Innuos Zenith SE MkII

[yellowblue]

It´s possible that all of the MK2 SE are sold now. I just ordered one and my dealer told me that he got the last one for me. I need to wait until end of february to get it shipped to me. Should be fun - with tx-USBultra and DAVE.

[yellowblue]

Even if it crazy much money for a server - it was impossible for me to find a better one-box-solution with Roon, Ethernet and USB-out (futureproof) and harddisk. 

[yellowblue]

It´s a bit ironic that the SE sold out just some hours before the very positiv reviews of @austinpop and @BigAIMC. But I am very sure that Innuos has something in their pipeline to meet the expectations coming up after the SE. By the way - I decided to order the (last available) SE after contacting Sean about a possible way to upgrade the MKII.  We couldn´t find a valid way to do that by now (even if it would not be impossible to do). I was also asking him about an off-board PSU, but he wrote that this would compromise the performance of the MKII.

[yellowblue]

Is the fuse easy to change in the Zenith SE? Which are the specifications? 

[yellowblue]

You can find a link to the new HI-FI+ review of the SE on Innuos homepage

http://innuos.com/en/catalog/go/zenith-se-mk2-std

 

[yellowblue]

I can recommend the Taiko Setchi D2 grounding box as a valuable upgrade to the SE (connected via USB). You never can be sure if  grounding boxes have much effect (the D2 gave only a slight improvement to my tx USB-Ultra) with all your devices, and sometimes it may depend what kind of input you use to ground your devices. But I can confirm that the D2 gave more clarity and depth just with the Zenith SE, with the treble sounding airier.

For some reason the manufacturer stated though that the effect will be much less in the UK because there is something special about  UK's 50hz mains ring system. But it works fine for me in Sweden.

 

As so often before I just followed Roys (Romaz) advice from another forum. I was critical against grounding boxes before and I still am when I see the exorbitant amount of money other manufactors demand. But the Taiko Setchi D2 works fine with the SE for far less money.

[yellowblue]

Installed without problems and no dropouts until now. Unexpected big jump in SQ with squeezelite activated - soundstage is wider and deeper, better imaging, more natural sounding....

This was a good answer from Nuno regarding all our NUC-AL hype. Will be interesting to see what a NUC with AL can add as a Roon renderer/endpoint. But there is always the possibility to stay with the Zenith SE as a very reliable Roon-server. 

[yellowblue]

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.

[yellowblue]

BTW I got my first dropouts when jumping forward some minutes within a music piece (which was 12 minutes long). And sometimes the music stops playing when I jump to the next song. But that doesn´t bother me much. 

[yellowblue]

1 hour ago, baconbrain said:

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

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.

[yellowblue]

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.

I wouldn´t say so. Dropouts came only when jumping forward within a track. And it is not a problem for me to press the play buttom when music not automatically jumps to the next track in Roon Radio.

I have just listened to Meiko, Playing favorites (Chesky records) and it was spoky real. Much better than with the older firmware. You don´t want to jump forward in a track anymore hearing this.

[yellowblue]

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".

[yellowblue]

Both. I am not using an endpoint yet.

[yellowblue]

52 minutes ago, baconbrain said:

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. 

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

[yellowblue]

Just now, baconbrain said:

Also anxiously awaiting the new Statement based USB add-on for the SE.

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

[yellowblue]

6 minutes ago, FrankMA said:

Hello @yellowblue  Can you attach a graphic? I cannot seem to find this setting on my MKII (unless it is only on the MKII or Statement). Thank you

Go to settings and then at the bottom of the page under the green sign "Music Player" you come to "Configure USB Latency Mode". Choose low latency if it works with your DAC.

[yellowblue]

Maybe it´s only for the SE.

 

[yellowblue]

I just took the tx-USBultra clocked by an Cybershaft O13 out of my chain. And it sounds slyghtly better now. The chain benefited from them before I switched to the new firmware.

So for now: Zenith SE (with firmware 1.41) -> Lush^2 USB cable -> Chord MScaler -> Chord DAVE -> Hifiman HE-1000SE sounds best. 

 

[yellowblue]

But at the same time hearing with firmware 1.41 reminds me about the days I had LP and a Linn LP12. You have to hear music without skipping. The new firmware definitely doesn´t like when you skip tracks.

[yellowblue]

Some more who want to share his experiences with the new firmware, especially with the new experimental feature?

[yellowblue]

11 minutes ago, The Man said:

This is strange where is this RAM playback option never heard or seen it.....

 

I don't know about the rest of you but when I enable rooncore with sqeezelite player it does not work. It loses connection and says it can't find the core.... I can't the only one experiencing this....

I don´t understand. Did the RAM playback finally work after changing the latency setting to normal again?

 

[yellowblue]

5 minutes ago, The Man said:

I've never seen a Ram playback option in the settings.... ever......

Did you follow all points of the instructions including point 9? I think RAM playback is part of choosing this experimental feature. You can´t choose it as a seperate option.

 

1. Disclaimer - this is an experimental feature which may have occasional dropouts. It uses the Squeezebox integration within Roon which supports only audio up to 24bit/192 and DSD64. Quarantine and Import will be disabled as they require the internal LMS to be active and that would conflict with this feature on Roon.
2. Go to Settings > Choose Server Integration
3. Activate the Roon switch then select the option "Use Roon Core with Squeezelite Player (Experimental)"
4. Click the Apply Changes button
5. Launch the Roon App
6. Go to Settings > Setup
7. Activate the switch for "Enable Squeezebox Support"
8. Go to Setting > Audio
9. Disable any players shown under "Connected to Core"
10. Enable the Squeezelite player under Squeezebox.

[yellowblue]

I just get stuttering or the playback stops when I skip to the next track with the new experimental option. So I try to avoid that and really enjoy the much better SQ. It´s worth it for me.

[yellowblue]

Talking about the fuse - I just can´t find it on this forum anymore. Which fuse size and fuse rating is needed (for the Zenith MK2 SE - should be the same as for the MK3)?

[yellowblue]

I hope it´s OK for Innuos that I share the information I got from Nuno some weeks ago:

"Our USB Reclocker will include the Statement USB Reclocker Board as well as 2x Statement-Level Linear power supplies in half-width chassis with the same depth as the SE. Price is TBC but in the region of $3000. Do note that this would replace the equivalent of a TX-USBUltra, a very good LPSU for the TX-USBUltra, a Mutec REF10, clock cables and at least one good power chord. Compared to that, we're talking about half the price. We expect to launch it around July but still to be confirmed."