Ingrid Fliter - Chopin Preludes (Linn Records)

[brit]

Here is a wild theory.  Let’s assume there is no fundamental difference between the music files, you are all running ADH 6 amps / DACs, so what is different?  Maybe Ian’s cat like hearing?  Or maybe a quirk of the Sonos?  The Sonos is my wildcard theory, but it is one fundamental difference in how the music file is delivered, there might just be a difference in digital clocking, filtering or something.  Ian, this might not be an easy thing to try in your set up, I have no idea, but could you try the track via AIR or something else?  Unlikely perhaps, but if it did make a difference to the issue it would be an interesting result.

It's a good theory, Confused, but the data say otherwise I'm afraid:

I have the CD, ripped to ALAC, which I normally play from Roon via AIR over Ethernet.  I can also play Roon via USB through an MC-3+ to AES/EBU, iTunes via AIR over Ethernet, or Sonos into an S/PDIF input.  In all those cases I can hear a very faint "buzzing" or "fizzing" sound on top of some of the piano notes.

and

The real nail in the coffin of that theory was that I still hear the problems when I play the same tracks on my Sonos Play:5, believe it or not.

Following up what I said in that post, I'm now pretty confident that the CD quality, 24/96 and 24/192 samples on Linn Records web site (http://www.linnrecords.com/recording-cho...ludes.aspx) have the same problem.  At least, the ALAC ones do - I haven't tried FLAC.

This is all consistent with what the gentleman on Amazon.com said in the review David linked to.  That's at least giving me some shred of comfort that I'm not making it all up...

PS: Although the Sonos ZP90 is in my signature, most of my real listening these days is done using Roon / AIR / Ethernet, which is working brilliantly.  Sonos usually comes into the picture either when I want to listen to the (Internet) radio, or someone else is using the system - it's so easy to just hand them the Sonos controller and say "you choose!".

Hi Ian, Yes I suppose that I should clarify that the 192/24 download I am using is FLAC rather than ALAC and I do not appear to have the problem. I can not answer for Guillaume as to whether he has a FLAC or ALAC version of his 192/24 download, but he also indicated that he had no problems?

David