Innuos Zenith - For a few teras more

[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.

 

[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.