Innuos Zen Mini MK3 to Zen MK2 to Zenith MK2

A roller coaster week, as per my other thread after one setback I was made up with the Zen MK2, then realised the CD drive was faulty, so returned and refunded.

A dealer had a Zenith MK2, I collected earlier today and must say even cold a major step up from the Zen, it is truly amazing, but as before my view has always been garbage in garbage out.

The Zenith is even heavier due to a larger toriodal transformer and 3 rail LPS and SSD. All in all the presentation I would describe as very analogue, almost makes the Zen seem broken.

I must hasten to add and this is without my SR Ethernet (currently in Los Angeles Customs - repair) I used Miecords, router to Zenith and then one to the Nova.

I am really tempted for fun, to try the Innuos Statement, just to hear probably how crap my Zenith is.

Happy days, impatiently waiting for my SR Ethernet.
The Raspberry Pi setup is long forgotten.

Dealer left on around 45GB classical type media :nauseated_face:, I must admit though I like the Melody Galdot, maybe it the HiRes but I feel like I can touch her touche as she is sat eu natural.

Ripped an old trance disc, failed half way, disc damaged, but love the ease in which the Innuous takes care of all that for you.

1 Like

Are you using it as a UPNP server or as a USB source?

Keith

At first yes UPnP via Bubbleupnp, but Innuos advised for the Naim the Ethernet connection was best, I agree.

So I then switched to Roon, at the moment DSP all off, I do hate Roon has no lockscreen control.

I agree it’s real pain. But neither does the Naim app. It’s been requested quite a bit. They are working on an Android refresh to also get better audio support from portable devices and DACs, hopefully they include this. But we won’t know until its released. They are just as tight lipped as Naim.

Hi - for sometime i had been use the Android Bubble app, so use of the Naim app was pretty much nominal aside from from updates and testing (it has come on), the beauty of the Bubble app was the lockscreen control, even my mobile could control the Naim volume.

With Roon - i did send me thoughts to their support team, was nice to receive a response, but sadly another, this is really complicated and will take time, as a parting shot i did say, it appears you are Apple fanboys/girls and Android lags behind.

That aside the control from Roon is outstanding, I love the play where you left off, the track path data, i will try the DSP, the lyric text and the app in general is solid and quick, very quick.

Other dislikes, i am very Windows folder drill down type, yes i can see my Tidal (not playlist/tracks favorited), Qobuz in Roon, but was thinking the local ripped content would be separate also.

Yes i know can then see all the versions of an track/album by searching, but for me, even with a small library I find it overly fussy to navigate.

£94 for Roon and £250 a year for Qobuz and then the same for Tidal, then Spotify, adds up.

The apple app also does not minimise to use on lock screen so it’s not just Android. I find it’s apps that have an inbuilt player for the device that seem to have them. Bubble being one of these.

You can use focus in Album or artists view to create search parameters to only look for local content and drill down then save them out as bookmarks to quick jump there after. There is no folder viewer by design as Roon curates your library not the other way round. There are some work arounds for this to a certain degree.

I am whining - but @CrystalGipsy many thanks for guiding me to Roon (not i had dabbled with it 3 times), overall for me it makes the whole music/streaming experience a joy as opposed to a stress of the app crashing or being buggy (Bubble and Naim apps).

For a user experience it just reinforces they need for a polished firmware and apps (dare i say like Apple), having great hardware (car, microwave, streamer, mobile, alexa, etc…) is pointless if the whole user experience is damaged with poor software execution or features.

1 Like

If you’ve not yet explore focus as it’s great for sorting out stuff and making bookmarks makes finding things again so simple. It takes a while to get used to it but it’s a powerful tool once you get around it. Also they auto update when you add more music it’s never fixed.

Wow the Zenith has really opened up, I recall the firmware upgrade was in 4 stages, I thought it was stuck in a loop, but was sequentially working from I think 1.2 to v1.4.

The sheer amount of information now present is nothing short of sublime, from vocals, bass, soundstage and sounding so analogue.

I am now thinking I should have plunged for the Zenith SE.

No pleasing you is there. Just enjoy what you have.

Go on you know you need the Statement :laughing:

Beware that 1.4.2 doesn’t backup to a NAS. USB is ok I’m told. They have fixed it but not released the upgrade.

I’ve been using iPeng to control the LMS. You can use things like Genres to setup your own additional ways of finding albums.

If you like to see the lyrics you can add/enable the Song Info and Song Lyric plug ins. Also supports lots of radios.

Nice as Roon is you can live without it, unless you really want DSP.

Zenith is amazing good SQ. I use USB to spdif into nDAC via Audiophilleo + PurePower.

Phil

Sorry cant agree there having used LMS for years before Roon I can safely say Roon beats it hands down in all ways.

Down the rabbit hole but the sound is so good, if it gets better with more run in WOW, yes I’d love to hear the Innuos Statement.

For me it’s one of them gimme more progressions.

In the end after ripping most the CDs I have I decided I am happy with Qobuz and Tidal so backup is not a problem.

iPeng is the iOS interface to LMS. I would not use LMS apart from for settings.

Roon is excellent but it is not essential.

Phil

I used iPeng for a while when I flirted with iphone for a short while. It was a nice app, I moved to Orange Squeeze when I moved to Android it was also very good and way better than the native interface. Its good its still going in one form or another was ahead of the curve once but I would never go back now.

2 Likes

I felt Roon was too easy and was leading me too much. With a TIDAL subscription you might forget what you actually own! I like the Forum music thread because it can remind me of albums I haven’t played recently.

On the Innuos boxes Roon can’t use the 4GB music buffer which is there to improve SQ.

Still just my preferences.

Phil

1 Like

You mentioned the SQ word - hmm i d o recall the 4GB bufferr a key purchase point for me and just assumed Roon also took advantage of that.

I will need to try the Android Orange Squeeze app.

They have a experimental solution which was not stable with 1.4.1. I have not tried with 2.4.2. You may not notice any SQ change.

Phil