Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Kraftwerk box - CD vs. server

There are so many places this can go wrong. It sounds like you know what you are doing with the ripping. It is possible the output is being resampled- cheaper sound cards from years ago did this and its possible the sonos is doing this. Its difficult to test for because how do you truly know if youre getting bit accurate information out of the sonos? Well, one way is during playback press the display button on the face of your processor to see if it will tell you 44.1/16- if its not- if it says say 48khz then you have a problem with the sonos. You should check the information on the files in itunes to see if it says they are 44.1/16. They should be. My favorite test of all is to take any DTS encoded CD- there are some around and if you don't have one send me an email at jerry@levyhouse.com and I will email you a track you can import as a test. The DTS CDs (NOT DVD) work by putting the DTS data inside the normal CD files so what happens if you have a DTS decoder it will decode the sound but a regular CD decoder will just play it back as static- it will recognize the file structure of the DTS CD though because its the same as a regular CD. Because of this, you can test if theres a problem with ripping or playback by seeing if you can import a DTS CD and successfully play it back- so long as you have a DTS decoder- which I believe you do. If you get static when using a ripped DTS CD track then the problem is either with the apple lossless ripping or the sonos. The thing to do is to import it as an AIFF or WAV- 16 bit 44.1khz settings - and then try playing that track- if that does work then the apple lossless is the problem. If it doesnt then the sonos is the problem. Now even if it works, its still possible that the sonos has much more jitter than the Meridian CD player but in my experience in comparing computers and my kaleidescape to the 800 CD machine I find the difference is more subtle than you describe - so I suspect there is a problem with either the sonos or the ripping- when Ive had that problem- the difference in sound is night and day as you describe.