Best Sonos ZP-80 Mod?

I have received my Cullen modded ZP80 yesterday morning. Was shipped over here to Germany without problems.

The first impression is just stunning. I set up the Cullen ZP80 and the standard one as two zones so I can switch directly for comparison and the difference is just amazing and much more obvious then I had ever expected. Much wider soundstage, even most complex music (Mahler, Wagner operas) sound transparent and not as "muddy" as with the standard ZP. On Jazz, the Keith Jarrett Trio come accross as if they were sitting in front of me in the living room!

I will now have a serious look at the PS Audio DAC as modded by Rick Cullen for the next stage of sound improvement.

Finally, Sonos convenience and high end sound seem to come together :-))

bbrip

Ivanfx,

I guess the focus in your words is "unless i'ts done properly"

My Cullen ZP80 is 96khz and it's improvement rather than degradation.

BBrip

>What to point your attention, that Rick Cullen's mod >upsamples from default 44.1kHz to 96kHz (or 48kHz - worst >case possible). Audio degrades from such resampling unless >it's done properly.

My findings with the Cullen modded ZP-80 match up pretty well with what has already been reported.

However, after doing some comparrison, I do feel that results will vary, based on the system that it is being used with.

In comparing the stock zone player vs. the modded player, I feel strongly that the DAC & digital cables, etc. play a major role in how much the performance improves.

Though the mod is a noticable improvement over the stock ZP-80, we could not get it to match the performance of our reference cdp's.

My goal is to eventually replace my cdp with Sonos. For me, we are not quite there yet.

Barrelchief, just for clarification, are you saying that the modded zp80 WITH an outboard dac still doesn't match your reference cdp? Can you elaborate by identifying your reference cdp (and cost) and the dac(s) used with the modded zp80? I think this would help everyone understand your evaluation to date. I too am trying to get to the point, hopefully at a reasonable cost, of getting cdp-type performance from my sonos setup. However, I think it is important for all of us to establish a cost/performance reference. If I'm looking simply to equal the performance ofr my old Adcom GCD700, I shouldn't have too far to go, nor (hopefully) should I have to spend $2-3000 in total to match $700 performance. On the other hand, if someone is trying to match the performance of a $5k-10k reference quality CDP, well, that's another story. Can the Sonos system ever get there, and at what cost? Look forward to your current system comparisons. Regards..Jeff

Based on this thread, I am going to give the Cullen mod a try. Unlike others, I am not trying to replace my cdp (Esoteric P3 D5 combo), though I do want my digital music to sound as good as reasonably possible. For me, my Esoteric serves as my primary source for critically listening. The ZP-80 is used for casual listening while I am working or reading. Because of large music collection, I only encode in VBR 256 so since the source is already limited, I dont need the ZP80 to be match the performance of my Esoteric. That being said, I know some people encode in lossless and want to replace their cdp. Good luck!

I will let everyone know what I think after I get my ZP80 back.