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Which DAC

Hi all-

I'm assisting my friend in setting up Sonos so she can stream Deezer (and perhaps Tidal when it becomes available on Sonos.)

Her current set up is is PMC Twenty.21 speakers with Exposure 2010s2 amp and cd player.

She will get the Wyred4Sound modified Sonos unit.

I am assuming it would be beneficial to run this Sonos into a DAC unit? The question is which one to steer her toward. I was thinking of three:

--the Arcam irDAC
--the Meridian Director
--Wyred4Sound's udac

Any thoughts about which direction to go here?

Also, I'm a newbie at this, but I am assuming the cabling would work like this:

Ethernet to Sonos; digital cable from Sonos to DAC; RCA cables from DAC to amplifier. Is that right?

And I'm thinking of Atlas cables since that is what PMC recommends with its equipment.

Any guidance appreciated. Happy Thanksgiving!
Margot
mcanaday
theo's avatar
theo
2,674 posts
 
I have been using Sonos with the Rega Dac and have been very happy. I did try the Peachtree and Arcam and once I demonstrated the Rega it became apparent I needed to up my budget. Although now I am considering looking higher, Hegel, Bryston and others are on my radar for future A-B in home testing.
mcanaday OP
169 posts
 
Thanks, all, for your guidance. As far as starting with distorted sound, Tidal is supposed to be lossless streaming? It sounds like people are getting pretty good results with it? I am hoping that's true! with thanks, Margot
lewinskih01
909 posts
 
My recollection of reading about the Sonos is that it outputs significant jitter through coax. I would double check if this is so. Maybe search here and look for posts by Audioengr, who is Steve Nugent from Empirical Audio. I think he said this a couple of times.

If so, then a good approach would be to get something that reclocks the coax input. Not many units do this. This functionality is basically the same as a USB-to-S/PDIF converter, such as Audiophilleo, but with coax in. Empirical Audio makes one. I think it's called Synchro-Mesh (which is why Steve frequently comments on these threads).

I have experience with USb converters into DAC and the impact is significant. I would expect the same of this. Consider the reclocker+DAC, and I would spend more on the reclocker. In this price range I would expect a reduction in jitter to have significantly more impact than sound flavors.
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