary.

I'm sure that it's now broken in and better still, but I can't yet honestly claim to have decent enough persistence of hearing to be able to say so for sure. All I know is it sounds vastly superior to the stock unit, at least in my experience.
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