How Can I Improve The Sound Quality for Streaming

Joined
Dec 24, 2005
Messages
263
Reaction score
25
Points
106
Location
England
I have a Naim Nait 51-2 amp, KEFQ300 Speakers and a Sonos Zoneplayer ZP90 and Zonebridge 100. Most of the music I play is via my PC and a large part of that is held in Flac format. I will also have a streaming service, either Spotify or Amazon and either stand or possibly HD . I wondered how I could improve the quality with a DAC. I listen to blues, rock and folk
 
Last edited:
I have a Naim Nait 51-2 amp, KEFQ300 Speakers and a Sonos Zoneplayer ZP90 and Zonebridge 100. Most of the music I play is via my PC and a large part of that is held in Flac format. I will also have a streaming service, either Spotify or Amazon and either stand or possibly HD . I wondered how I could improve the quality with a DAC. I listen to blues, rock and folk

Putting a DAC between your ZP90 (digital out) and the Naim (RCA in) should give you an improvement over the Sonos' DAC. Just don't expect a night and day difference and I wouldn't go overboard on expensive and esoteric audiophile DAC's unless you have money to burn ;-)

I use a Cambridge Audio DACMagic — which can be picked up fairly cheaply secondhand. Partly because I had it laying around and partly because it has balanced outputs (and my speakers have balanced inputs) and the Sonos Connect/ZP90 doesn't. But any half decent DAC should give you a small, noticeable improvement over the Sonos DAC, after that you're likely to be chasing ever decreasing returns.

(not really what you asked, but personally I'd get a modestly priced DAC and spend the rest on a better software/interface like Roon for browsing/playing your collection, Roon also works nicely with Sonos as an endpoint).

(btw. maybe you're using it because your ZP90 is far away from your router, but I think with the latest firmware you no longer need to use the ZoneBridge as the ZP90 can connect to your router directly).
 
I dont understand all the tech talk but I'm streaming tidal hifi from my phone via an audioengine B1 to a naim UnitiQute and spendor S6e speakers

It sounds great
 

The latest video from AVForums

Is 4K Blu-ray Worth It?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom