Well duh, now I feel like an idiot. But cheers for the tip.
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Yes I just tried it and it shuts off both lights, only the tiny power button remains lit.
i’ve been using the zen stream for close to 2 months now and have no issues with Tidal Connect, Spotify Connect and upnp. Works from the get go.
Thanks, good to have this feedback
The main issue with Zen Stream is Ifis poor support and the fact they built it on a really old Kernel so the main linux system it runs on can’t be upgraded any more so if things change with Tidal connect and librespot that need a newer Kernel than those could likely stop working.
Also they have failed to deliver on two key features, Roon Ready and Chromecast. It still only uses Roon Bridge and Chromecast support has been dropped. I know lots of users that have had it bricked with firmware upgrades too and early firmware was very unreliable.
The PSU debacle is also a bit of a wash. They initially gave their own psus then for some reason stopped and bunged in cheaper ones and claimed it was for a limited period which was never announced. They even had the the stickers on boxes saying it was included.
Having had Ifi kit before and experiencing their poor service I would never buy anything else from them.
Good that it seems to be working for some of you though but there are a lot of unhappy users out there to.
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As long as you buy one from a dealer you know, any problems you have will be taken care of. It is a shame that people will miss out on great sound at minimal cost because there are a few issues reported. They are not problems that can not be addressed by either using Roon as your software, or as in my case, just use Tidal connect.
Analogmusic mentioned an Allo digione with an IFI purifier as his source. The IFI Zen stream has this Purifier tech built in. The USB cable I use between my Zen and Dac cost me more than the Zen.
The PSU issue was a bit of a let down. Although I had planned on replacing it with a LPS either way, having both a non ifi PSU and a broken one at that wasn’t a great customer experience. Though, they offered a full replacement of the whole package fairly quickly.
The OS issue is largely irrelevant. I’ve worked in the area of computing appliances for the best part of 2 decades now. An aging OS is certainly an issue on more open devices where the operations performed by the end user and their required support level is largely open ended. But on an appliance that is essentially black box, the consumer really shouldn’t care or need to know. At the appliance level (which this certainly is), the OS is really just considered firmware. Generally, no one cares which Linux kernel their router or switch runs. An appliance maker selects an OS based on a number of factors. In the case of the Zen Stream, the OS itself will not be a limiting factor in the functionality that ifi choose to overlay on top of Volumio. It is also not necessarily true that it cannot be upgraded. Whether ifi choose to do a massive upgrade or not is another matter. But I have supported an appliance where the internal structure was UNIX based on Illumos and went entirely to a Linux kernel from a regular upgrade package. That is basically an in-situ brain transplant as far as firmware goes.
You’d be surprised what old platforms and indeed hardware goes into some brand new kit. Much of the hardware encryption boxes used in banking produced by Safenet cost upward of $25k and internally they are just 25 year old Pentium 3 processors running a Linux kernel from the late 90s. But it keeps costs down and the advanced cryptographic functionality is supplied by their own software and plugin encryption board so it really doesn’t matter.
The Zen Stream firmware from Jan 12 2022 currently uses a mixture of components based on a Linux 4.4 kernel, a Debian file system, and a subset of several Volumio libraries rather than a full OS. Ultimately these mean little since the user interaction is fully locked down.
Lacking specific functionality you require is a more serious issue. Everyone should review the functionality list against their desired use case. If the Roon implementation (for example) is not what you are after, clearly this product isn’t going to provide a good user experience. Although ifi have a statement on their page indicating that they are committed to Roon Ready in a future update.
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so I finally went ahead and bought one, and it was DOA dead on arrival
I am very disappointed in this I-fi Zen streamer product.
I returned it for a full refund.
That’s not good. My PSU was DoA as mentioned. But as it was the cheapest bit of crap that I intended to bin it didn’t slow me down.
Was your actual zen DoA or just the PSU?
Either way they should be shipping only things that work.
the PSU was fine, the unit was DOA. Switch on, plugged in ethernet, nothing happening at all. No status lights that the manual promises will be there in 2 minutes (either white, red or green)
gave it 10 minutes, still nothing, no lights, repeated this a few times, packed and sent it back to the shop. nothing happening on https://ifi.local either.
in this day and age of consumer electronics this has never happened to me before, so I am quite disappointed.
I am now using my iPad as a streamer into my chord 2qute, and it sounds good enough for me (using spotify connect). Much prefer to have a dedicated streamer though.
If it only the I-fi had worked out.
Ummm no lights coming on seems exactly like a PSU problem. Did you test the DC output with a multimeter. If it was working it would have spit out 12v.
Indeed I can’t think of the last time I had a DoA bit of kit either.
true, but I could see the ethernet lights behind the unit working, but nothing on the front panel.
I am not sure it’s a PSU issue but I don’t think it was. In any case I cannot test that it was able to output 12 V as I don’t own a multimeter
Here some Naim users enjoy a lot the Watson audio streamer, with an external dac. More expensive vs the Ifi Zen ( 1,5 k euros), but Swiss made by Emerson.
Can they not try it at the shop, or give you a different one?
they don’t have more stock for another month at least. I cannot wait that long.
I know my way around streamers (after all I can install and reinstall Volumio 3 and Moode) on a raspberry pi, I didn’t have another 12 V PSU to try. I could not get the unit to work.
I have had Naim, Linn, Logitech squeezebox touch, Roon, Auralic, google chrome cast, and apple TV streamers at home, and got them all to work.
It is regrettable outcome , but Ifi should check their products before shipping.
Clearly the product has rubbed you the wrong way. I totally empathise with your view. If my head unit had been dead I might have also just ditched it to look elsewhere.
The forum shows us these unfortunate things happen on big ticket Naim items too from time to time. It leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.
About a decade ago I worked for a company that sold Safenet encryption devices at $20k a box. I was asked to look into a rise in customer complaints and found a whopping 25% of these devices were DoA. It was truly shocking.
my other experiences with I-fi have been very good, I have an I-Fi nano ione, which is a very good source, and the SPDIF purifier 2 (again, a very good source), and a Power 5V, all are performing superbly well
anyway - if only this Ifi Zen stream had only just worked.
until a find a solution - I am using my MacBook pro which has an optical output, set the sample rate to 44.1/16 bit (through Midi) and it sounds really good to me.
of course not ideal, but it will do for now.
The solution is to get another Zen that works.
I was using my laptop (USB) before purchasing my Zen.Not optical,I know,but the uplift for me was quite staggering, instantly!
If you got the dead unit from a dealer,can he not get another one…eventually?