[See Update 2 at bottom. It appears a Sonos update the next day fixed this problem for now.]
[Nov 27 update I filled in some more steps in the testing.]
On the evening of Thanksgiving 2021, I was playing the living room system through the Sonos Connect known as "Living Room Sonos." Or perhaps I should say...the Sonos Connect soon to be formerly known as "Living Room Sonos."
I wasn't playing THAT loud, I had the Tact level set to -10dB or so.
There was terrible breakup on a recording from Pipes Rhode Island, the Frank Chorale in B Minor.
I was using the Sonos Connect instead of the Oppo BDP-205 because I had previously been playing the Kitchen FM Tuner in the Living Room, and Sonos has analog inputs which let me do that (the reason I selected Sonos in 2005).
I tried other things before finally determining the Sonos Connect was at fault. I was first afraid the speakers had an issue, very afraid. But it was hard to test that...so instead I switched amplifiers to the Aragon 8008 BB. I hadn't done that in awhile. I figured it *could* be an amplifier problem, the Hafler has about half of the peak output current of the mighty Aragon--which has 1100VA transformers for each channel. It was still breaking up.
I was getting more and more afraid that the speakers were indeed at fault. So I did something I haven't done in many years. I got out my Koss ESP-950 headphones and listened to the same song. Electrostatic headphones are like an auditory microscope...you hear everything. The Koss transformer box takes coax line inputs, so I fed it from the coax line outputs of the Emotiva Stealth Dac. I got the same breaking up sound.
OK, so maybe it was the digital processing. I was now fearing that my FIR based digital input filters might be introducing some kind of artifacts. ("F" stands for finite...it's an approximation over finite time...that's how it can do so many amazing things...because it's not exact--in principle. But audio is never exact anyways.)
So then I fed the headphones (which take line inputs to the transformer box) from the output of my Tact digital preamp. It has analog outputs (using an optional high quality DAC on an internal card) which I don't normally use because I only use the XLR AES/EBU digital outputs...which feeds my chains of digital processors).
Same breaking up sounds.
Then it occurred to me to try the Oppo, and while streaming the file through the Oppo it sounded fine (except for a few "ticks" which I hear so consistently, even on my dynamic speakers, I believe they are in the recording itself. These ticks are nothing like the hashy breaking up sound I was getting on the Sonos Connect).
Wondering how I could check out the digital output of the Sonos Connect (I only use the digital outputs on most Sonos nodes) I grabbed my Sencore digital meter.
The Sencore showed nicely low jitter (just over 200ps) and no errors or any other problems with the Sonos digital output. And when I first checked the levels, and after turning off volume leveling on the Oppo (which I play through Roon, whereas in this discussion I'm playing the Sonos boxes through the Sonos S1 Controller), the levels were identical. While doing these tests, I was not playing anything over the speakers because I had the digital signal piped into the Sencore instead.
But then later I was doing a test when the Oppo was playing through the speakers, but running the test meanwhile on the output of the Sonos. And then I got a bogus level of -0dB where I shouldn't have (the peak level in the recording is -0.7dB).
I switched to the other nearby Sonos node I have been using the play HDCD's through the converter of the Denon DVD-9000 by sending the coax digital from that node to the Denon. That Sonos node happened to be the earliest model, the ZP80, which I first bought 4 of in 2005.
The ZP80 did not have the breakup issue either, so THAT is now going to be the Sonos node I'm connecting to the living room stereo. I have rarely used the HDCD path (which sends digital audio from Sonos to the Denon DVD-9000 for HDCD conversion) and I could always temporarily change the coax output of that Sonos ZP80 back to feeding the Denon if I do want to decode an HDCD that way, that takes little more time than just turning on the Denon 9000 and selecting coax input.
I really don't know that it was the fact I was playing music (possibly causing vibration or putting noise on the AC lines) that messed up the "Living Room Sonos." It might have been something else. When it first happened, I thought it was because I had just clicked mute and unmute in the Sonos controller. I had been wondering if there was a bug in which, under some conditions, the Sonos Connect does digital amplification when it should not be doing so (such as when the level output is fixed). I had thought I had seen such a bug before. But the test examining the level from the Sonos where it, at first, exactly matched the Oppo, disabused me of that theory for awhile.
It could have even been that the coax connection to the Sonos Connect was slightly loose.
All I really know is for some reason, that one Sonos Connect was messing up it's digital output, sometimes. It could be the fact it is also processing the tuner input for the rest of the house.
Maybe it's better to have one Sonos Connect to handle the FM tuner input, and a second Sonos node of one kind or another to feed the living room stereo anyway. I also trust the ZP80's as much as, if not more now, than the Connects. I tested the ZP80's extensively, as did John Atkinson. I never actually tested the Connects, I just presumed they were an upgrade. I can't remember when I first started having strange issues that seem like digital gain and clipping, was it when I got the Connects or before. Also nothing stays the same because of Sonos software updates, which may be more important than whether a node is a ZP80 or Connect (which are almost identical in appearance and apparently identical in intended function).
And most of the time, I'll just be using the Oppo through Roon anyway to play music in the living room, which is my best digital pathway. But...I had been using the Sonos Connect to run tests, and I very deliberately did not add the test files to the Roon list of music folders for that reason.
That calls into question some previous tests...including the test where I decided I had to lower the input of the midrange miniDSP by -6dB to prevent inter-sample-overs. Perhaps the real issue was the bug in the Living Room Sonos Connect.
So from now on, what I'm going to do for some important tests is to temporarily add the test folders from Roon when doing tests, and that way I can use the Oppo for doing tests, without fear of selecting test recordings at other times through Roon. And then removing the test folders from Roon afterwards.
Because of worries about forgetting to turn such test folders off, perhaps I'll still use a Sonos node for most tests, but the ZP80 which hasn't yet shown any issues, instead of the Connect. Until there is a weird issue (like the apparent inter-sample-overs on the miniDSP's) for which the ZP80 might be at fault, which I should have thought of when I encountered the apparent inter-sample-overs on the miniDSP's while using the Connect.
It's here I might also confess that the primary issue that made me quit using my Audio G_D DAC 17, which was the Krell FPB 300 shutting down, perhaps was never a problem with the DAC 17 at all. It was only many months after that I traced the many shutdowns to a bad transistor in the Krell itself, at least by all appearances (I can see the hot spot in IR photos for example). And ultimately it became impossible to use the Krell anymore because it would shut down before even coming fully on, and therefore before I could zap it with a big enough signal to stay on for awhile.
It was sad that I didn't imagine that it was principally the Krell at fault. I also blamed the speakers and other things, perhaps wrongly in other cases too. I spent many months trying to "fix" the speakers so they "wouldn't cause" the Krell to shut down. I still need to re-test the DAC 17 and I might even use it in the future now that my system has fixed digital rates for each way...making it possible to do the time alignment for sources of any sampling rate even with different DACs...since all sources get converted to 48kHz or 96 Khz (for the tweeters) anyway.
The Franck Chorale is sufficiently complex that despite hearing it endlessly, it sounded different every single time. This is the actual problem with subjective equipment tests...it's not so much that things don't sound different, but that you never actually hear the same thing anyway, and then you have to decide which differences (if any) are traceable to the change in equipment (which is pretty much determined by preconceptions). And repeats especially sounded different at different levels. With large level differences, it sound like a different composer.
Updates: I have tested reconnecting (and tightening) the digital cable from the Living Room Sonos Connect. I still heard the breaking up. I'm beginning to think this particular unit could be defective. And the line inputs might be defective too. About the same time as I replaced the original Living Room ZP80 with this Connect node I also noticed the line input from the tuner wasn't sounding as good. According to all I've read just now, the only difference between ZP80 and Connect (same as ZP90) was a different and better radio. If I remember correctly, I made this change last December, about a year ago, when I was incorporating the Marantz recorder and making other changes to improve the sound of FM, and it did sound much better in the living room, but not over Sonos, where it sounded worse. I've had this theory that the better FM antenna, which reduced FM noise, was also making it sound more crispy. But it sounded fine in the living room because I added the Musical Fidelity X10D to that path. It merely sounded worse over Sonos.
Also the ability to control the line level input levels was removed from the computer software. You must use the App (on a smartphone) to control this feature. Or originally you could use the CR100's to control everything, including the line levels and the "Uncompressed" feature, but then CR100's were unsupported, which made me very angry and I still miss the convenience of the CR100's as compared to using a smartphone. With the CR100 the pause and play buttons were always active, whereas with a smartphone you have to do a lot of fiddling to do anything.
My tests and those of John Atkinson showed the ZP80 to be bit perfect and it performed very will in the jitter test and other tests. But neither I nor John Atkinson have tested the ZP90 aka "Connect."
I had been disappointed that Sonos never included high resolution into the original system (I believe it is available in the new S2 units) and went the direction of making midfi convenience speakers and such, rather than sticking to true hifi interconnection units (now called "streamers") and reasonably good amplifiers.
I see now that even my old "Connect" units cannot be used with the latest Sonos software. I hardly care, if anything, I'd like to return to the original Sonos software of 2005, which did everything I needed it to very well. I did later get a Logitech streamer, but it was such a hassle to use I never much did use the Logitech streamer, despite the fact it had high resolution.
But I can see the name of the game for many people is supporting all the different streaming services. That is the excuse for the new incompatible S2 Sonos units and software. I hardly care if Sonos keeps up with streaming services because I use Roon for that purpose, and for me it makes much more sense to me that interconnection units be dumb and the smarts be put into the central software as Roon is doing it. I'd long hoped to roll my own dumb Pi3 interconnection units that were Roon Ready, until Roon started supporting Sonos, and then I had no excuse (other than modest monthly cost) not to get Roon and use with my existing Sonos network. But Roon has never had any ability to use the Sonos Line Inputs.
Update 2: This morning I googled "Sonos Uncompressed" and found you can set that feature (which defaults to "Automatic") using the app not on a node-by-node basis, but on a whole system basis. Reportedly this feature only affects line-in playback, but the App doesn't say so.
I went to check the current setting in the app, but it wouldn't even let me view the current settings without updating my whole system. I'm not sure when this update became available. So I updated my system, and then it appeared that the option had already been set to "Uncompressed," as I now remembered doing sometime in the distant past (but possibly when this particular Connect node was offline or before I even bought it?).
I had already been testing the Sonos Line Input between the two different living room Sonos nodes. I think they are identical. But anyway I had moved the tuner output to the ZP80.
So now, with these two changes (updating Sonos, and moving the line input to the other node--which might be unimportant) the Living Room Sonos Connect sounds fine, no breakup playing the Franck chorus.
The best theory now is that somehow the Sonos Connect had a bug which was fixed by the update. After the update, no more problem. Though perhaps it wasn't even the update but a reboot caused by the update.
A related possibility is that Roon can fiddle with the Sonos level settings and left them in the wrong settings. I sometimes play the Living Room Sonos Connect with Roon. Roon has two relevant settings for each Sonos node, "fixed level" vs "device level" and then, when you select fixed level, you can set volume settings: min and max. Last night I went through all my Sonos nodes in Roon and made sure all the ones that are supposed to be "fixed level" are set to "fixed level" in Roon. I had never done that before. Indeed the Living Room Connect was set to "Device Level," but Sonos S1 controller always showed it as "Fixed Level" anyway. But I don't recall that changing this last night made any improvement in the sound. Perhaps it required to update (and reboot?) to get it changed back correctly. Perhaps the update makes sure the settings in Sonos are the ones in effect when you are doing playback in Sonos, regardless of what some other streaming software may have been doing previously with that node.
I still consider the Connect to be questionable enough that I'm going to use the ZP80 for living room playback, and either use the Connect for line input only, or in some other room where I'm not depending on the Fixed Level setting to remain in effect. The bug has gone away for now, but there's no telling when it might come back.
Still testing the Sonos Connect, I moved the tuner connections to the inputs on this node again, and there is still no problem.
Both Sonos nodes are now working fine, but I'm still planning to switch the living room stereo to the ZP80 which may be better...though it's possible and perhaps even likely the problem was a software bug that just happened to the Connect based on how it had been used. It may have been, for example, that I pressed the volume up button on it, and if Roon had told it to use Device Volume sometime in the past, that may have overridden the Sonos settings when using Sonos, though it shouldn't have.
But actually I'll run the FM tuner outputs to the Connect unit because it has a better radio in case one of the ethernet links goes down. And it will interfere less with the ZP80 that will mainly be used for tests on the living room stereo (though I've never noticed any interference including in these tests). And the Connect will feed the Denon for HDCD encoding, so if the bug occurs again it will be noticeable as the HDCD light won't light if the bits are tampered with.
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