Innuos Zenith SE MkII

[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.

[str-1]

14 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 tried various Shunyata and Jorma power cables with my Zenith SE, as well as Vertere, Audioquest Thunder and  Chord Sarum T cables.  All improved significantly over the supplied cable, but in different ways.  I am currently using a Jorma Trinity cable with it.

 

See if you can get a loan of a cable or two to see if they do anything for your Innuos in your system.

[Blackmorec]

Just need to bear in mind that used with lower power devices like the Innuos, power cables take ages to burn in and can introduce some audible anomalies during that process.  You would have sworn that my room had a bass node that was down entirely to a power cable that wasn’t fully burned in. I eventually decided to avoid the agro and use an IEC adapter so I can use new power cables on regular household devices like a reciprocating fan. 

[austinpop]

3 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

Just need to bear in mind that used with lower power devices like the Innuos, power cables take ages to burn in and can introduce some audible anomalies during that process.  You would have sworn that my room had a bass node that was down entirely to a power cable that wasn’t fully burned in. I eventually decided to avoid the agro and use an IEC adapter so I can use new power cables on regular household devices like a reciprocating fan. 

 

I echo the suggestion to try cables before you buy. For myself, I did find the SE to benefit greatly from a better power cable. I posted about it a few months ago here.

 

Additionally, the SE seems to benefit from a better fuse. I got a nice bump going from the stock fuse to a SR Blue fuse. 

 

If cable and fuse upgrades are not your cup of tea, please ignore.

[thyname]

43 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

I echo the suggestion to try cables before you buy. For myself, I did find the SE to benefit greatly from a better power cable. I posted about it a few months ago here.

 

Additionally, the SE seems to benefit from a better fuse. I got a nice bump going from the stock fuse to a SR Blue fuse. 

 

If cable and fuse upgrades are not your cup of tea, please ignore.

 

Thanks for chiming in!

 

Funny you mentioned the Cardas Clear power cord on that link. I have a Clear Beyond for my power amp, another Clear Beyond for my power conditioner, and a Clear for my Preamp. The DAC has a Wireworld Platinum Electra 7.

 

I was hoping I did not have to buy another Clear for my Innuos. I guess it is now inevitable ....

[The Man]

On 12/9/2018 at 3:02 PM, 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?

 

Power cords make a big difference with this player. I use a 7N silver cable and I thought I got a new player....

[The Man]

On 12/7/2018 at 6:44 PM, baconbrain said:

  On 12/7/2018 at 6:31 PM, 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.

 

  On 12/7/2018 at 6:34 PM, #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...

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....

[The Man]

On 12/7/2018 at 6:45 PM, 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".

 

Problem with this... is that eventually you might get hiccups in the music....  roon tech support told me to go back to normal after I started getting start stop with the music.... 

[thyname]

9 minutes ago, The Man said:

 

Power cords make a big difference with this player. I use a 7N silver cable and I thought I got a new player....

What is a 7N silver cable?

[The Man]

On 12/8/2018 at 9:41 AM, yellowblue said:

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. 

 

hmm i'm using the Sotm usbultra with their world clock... what's strange is that in the past when I would get hiccups in the music I would change the ps audio I have to multiwave and let it choose the phase and it would take the hiccups out... but now that doesnt' seem to work.... so I was wondering if the SSD is the culprit... 

[The Man]

5 minutes ago, thyname said:

What is a 7N silver cable?

same as 7N occ copper its just silver.... purified silver.... 

[thyname]

1 minute ago, The Man said:

same as 7N occ copper its just silver.... purified silver.... 

Brand? or is this DIY?

[The Man]

On 12/9/2018 at 2:08 AM, yellowblue said:

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

yes it faulty... why have the roon/ squeeze option it causes roon not to work

[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?

 

[The Man]

3 minutes ago, yellowblue said:

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

 

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

[The Man]

6 minutes ago, thyname said:

Brand? or is this DIY?

Neotec 7N silver cable... its pricey.... so you know....

[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.

[FrankMA]

On 12/9/2018 at 3:02 PM, 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'm a firm believer in upgrading stock PC's. I'm using a Triode Wire Labs HP Digital American with good results. This is highly regarded by Herb Reichert/Stereophile on digital equipment:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/gramophone-dreams-23-audioquest-triode-wire-labs

[The Man]

3 hours ago, yellowblue said:

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.

nice thanks for this your way more helpful than there helpdesk....  but .... 24bit/192 and dsd64  that's pretty anemic...

[mrkoven]

I currently have Roon core on a PC server and use Aries as an endpoint into Mscaler + DAVE. 

I am wondering about adding the Zenith. Would I still need the Aries as endpoint or could (should) I use Zenith directly into M scaler + DAVE, can it function as a core and endpoint or better to keep the Aries as endpoint and Zenith as core?

[thyname]

20 minutes ago, mrkoven said:

I currently have Roon core on a PC server and use Aries as an endpoint into Mscaler + DAVE. 

I am wondering about adding the Zenith. Would I still need the Aries as endpoint or could (should) I use Zenith directly into M scaler + DAVE, can it function as a core and endpoint or better to keep the Aries as endpoint and Zenith as core?

 

ZENith MK3 (and the MK2) can definitely act as both Roon Core and Endpoint. That’s how I am using it now with my DAC, Ayre QX-5 Twenty. It sounds better than using the built in bridge on my Ayre as endpoint. 

[mrkoven]

On 1/12/2019 at 10:37 AM, thyname said:

 

ZENith MK3 (and the MK2) can definitely act as both Roon Core and Endpoint. That’s how I am using it now with my DAC, Ayre QX-5 Twenty. It sounds better than using the built in bridge on my Ayre as endpoint. 

 

I ended up ordering a Mk3.  Should be here next week.

[thyname]

29 minutes ago, mrkoven said:

 

I ended up ordering a Mk3.  Should be here next week.

 

Congrats!! Which one ? ZEN or ZENith?

[mrkoven]

3 minutes ago, thyname said:

 

Congrats!! Which one ? ZEN or ZENith?

 

ZENith! Took me a while to find a dealer w/ one in stock here in the US.

[thyname]

5 minutes ago, mrkoven said:

 

ZENith! Took me a while to find a dealer w/ one in stock here in the US.

 

‘Great decision! And good job finding one in stock indeed