Friend of mine is looking to buy a new turntable set up for his lounge/ kitchen area.
He’s keen to base this upon a pair of Sonos Fives as he likes their flexibility and sound, and now wants to add a turntable into the mix.
He likes quite understated plain black turntables and is okay with fully manual operation.
I think a pair of Fives will take £1k out of his budget if he buys new (he’s not wedded to new), leaving him £1.5k for TT, phono stage and cartridge.
Ideas?
Rega Planar 6. For the non committed, they just work. Put an AT VM-95ML on it and get an iFi ZEN Phono and I think that’s in budget and it’ll sound brill.
I don’t know, but I think the Sonos line in samples analogue at relatively low quality and then spits the digital result into the system along with everything else.
I have a recollection of trying it with something and it was Not Good At All.
Might be worth reading / trying before buying.
Good call. I thought it might be to do with compressing for bandwidth but if you connect the speakers using Ethernet direct that might improve things?
If so, would an ADC work better. Do any phono stages do this nowadays?
Sonos + R2R
The true hipster’s choice.
This is AA. Since when do we give advice based on what people ask?
Get the sonos to fuck and sort him out with some proper speakers.
I use one as my main deck and it’s excellent - came with a Ortofon OM Red to boot.
Agree. A good alternative could be an all in one integrated with DAC, streamer and phono stage, with a pair of passive speakers.
For £2.5k - ideas?
Oh and @Tons_of_fun suggestion for the Rega P6 went down very well with him and his wife.
Something like the Roksan Attessa might be worth a shout. It uses BluOS (so not shit) and it is a solid amp. Put it with something like Q Acoustics Concept 30 and it’ll sound pretty good and it’ll just work. At no stage will you be called out because it has stopped working.
A leftfield option is a defunct premium surround receiver and a streamer like e.g. Bluesound Node.
Just picked up a Harman Kardon AVR 8500 for EUR 150, which was MSRP 3k.
( -Edit: usually around EUR 350, still a bargain.- )
Node N100 is used around EUR 100 or Node 2 for around EUR 200.
Leftfield speakers: Arcam Muso, picked up for EUR 100, including stands. (most offers are however without stands.) Incredible sound, you look for a subwoofer that isn’t there 
.
A receiver is more versatile too, as you can hook up your telly and bluray on it. No need for HDMI, just use Toslink.
And it leaves you sufficient budget for turntable, phono pre-amp if desired, or vinyl.
I just bought a NAD c658 for use with active speakers - has MM phono stage, BluOS streaming Dirac live, and a shit ton of connections. I’m impressed for £1500
Have you tried the room correction thingy on it?
Yes - it’s very good. Takes about half an hour of microphone faff to get the first reading but once you’ve done that you can take the default curve or set up several of your own, which can be switched on or off via the app. Lots of videos about how to set up and you can download presets too.
He’s gone for the Yammie with the SL1210. Q Acoustics C 30 speakers and I’ve convinced him to go for a Nagaoka MP200 cartridge.
I am a bit disappointed that he’s gone for such tiny speakers. Nonetheless I’m sure it will sound decent. Hope he’s happy with the final result.
We all started there Paul 
