Heos

[Dmantis]

Hello everyone,
I currently use Sonos for my whole house system. Denon Released the HEOS a few years ago and it plays 24/192 stuff where Sonos tops out at 16/44.1
SO I picked up one of their preamps and I'm testing it out and comparing it to Sonos. I think the HEOS has a better overall sound quality then the Sonos.
I have not tested High rez files yet as thats un fair as Sonos can't play them. But for regular Cd quality stuff I'm hearing a smoothness to the player when compared to the Sonos Connect.
Do any of you use HEOS?
I don't however like that HEOS does not have Apple Music which is a streaming service I use to preview music to help me decide what CD's I'm going to buy. Yes I still buy CDs as I like the higher quality and reading the Jackets. I don't however enjoy 256k stuff from Apple as I feel it lacks in overall sound quality. I like the fact it saves hard drive space but not at the expense of sound quality.

What do you guys think of HEOS?

[JonMarsh]

You're kind of operating in a gray space there, between consumer streaming products and higher end offerings. There's not really much yet that successfully bridges the difference between the two....

And let's face it, if the best Sonos offers is CD quality, then there's no reason not to compare it against other things if those products offer more...


The thing is, this stuff is like a diode; once you move forward, you're rarely comfortable moving back. That's true for any part of the system. It doesn't mean that you can't find interesting offerings of value at lower price points, but one tends to become rather selective about what is "interesting".

No experience on my side with Denon HEOS. I'm the kind of guy that agonizes about digital data transmission and stabilizing digital sources with re-clocking using a rubidium reference, so for me, wireless is a non-starter quality wise. What works for you, that's another matter...

My bedroom digital setup includes a re-clocker even just for iPad output before going into the local DAC. It makes a difference. When I can setup Ethernet everywhere, though, I may switch to using Roon in the bedroom with another Sonore MicroRendu.