Innuos Zenith - For a few teras more

[o.fz]

I consider buying a Innuos Zenith mk3. However, I need the 4To version to store my albums collection and I'm surprised by the price that Innuos charge for 2To more: here, in Belgium, the 4To version costs about 1000€ more than the 2To version.

 

As a 4To SSD now costs about 500€ and a 2To 200€, I wonder what explains that extravagant extra cost. Does someone know if it's possible to buy the 2To version and swap the SSD? Actually, it would even be better if Innuos would sell the Zenith without any SSD at all, and let their customers add the one they need, wouldn't it?

[kennyb123]

With my Zenith Mk2 Std, it was my impression that music stored locally might sound just a bit better than music stored on my NAS.  No way was that difference enough to justify moving music onto the SSD.  And my hope is that the EtherREGEN would, at a minimum, level the playing field.  There are advantages to storing music on a NAS including the ability to hot swap failed drives.  The larger the music collection, the more appropriate I think it would be to store it on a NAS.

 

Maybe others can chime in on whether its worth it for you to store your large music collection on the Zenith - and whether the additional expense would be justified.

 

 

[Nenon]

I can't see why you would not be able to clone and swap out the SSD.

[o.fz]

18 hours ago, kennyb123 said:

With my Zenith Mk2 Std, it was my impression that music stored locally might sound just a bit better than music stored on my NAS.  No way was that difference enough to justify moving music onto the SSD.  And my hope is that the EtherREGEN would, at a minimum, level the playing field.  There are advantages to storing music on a NAS including the ability to hot swap failed drives.  The larger the music collection, the more appropriate I think it would be to store it on a NAS.

 

Maybe others can chime in on whether its worth it for you to store your large music collection on the Zenith - and whether the additional expense would be justified.

 

 

 

I'm using a NAS now, and an Ifi Pro iDSD. I'd like to move my music library to a local storage, for several reasons, including local network problems. In the current situation, the additional expense can't be justified, as it seems to be the arbitrary consequence of Innuos' price policy.

 

I wasn't aware of the EtherREGEN switch. It's interesting. Do you intend to buy one?

 

14 hours ago, Nenon said:

I can't see why you would not be able to clone and swap out the SSD.

 

I'd like to be sure of this.

[kennyb123]

30 minutes ago, o.fz said:

 

I wasn't aware of the EtherREGEN switch. It's interesting. Do you intend to buy one?

 

 

I have purchased one and I believe it will ship in the first batch.  I'm very much looking forward to it.

[your momo]

I can confirm sound is better on Zenhit when playing music stored on the SSD, than music from whatever else source, being NAS or Web. It probably comes from how Innuos do take care on what reside inside the box.

Sound difference is not marginal, I can even dicerne improvement when SSD stored music is from a local rip (on board CD slot) vs a rip made from another CD ripper ...so I'm ripping again most of my CDs on the mk3.

So no doubt Innuos all-in one has an edge when user play it right.

 

Regarding price, Zenhit is probably not best efficient cost/performance ratio. Zen, especially since mk3 is a better hit.

 

I did question myself about worthfulness of spending that much more for a 1T larger SSD, and reached the conclusion that unlike James Bond I live only once. Therefore, kicked my butt and took the 2T ...even I will hardly find more than 1T of worth good recorded tune until this device become obsolete.

 

[o.fz]

There is a consensus that locally stored files sound better (even if some peculiar situations may differ), and I certainly agree with you re:YOLO, but I hate that feeling of being robbed 750€. There may be a good technical reason, for the price difference, but I doubt it.

[FredM]

As an easy alternative, how about connecting an external USB drive? (with various options: SSD, HDD, Flash, .. I’m sure it will be less costly ). Perhaps current owners have experienced its SQ).

[o.fz]

Is it possible to connect an external hard drive to the Zenith?

[FredM]

I'm not sure, but I would think so. I could even be that there is a difference between the Innuos own player software and using Roon (where you can assign the folders to index). Perhaps an Innuos owner can chime in?

[kennyb123]

On 10/23/2019 at 12:01 PM, your momo said:

I can confirm sound is better on Zenhit when playing music stored on the SSD, than music from whatever else source, being NAS or Web. It probably comes from how Innuos do take care on what reside inside the box.

Sound difference is not marginal, I can even dicerne improvement when SSD stored music is from a local rip (on board CD slot) vs a rip made from another CD ripper ...so I'm ripping again most of my CDs on the mk3.

So no doubt Innuos all-in one has an edge when user play it right.

 

 

Interesting.  When I did these comparisons I found only a slight advantage in favor of locally stored over files stored on my NAS.  Files stored on my NAS did sound noticeably better than the equivalent streamed from either Tidal or Qobuz.  

 

My system is substantially more resolving now than back when I last did these comparisons.  I'll have to give it another go, but I will wait for the EtherRegen to land first.  It was that comparison a while back that got me convinced that I need to try the EtherRegen.  My first test with it will be to compare files on NAS to Tidal/Qobuz.  I could easily compare to files stored on the Zenith too.

[your momo]

On 10/23/2019 at 11:40 PM, FredM said:

I'm not sure, but I would think so. I could even be that there is a difference between the Innuos own player software and using Roon (where you can assign the folders to index). Perhaps an Innuos owner can chime in?

 

You can connect external hard drive to Innuos, but it's either for transfering the files to the internal storage or for backing up the internal storage. This last option requires to let Innuos reformat your external drive and make a "proprietary" copy of the internal storage - which can then only be restored on an Innuos HW.

 

Regarding sound difference between Innuos player software, which is based on Logitech Media Server (LMS - former SqueezBoxServer former SlimServer) and Innuos using Roon there is consensus here, which has been confirmed by designer of Innuos that LMS player still has an edge over Roon (RAAT).

Main reason looks to reside into LMS is more open source than Roon, letting Innuos applying different file buffering strategy, hence best sound through his USB out.

There is an Innuos "beta" SW which permit to run Roon but still use LMS (through SqueezeLite) mitigating this gap, but with canvate on restricted type of supported formats as well as some possible file transition glitches...

 

I choose Innuos server because of the simple all-in one plug and play solution, I hate to worry about computer/SW when enjoying music.

I'm more than satisfied with what I get but I understand and agree there is some extra price to pay, as well as limitations with respect to a fully open multi-box self build solution, for which I don't have interest nor time to spend.

 

 

[o.fz]

On 10/26/2019 at 11:30 AM, your momo said:

 

You can connect external hard drive to Innuos, but it's either for transfering the files to the internal storage or for backing up the internal storage. This last option requires to let Innuos reformat your external drive and make a "proprietary" copy of the internal storage - which can then only be restored on an Innuos HW.

 

Regarding sound difference between Innuos player software, which is based on Logitech Media Server (LMS - former SqueezBoxServer former SlimServer) and Innuos using Roon there is consensus here, which has been confirmed by designer of Innuos that LMS player still has an edge over Roon (RAAT).

Main reason looks to reside into LMS is more open source than Roon, letting Innuos applying different file buffering strategy, hence best sound through his USB out.

There is an Innuos "beta" SW which permit to run Roon but still use LMS (through SqueezeLite) mitigating this gap, but with canvate on restricted type of supported formats as well as some possible file transition glitches...

 

I choose Innuos server because of the simple all-in one plug and play solution, I hate to worry about computer/SW when enjoying music.

I'm more than satisfied with what I get but I understand and agree there is some extra price to pay, as well as limitations with respect to a fully open multi-box self build solution, for which I don't have interest nor time to spend.

 

 

Thank you for all the informations.

 

I conclude from this thread that - for me, at least - it's urgent to wait. One knows that, in high-end hifi, most of the gear is overpriced. Here, the fact that one can buy the component separately,  at 1/4 of the price, casts a crude light on this general fact and makes the pill harder to swallow. I take the bet that the always decreasing price of the SSD storage will soon make 4To the "entry level" and reduce the price accordingly.

 

Regarding the time to spend, I don't earn 750€ or more per half-hour: the time needed to order, unpack and put a SSD in an Innuos server that would be sold bare.