USB drive vs NAS for storage/streaming/back-up

Additional tweak to your Cullen modded Sonos; get a decent power cable such as the PS Audio Power Punch and you will see further elimination of the grainyness of the Sonos digital out as well as increased dynamics across the board typical in a power cord update.

Good suggestions. Ordered the power cord. As another sonos user with the mod, do you know if they plan on supporting 24/96 in the future? Or improve the software for managing large collections, allow metadata, etc. The basic sonos platform has great potential and is very stable, but it does'nt seem they're really committed to supporting the audiophile market (which is admittedly small).

the scuttle I hear on the sonos message boards is support for volume normalization metadata standards (there are 2 competing standards) and possible multiple library support (i.e. you could have a "classical" library, a "jazz" library, etc). They don't talk about any plans themselves, these are all speculation on the part of users supposedly "in the know" - for whatever that is worth.

Given their latest modifications were almost strictly aimed at the computer/wi-fi side of things, I'm guessing they aren't too concerned with the audiophile grumblings for high resolution and better clock circuitry. Their business model doesn't really cater too much to our needs, but the library size thing should be a universal problem that gets addressed. The other thing I would look for is a new controller that looks & acts like the iTouch/iPhone model.

Long term, I'm hoping one (several?) of the higher end equipment manufacturers like PS Audio will pick up on the Sonos delivery model and offer a product engineered towards us.

Over the last week, I have hooked up a Cullen modded SONOS ZP90 and Bridge, and yesterday added a ReadyNV+ NAS. The DAC ia a Northstar 192 into a Dodd preamp, Pass Aleph J amp, and Merlin TSM-MMe speakers. The NAS holds my 50GB iTunes library, and the system is wireless controlled by my PC or my iTouch.

I have not done a careful A/B test, but on first blush, this system sounds great, as good or better than my MF A5 or Marantz SA11S1 CDP's. As a bonus the SONOS internet radio offers hundreds of world-wide stations with few if any drop-outs. That radio sound is very good (I listen to classical and jazz.)

An important feature for me with the NAS is RAID-5 which pretty much guarantees it will save stored data in a crash. Having the experience of losing stored back-ups years ago, I do not want that to happen again.

I am really impressed by the quality of the sonics and the convenience of the SONOS system. Looks like my CD collection is bound for the attic.

Glenn

Shasam
Sonos offers plug-in (from Apple application downloads - free) to control the system with your iPhone or iTouch.
Very cool.

I own Sonos system as well as MacBook Air which is my reference source feeding RWA Isabella preamp with Isabellina NOS (USB) DAC. iTouch controls it all flawlessly.

NAS LaCie 1T drive stores the library for both - Sonos & MacBook.

Glenn says that his Cullen modded Sonos sounds great.........my unmodded Sonos is so-so in comparison to my MacBook or Consonance Droplet CDP.

I am still sailing through options for my Sonos - Cullen mods are the most aggressively priced.....so that might be the next step.

Mariusz