Innuos Zenith SE MkII

[baconbrain]

I have a quick question regarding accessing music files which are stored on a separate NAS via the SE. 

 

In the user manual the following is stated: "Note that albums which are currently on a NAS will be shown in your music library and can be played back through the USB output, but can not be edited nor be accessed through UPnP."

 

The inability to edit makes sense but the inability to access through UPnP seems a bit strange. Does this mean that one cannot stream NAS based files to a UPnP DAC / Player connected to the respective Ethernet port of the SE?

 

[baconbrain]

So after following this thread, reading reviews, and getting an excellent offer for a demo SE, I decided to make the investment. 

 

Number 12 of 100 arrived yesterday and I was completely surprised at how easy the transition from my legacy DIY Roon Server to the SE was. Literally, in less than 1 hour it was up and running. 

 

The integration into my upstream signal chain; Router -> Melco -> SE -> Trinnov (all via ethernet bridge) was absolutely effortless. 

 

SQ wise, my first impressions are that the influence of the SE is immediate and distinct. I am (pleasently) surprised by this given that my previous DIY server was no slouch.

 

All in all, I am a really happy camper at the moment and looking foward as to how the SE will settle in over time.

[baconbrain]

33 minutes ago, Patatorz said:

thanks for the feedback. Any reason why you keep the melco in the chain ?

 

Basically due to the fact that my library exceeds the storage capacity of the SE and I feel that the Melco functions extremely well as a NAS. (i.e. PSU, Bridging, Seperation of Components / Housing, etc..)

[baconbrain]

1 hour ago, Patatorz said:

Ok very clear. So all your library is on the Melco (with the servers) and you use the SE as a player ?

You use the bridge of the Melco or the SE ?

 

 

Not quite, the Melco hosts the first bridge to the SE and acts solely as a NAS. The SE hosts the second bridge to the Trinnov (so to say a a bridge within a bridge) and is the Roon Server. The Trinnov functions as a Roon End Point. With this constellation I have no need for any additional switches in the chain therefore reducing the number of possible „noise“ sources.

[baconbrain]

5 minutes ago, Patatorz said:

Ok thanks. I missed your trining was an amethyst. So you have 3 sources.

i was asking that because you can bridge all your devices. Very interesting. 

Yeah, and the great thing about it is that it is more or less „plug and play“. No creation of different subnets, poor upload speeds, or any of those other challenges that I had with my previous bridged Win10 Roon Server ...

[baconbrain]

15 minutes ago, Johnny Moondog said:

baconbrain: “The integration into my upstream signal chain; Router -> Melco -> SE -> Trinnov (all via ethernet bridge) was absolutely effortless.”

 

Another satisfied Zenith SE owner here. Pardon my ignorance, but can you elaborate on the phrase "ethernet bridge?" Is this the same as a bridged LAN that Romaz and others have utilized? Thanks!

 

In essence, yes.

 

8 minutes ago, Patatorz said:

What we discussed with baconbrain around bridge, is to use the functionalities of the double Ethernet ports of the innuos and Melco to avoid the use of an Ethernet switch.

 

My doubts are more on how the Ethernet ports are designed (insulation for example as on the Melco) as the base of the innuos is a supermicro motherboard....

 

Good call out and something to consider going forward. I have a GISO Lan Isolator that I want to place in various positions within the chain to see what the impact on SQ could be. (positive / negative)

[baconbrain]

6 minutes ago, Patatorz said:

I also own a giso. The impact depends really on the devices...

Completely agree. Although my perception with the results of the GISO have been mixed. Sometimes when I expected it to bring benefit, it did not, and vice versa. Lets see ...

[baconbrain]

Another quick question ...

 

Does anyone know which of the terminals is phase on the power connector of the SE?

[baconbrain]

1 hour ago, Patatorz said:

Could you reformulate : not sure to understand.

Sure, probably poor wording on my part. 

 

Phase = Live/Hot or Positive wire/conductor of an electrical socket / connector.

 

I am one of those guys who believe there is a benefit to be gained in SQ when keeping all components in „phase“ (ensuring that each „live“ conductor is connected to each other) from the wall socket to the end of the component chain.

[baconbrain]

2 hours ago, octaviars said:

 

If you look at this photo it looks like the phase is to the left in the IEC inlet when you look at it from behind. 

 

 

 

Thanks for pic and taking the time to respond. In retrospect, next time I will research a bit more myself before asking such an obvious question ... ☺️

[baconbrain]

On 10/13/2018 at 3:58 AM, rickca said:

I agree.  I'd love to have HQPlayer NAA on the SE.  Library/metadata management is just reinventing the wheel.

 

3 hours ago, nvitorino said:

Hi everyone,

 

It's been a crazy season with shows a bit around the world and visiting factories to ensure suppliers would keep to their words with delivery (which they didn't...) so time has been shorter than usual.

 

Given a lot of you have provided feedback about the your disillusionment with Innuos regarding the focus of the latest 1.4 update being on library management, I thought I'd just answer to everyone right here.

 

First I'd like to address the feeling the SE users have been "abandoned". Not the case at all. With our software development cycle, we try to balance between "front-end" features (like metadata management) and "back-end" features (like kernel updates). Do note that the updates are for all our servers and not just for the SE (although there are specific settings for each model). Version 1.4 was already being finished by the time we made a quick test with Rajiv with Roon/Squeezelite integration so it could never be part of the update. Furthermore, in order for the Roon/Squeezelite integration to work, we need to disable the LMS music library as this conflicts with Roon. A number of our features depend on that so those will need to be disabled too. Do be aware that is will always be a beta feature as it depends largely on Roon maintaining support for it. It already limits it to 24/192 audio anyway.  We plan to bring this option on the 1.4.1 update that we are developing now. The focus for our next updates will be almost exclusively on the OS side as we feel the library management features are now at the level of functionality we wanted,

 

A lot of you are Roon users. There is very limited scope to what we can improve in terms of sound quality with Roon. We can improve things on the OS side of the system that will benefit both Roon and innuOS users. However, I hope you understand that it's likely there will always be differences between the platforms. Software implementation matters and whilst we can do improvements on the Squeezelite player, we cannot to them to the Roon player as we have no access to its code. 

 

On a sidenote, the external USB reclocker based on the Statement board will also allow a very audible upgrade to SE users. The electronics are all designed already, it's now a matter of chassis (meaning a fresh round of chasing suppliers...)

 

Nuno

Really appreciate the update and I would also like to second the wish for HqPlayer NAA functionality in a future release.

[baconbrain]

This excerpt from the Release Notes sounds interesting ...

 

“(Experimental) New option in Roon Settings to allow using our internal player with Roon, enabling RAM playback”

[baconbrain]

40 minutes ago, yellowblue said:

It is an unexpected big jump in SQ because I switched to LMS within the SE before the new firmware was released but never noticed such a big difference as I hear now. Would it be possible that Nuno has found other ways to further improve the SQ?

 

But maybe this is just wishful thinking as I am a bit nervous how to get AL to run on the NUC.

Apologies for asking a possibly ignorant question,  but you are not currently using Roon with your SE, correct?

[baconbrain]

2 minutes ago, #Yoda# said:

The new feature seems to work great with the Zenith MK.III

You are referring to the internal squeezelite player support with Roon enabling RAM playback?

[baconbrain]

12 minutes ago, yellowblue said:

Yes, I am using Roon, but after today only with New option in Roon Settings to allow using our internal player with Roon, enabling RAM playback.

 

9 minutes ago, #Yoda# said:

Yes, I enabled the sqeezelite player support two hours ago, it's working faultless since then. My first listening experiences are promising with Auralic Aries and Linn Majik DS as endpoints. 

 

Thanks, it has been a long week...

[baconbrain]

2 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

Bummer. So it's happening here too. I was hoping Innuos had found a version of squeezelite that was stable in this regard. 

 

Although TBH - I think it's Roon that's the culprit. Their LMS support appears to be reluctant, at best.

 

Didn’t Nuno mention that LMS would be deavtivated when using the squeezelite player in Roon or am I misinformed?

[baconbrain]

8 hours ago, yellowblue said:

Last for today - has everybody who owns a Zenith understood that there is a latency setting at the bottom of "settings" in the Zenith menue? The sound in my system has become much more relaxed after I chose "low latency".

I am not currently using mine with a USB DAC, but the Low Latency Mode was referenced in release notes 1.3.1. The function was evidently added for DAC compatibility reasons. 

[baconbrain]

46 minutes ago, yellowblue said:

But by default it´s not acivated. It´s on "normal latency mode" until you change it.

Certainly good to know. I wasn’t even aware that the option existed. Also anxiously awaiting the new Statement based USB add-on for the SE.

[baconbrain]

On 10/31/2018 at 11:00 AM, nvitorino said:

Hi everyone,

 

It's been a crazy season with shows a bit around the world and visiting factories to ensure suppliers would keep to their words with delivery (which they didn't...) so time has been shorter than usual.

 

Given a lot of you have provided feedback about the your disillusionment with Innuos regarding the focus of the latest 1.4 update being on library management, I thought I'd just answer to everyone right here.

 

First I'd like to address the feeling the SE users have been "abandoned". Not the case at all. With our software development cycle, we try to balance between "front-end" features (like metadata management) and "back-end" features (like kernel updates). Do note that the updates are for all our servers and not just for the SE (although there are specific settings for each model). Version 1.4 was already being finished by the time we made a quick test with Rajiv with Roon/Squeezelite integration so it could never be part of the update. Furthermore, in order for the Roon/Squeezelite integration to work, we need to disable the LMS music library as this conflicts with Roon. A number of our features depend on that so those will need to be disabled too. Do be aware that is will always be a beta feature as it depends largely on Roon maintaining support for it. It already limits it to 24/192 audio anyway.  We plan to bring this option on the 1.4.1 update that we are developing now. The focus for our next updates will be almost exclusively on the OS side as we feel the library management features are now at the level of functionality we wanted,

 

A lot of you are Roon users. There is very limited scope to what we can improve in terms of sound quality with Roon. We can improve things on the OS side of the system that will benefit both Roon and innuOS users. However, I hope you understand that it's likely there will always be differences between the platforms. Software implementation matters and whilst we can do improvements on the Squeezelite player, we cannot to them to the Roon player as we have no access to its code. 

 

On a sidenote, the external USB reclocker based on the Statement board will also allow a very audible upgrade to SE users. The electronics are all designed already, it's now a matter of chassis (meaning a fresh round of chasing suppliers...)

 

Nuno

 

3 minutes ago, yellowblue said:

Do you know more when it´s coming and how much it will cost?

The last update I am aware of was the posting from Nuno above. No mention in regards to price...

[baconbrain]

4 hours ago, jenjoh said:

Have any of you setup the squeezlite support when using a dac with roon ready support, aka playing from the ethernet port of the Zenit, or Are you all  playing throug the usb port om the Zenit?

I Just have a hard time seeding the roon endpoint turning up as an option under plsyer output of the squeezlite setting..

My SE is also streaming via Ethernet to a Roon Ready DAC but unfortunately my system is under construction until the new mounts for my  Kii‘s are finished.

 

But now that you mention it, I am not certain if the squeezelite player together with Roon will function at all when streaming to a Roon Ready device ....

[baconbrain]

3 hours ago, thyname said:

Do Innuos servers (Zen and ZENith) benefit from a good aftermarket AC power cord, or the stock power cord is fine?

 

What are you guys using?

I have always been an advocate of investing in quality power cables but feel it should be kept within reason and proportinate to the components they are connected to. I am feeding my SE with a cable from a German company called HMS. Does it make a night and day difference? No, it doesn’t, but IMO still positively contributes to the overall SQ.

[baconbrain]

Stopped by the Innous Booth during the High End in Munich yesterday and asked if the upgrade for the USB port was still on the roadmap for the SE and the Rep stated that “yes definitely ” both the USB and Ethernet Port upgrades were going to be released within the next 6 to 8 months...

[baconbrain]

1 hour ago, str-1 said:

Did the Rep give any indication of price?

No, unforetunately not. He stated that they have focused most of their attention on the MK III during the past months and the upgrade for the SE was still in a „development“ phase. I also asked if they would offer an official upgrade program (i.e. SE to Statement) and he mentioned that it was not being considered at the moment.

[baconbrain]

Guys,

 

Honestly the Rep did not appear to be super knowledgeable so let‘s hope your sources are more accurate.

[baconbrain]

3 hours ago, rickca said:

This is the first time I've heard that there's an ethernet upgrade.  If it costs $3K like the USB reclocker, you may as well just get a Statement.

Also a first for me. Considering everything they are wanting to modify, they could just offer the SE owners a trade-in, and be done with it.