Innuos Zenith SE MkII

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Greetings guys

 

Long time reader but rarely post...

 

My Zenith mII (standard) arrived just before xmas and is at this point as close to "burned in" as I would think it could be.

I came out of a fairly optimized Pc with Sotm card with separate power supply , The HD plex power supply for the mother board etc etc feeding a Micro rendu....and this sounded very good.

While all of this is purely subjective I have to tell you the Zenith is better in every way I can articulate ....I just cant get enough hours of music in now. And that is really what its all about, that and its the easiest dam thing ever to get up and running on Roon.

 

System is:

Zenith >Hydra Z/ZPM D-D converter >Calyx Femto dac > Gamut Di150 LE Integrated > Acoustic Zen Crescendo II's > Rel G1's in stereo

 

btw, ignore my signature I have tried a dozen times to edit it or remove it and this dumb dumb cant get it to do so

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My dealer , or should I say distributor here in Ontario didn't quite come out and say it but the undertones where that the sweet spot in the line up in terms of a value proposition was the standard....I kinda just took that as situation normal as with all hifi . In other words diminishing returns...I don't know this to be any kind of fact though.

I just didnt see the price of the standard Zenith as being any kind of risk and it has exceeded my expectations generally

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20 hours ago, PhilR said:

 

Agreed on all points of this with my own MK II. This is making the best music I have heard in my listening situation, after coming from an Aurender N-100 and Sonore Signature Rendu. The ease of set-up can't be overstated, this thing just works out of the box with minimal fuss. Mine has been running as a Roon Core unit and handles my 15TB NAS library with no issues. I have contacted Innuos with many questions regarding the unit and their customer service has been amazing. These guys really care about their products and customers.

 

From my interpretations of the reviews, the comparison of the standard MK II and the MK II SE seems to revolve around the phrase "A bit more..", as in the SE has a bit more detail, a bit more background blackness, a bit more instrument separation, etc.  I'm good spending half as much to get 95% of ideal, especially because my room has a higher ambient noise level that probably wouldn't let me discern that small difference between the two Zenith models.

 

The 95% rule here is exactly how I felt about this. While I'm in the good(lucky) position to have a purpose built room and feel that area of things is relatively optimized I just am always struggling with investing in that last 5%.... when I don't know what 100% really is...

in other words, I went off of reviews in this purchase and I didn't see the risk in the standard Mk II.... I just couldn't bring myself to put out the extra money for the top tier. Anyone buying hifi for a while knows what I mean here.

The thing here is the reviews were spot on with this product. I got exactly what the consensus said I would . I find this important because I actually dismissed the idea that there would be tangible sonic benefits and purchased the Zenith solely on the premise that I'm tired of chasing the dragon with my PC and all its mods and add ons etc.... turns out the unit sounds fantastic and as mentioned is just easy. 

Further, because of the nature of the one box configuration I have exactly zero thoughts about mods/changes/add ons.... for me that might just be worth the price of admission

Now, I am acutely aware this might just be the flavour of the week but I have to say it's really a great product . It's a nice feeling when you take a flyer and it comes back as expected, or in this case somewhat better than expected 

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Just some further "updates" or "findings" on my standard Zenith...

I spent some time fooling around with how to get the signal to my Calyx Dac from the Zenith to see if what I had around here as "add-ons" would yield any sonic benefits .

 

my standard set is :

Zenith > Audiobyte Hydra Z with ZPM power supply D-D converter (USB - BNC or AES ) > Calyx Femto

 

I tried : 

Zenith > USB > Calyx Femto 

 

also tried :

Zenith > IFI iusb3 with Hdplex lps > Calyx Femto 

 

My purely subjective results proved that the HydraZ/ZPM was an improvement over the other two options too the Femto dac from the Zenith.

This was the same result I had with my hopped up PC feeding the Femto. Which tells me one of two things , that the Audiobyte converter combo and it's reclocking/clean power is working here or ( and I suspect this to be the real case) that the Femto just has an average USB input and simply sounds better on a BNC or AES input.

 

My Dac only does 24/192 so at this point I don't need to bother with the extended ability of DXD or DSD from the USB 

 

not sure what the take away is here because as I stated using the Zenith MkII is an overall sonic improvement over my PC in every way I could articulate.

As good as the Calyx Femto is it might be time for a newer dac 

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Firedog.....Very good point 

 

I cant speak  to any other source comparisons other than against my PC. And frankly their is no comparison. It has not been since I was hard core into turntables (15 years or more ago) that a source change has made such a clearly audible difference in every aspect of the fidelity. It's not better in one or two areas it's just musically and fundimentally more natural and ( presumably) more correct.

Any way, it would be interesting to hear from the fellows that have directly compared it to the likes of an Aurender or Lumin or (?)

 

 

 

 

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My latest update on my Zenith

 

I encountered an issue where 60% of my music (approx 500 GB) was literally "trapped" in the unsorted file within the Zenith drive. I contacted Innuos and the very promptly set up a remote session to rectify the issue.

As a disclaimer I chose the Zenith primarily because of the glowing reviews on how easy it is to set up and for a half computer illiterate like me that is very appealing...

Anyway, Roon could not see the file but it is absolutely on the Zenith drive as I can get to the unsorted file through my network . They applied what is best described as a circuitous network path for the Innuos to allow Roon to see the file by way of IP address.

this worked for a short amount of time and has now failed and is showing in Roon that the "drive is not available"...

Once again I am in the process of arranging a remote session but I really dont want to access that music that is already on the drive in a roundabout way ....this makes no sense to me at all and further I just dont have the skills or time to sort this out myself as I do not think this is a Roon issue ....Roon is easy

 

So while I think the Zenith is a great server , I believe that I may have inadvertently mined out a problem with it....

 

ugh

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thats not a bad idea ....lemme give it a go....

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Nope, Roon still not seeing the music even when I force a rescan of the folder....

 

lol....I have to be honest this is the exact thing I was attempting to avoid by purchasing EASY....the thing is , if I had half a brain I might be able to determine if there are issues with the files (shouldnt be as they play remotely served from my Zenith to my desktop from the unsorted folder) or if there is a Zenith problem or what....

 

I can read incredibly difficult blueprints, build incredibly complicated structures and sort out just about every conceivable construction related issue you can dream up...But boy oh boy do I suck with this stuff...

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yep did a reboot etc ....and yes using Zenith as core and server to  a usb dac (Calyx Femto)

 

who knows, I will deal with Innuos on this ....none of it makes any sense to me so I had best leave it to the pros to hopefully sort out.

I mean its not total dire straits I have 350Gb of great music it does feel like serving up and does so very well I might add.

My only real frustration is self induced as I work in an environment that if there is an issue the world stops right there and then to get a resolution....other industries and or work environments don't seem to have the same speed to deal with the issues...such as it goes

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great advice and will do just that

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On 1/20/2018 at 1:08 PM, austinpop said:

Yes, there are some minefields in getting Roon up and running on the Zenith. There are actually 3 logical stages to this:

1. Physically copy music over to the Zenith SE's internal SSD
2. Bring up Roon correctly on the Zenith SE, by restoring from a database backup of your existing Core
3. Fixup the music location under Roon > Settings > Storage

Do the following first, on your existing Roon Core server:

• Make a backup to something you can access on the SE - a network share, or even a USB stick.
• Go to Roon > Settings > Storage and note down where your music is currently stored.
• Let's assume your current Roon Core is on a Windows machine named WinRoon, and your music is in E:\MyMusicLib

Let't take each in turn.

1. Physically copy music over to the Zenith SE's internal SSD
   • The key pitfall here is to avoid the Auto-Import at all costs!
   • On the machine WinRoon, open the Zenith network share, and copy the folder MyMusicLib into the Music folder on the Zenith
2. Bring up Roon correctly on the Zenith SE, by restoring from a database backup of your existing Core
   • See https://kb.roonlabs.com/Migration
   • It's really useful to do it this way
3. Fixup the music location under Roon > Settings > Storage
   • You'll see the previous location you had there - [E:] MyMusicLib is broken. Right click and "Disable" it.
   • The Roon Core on Zenith will already have the Music folder enabled by default.
   • This should work. I say should, because in my case, my music was on a NAS. This was much cleaner and easier to bring up.
   • After the restore, I went to the NAS link in Storage, and selected Edit, then Browse. Since my NAS requires login creds, I had to essentially recreate the storage path to my music folder on my NAS.
   • Since then I have been selectively moving a few albums over into the Music folder, to assess "local vs. NAS" performance, but I have not yet done a wholesale copy of my (1.7TB) library over.
   • Advanced tip: by default Innuous locks you out of setting any other local storage location in Roon, but upon request, they can open up other folders for you.

In summary, don't be afraid to start over, using the steps above. It should go a lot cleaner.

 

Sorry for the slow reply on this and thank you BTW....

 

I did a remote service with Nuno ( the main man at Innuos) and he sorted it out in his code not in Roon...appears to be flawless now

     I tell you what to a computer illiterate like myself these guys have champion service.....I say this in response to the poster who feels compelled to assert that he could build this for 1/3 the cost....thats maybe true ,maybe not but I can say for certain that I cannot...nor would I commission someone to do so and forgo the service guarantee ....

   I can say with absolution that I can build him a house for roughly a half of what it would cost him off the same blueprints but I have seen so many people try and ultimately fall on their face....and then call me, a builder . Those people needed a pro...not to say everyone does but I wouldnt go on a DIY board and say how easy it is to build a home/addition/reno and that if you do it yourself you save 50%....

just saying