Taking the streaming plunge

Tom Bombadil

AK Member
Purchased a Sonos Connect two years ago but only toyed around with it a bit. Yesterday I finally took the plunge, signed up for Spotify Premium, Slacker, Pandora free. Linked my Amazon Dot to Sonos. Ran the Sonos coax digital to my Parasound D/AC-2000. One output from it goes into a SS preamp and Class D amp, the other into a Conrad Johnson tube preamp and Dennis Had Inspire single ended tube amp.

Today I'm talking to Alexa and playing songs from records I owned 40 years ago, three local bands, and some new music. What fun!

Sound quality isn't top quality but is okay. Those old records never sounded this good on my 1970s system. So easy to call up stuff I want to hear again
 
You're re-discovering enjoying music vs wasting time getting the absolute best sound quality.

Once you get to a certain level, audiophilia needs to take a back seat to the reason we got into this stupid hobby to begin with. A dude with a $5 guitar and a shitload of talent will instantly sound better than one million dollars of audio equipment. It's about the music.
 
Welcome!
At its absolute worst, streaming provides a reasonable audition of new music w/o plopping down your hard earned cash. Don't buy one Cd as a result of your audition and in many cases you've paid your monthly subscription with the savings.

I'm actually divesting myself of many of those hard copy recordings that I haven't played in years/decades which are widely available online in reasonable fidelity.

I like it!
 
If you’re a rocker like the majority on AK seem to be, try enabling the Radio Paradise Alexa skill. It will play at full FLAC quality through your Sonos Connect. “Alexa, tell Radio Paradise to set stream quality to F. L. A. C.”
 
You can adjust the sound quality on Spotify Premium. Go to Settings and hit "High Quality Streaming." I'd say it is roughly equivalent to 320 kbps. Not bad at all. I connect using a decent Bluetooth receiver/DAC and, like you, have tubes in the equation.

Enjoy.
 
From what I've read, when connecting to Spotify Premium from a Sonos Connect, one automatically gets the "Extreme" 320K bit stream. Anyone heard differently?
 
If you’re a rocker like the majority on AK seem to be, try enabling the Radio Paradise Alexa skill. It will play at full FLAC quality through your Sonos Connect. “Alexa, tell Radio Paradise to set stream quality to F. L. A. C.”


I did not know that..thank you. I will try that.
 
From what I've read, when connecting to Spotify Premium from a Sonos Connect, one automatically gets the "Extreme" 320K bit stream. Anyone heard differently?

Inside the Sonos app, yes. If you’re casting to Sonos from the Spotify app via Spotify Connect, then it depends on the app settings.
 
You're re-discovering enjoying music vs wasting time getting the absolute best sound quality.

Once you get to a certain level, audiophilia needs to take a back seat to the reason we got into this stupid hobby to begin with. A dude with a $5 guitar and a shitload of talent will instantly sound better than one million dollars of audio equipment. It's about the music.
I'm not apologizing... I have to brag on you, MannyE. You f*cking killed it with this comment :bowdown:. Given the span of time during which most recorded music has manifested, half, if not more, of the tunes one (re-) discovers would go unheard while waiting for the absolute "best" sound quality. If the option exists to find the tunes on a better quality/sounding format, go for it. If not, enjoy 'em anyway.
 
I did not know that..thank you. I will try that.

To be clear, if you’re playing through a Dot via its analog out jack to a Sonos device, the Dot only supports RP up to “ultra”.

Need to have the Sonos Alexa skill, and the RP Alexa skill enabled, then ask Alexa to play RP “in the [roomname]”, where roomname is your Sonos device to get the full FLAC, which only Sonos supports via Alexa.
 
I'm not apologizing... I have to brag on you, MannyE. You f*cking killed it with this comment :bowdown:. Given the span of time during which most recorded music has manifested, half, if not more, of the tunes one (re-) discovers would go unheard while waiting for the absolute "best" sound quality. If the option exists to find the tunes on a better quality/sounding format, go for it. If not, enjoy 'em anyway.

Aw shucks. :)
 
Doing some more careful listening. Called up some songs which I have on high quality CDs and which sound great through my system. Through Spotify/Sonos, and using the Sonos digital output, the sound is pretty good. Not quite the detail, the soundstage isn't as deep, but overall is very listenable. Deep bass is pretty good. For casual listening it is more than sufficient. For auditioning new artists, it is fine. Much better than a few years back when I listened to Apple's 128K AAC offerings.
 
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Doing some more careful listening. Called up some songs which I have on high quality CDs and which sound great through my system. Through Spotify/Sonos the sound is pretty good. Not quite the detail, the soundstage isn't as deep, but overall is very listenable. Deep bass is pretty good. For casual listening it is more than sufficient. For auditioning new artists, it is fine. Much better than a few years back when I listened to Apple's 128K AAC offerings.

When I listen casually I really don't care much about the quality of the sound unless it's so bad it distracts from the experience. In the past some MP3 where I can only imagine the source itself was already pretty bad did that to me. But lately, even youtube sounds pretty darn good.
 
When I listen casually I really don't care much about the quality of the sound unless it's so bad it distracts from the experience. In the past some MP3 where I can only imagine the source itself was already pretty bad did that to me. But lately, even youtube sounds pretty darn good.

This.

I listen to internet radio stations all the time and care little about how many bits. Its just fun. And mostly totally ok.

Eric
 
This.

I listen to internet radio stations all the time and care little about how many bits. Its just fun. And mostly totally ok.

Eric


Totally OK is what I strive for. As an audiophile, that's a pretty lofty goal. I recently had a few co-workers in the garage. I work in the entertainment industry, so these are professionals in audio and video. They were all astonished at the quality of the sound from my setup which I have described here as "'wrong".

I'm always amazed at how non-audiophiles react to our efforts.
 
Went to A/B Herbie Hankock Rockit song because it is obnoxiously louder than all other Spotify songs but the CD had to be stopped immediately for same reason. So Spotify premium sounds good and I can push the ADD into overdrive. My cd player fast forward is torturous really.
 
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