Review and Measurements of SONOS Amp

[Willem]

The Sonos Amp is a wonderfully minimalist amplifier, and even to the extent that you can locate it out of sight. However, connectivity is pretty basic. With digital sources you can stream music, and you can watch TV via the hdmi connection. If you want to play CD/DVD/BD the best way to do this is to connect the disc player to the TV. However, this requires the TV to be on - not a problem for watching video, but a bit much for playing CDs. For that, you can use the analogue input, but it measures less than perfectly. In short, I think it is not a convenenient amplifier if playing CDs is important to you. However, if you have largely moved to the modern world I think it is great.

 

[hat28]

Can you somehow feed a digital input instead? That’s where this unit shines.

If you have a digital output from your device (spdif), Sonos sell a spdif to hdmi adapter. I feed the Sonos amp from a Wiim pro plus, utlilising its dsp, optical out to hdmi in. It works perfectly.

 

[kakaze74]

If you have a digital output from your device (spdif), Sonos sell a spdif to hdmi adapter. I feed the Sonos amp from a Wiim pro plus, utlilising its dsp, optical out to hdmi in. It works perfectly

This is very interesting, since it means finally there is a way to have room correction/dsp with sonos amp when using non Sonos speaker. So you are using Wiim as streamer, and not using Sonos app ?, how’s that work ?, and is it possible to use 3rd party active subwoofer ?

 

[hat28]

This is very interesting, since it means finally there is a way to have room correction/dsp with sonos amp when using non Sonos speaker. So you are using Wiim as streamer, and not using Sonos app ?, how’s that work ?, and is it possible to use 3rd party active subwoofer ?

Yes, I use Wiim as the streamer and now rarely have the need to open the Sonos app. As it happens, I mostly stream from the Spotify app on my phone to the Wiim streamer. As far as I'm aware, I don't think you can use a subwoofer directly from the Wiim Pro Plus, but I don't see any reason why you can't dsp the bass in the Wiim, feed that into the Sonos amp, and use the subwoofer out on the Sonos amp. I don't have a subwoofer to try this with, but it ought to work.

Elsewhere on these forums people talk about the great advantage of having two subwoofers rather than one as you can place them optimally to even out room modes (along with some nifty dsp). What has prevented me from going down this route is that the Sonos amp filters out the bass from the main speakers (I have towers), if you connect a subwoofer. I don't want this since I would want the bass from the towers and from the subwoofer together (both dsp-ed to even out room modes).