I came across this stylish MusicServer that support Roon playback. I’m looking at the entry level Zenmini Mk2. Have anyone use this?
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Hi @MusicEar
I haven’t tried/testing it, but they seems interesting.
But it’s feels like many companies jumping on the Roon Train!
So the question I’m asking myself is, how much and what is the difference between these Music Players…except the design and something else!!!
It’s not so hard to make or order a similar in a computer store, that have a service/reparation part as well, or?
I mean it’s not so difficult to look out a nice chassi and order a great motherboard and cpu etc…
Put in a Cd, dvd, blue-ray burner…
All these new or old companies who’s are jumping on this Roon Train, have one thing incoming, well except Roon and it’s, this sounds and works much better than a “ordinary” computer!
Because computers don’t have special motherboards etc…but all our components are special and made for music!
Well how big is the difference after different cables, DAC’s I say Zero!
They don’t make these components self, so it’s must be able to buying themselves wright?
I have worked as tv repertoire and I remember when I opened my first Bang Olofson (B&O) everything was Phillips inside!
The same is today Samsung makes almost the screen to all brands!
The warranty doesn’t work if you open most hifi products, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same components in Innuos, Small Green Computers…as in the most NUC’s and computers!
So I’m sure that you can get a computer store put together a great Roon MusicServer, for the half price and they who can do themselves 1/3 of the price!
But that’s my opinion and foughts, but of course whose who’s got the money and believe it’s a great difference in sound and preforming they will buying it.
The interesting part here is it works in three different scenarios:
- Roon core + player
- Roon core server
- Player (endpoint)
Such configurations, 1 to 2 are rarely seen in manufacturers offering integrated Roon capabilities. No. 3 is being the most common. Can Roon team comment on this?
The Innuos will not work fully with 1.3 or later see the Innuos web site for full details. I know I had one and it went back.
Hi,
Just a quick introduction: my name is Nuno Vitorino and I’m the R&D Director for Innuos.
Our Innuos are perfectly compatible with Roon 1.3 and above. However, we have chosen a board on our systems that does not have processing power to upsample to DSD128 and above. This was a choice we’ve made so we could use much better power supplies and reduce power noise produced by the system, resulting in better sound quality for every format. Other than this, all Roon 1.3 functions are available.
If you do want to use upsampling to dsd128 and above, you can set the server ain Roon bridge mode and use a powerful Computer to run Roon Core. You can then compare sound quality in both scenarios and decide if it actually sounds better.
Happy to provide further details.
Nuno
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DAR (Digital Audio Review) just posted a review of the Zenith MK II SE version which is worth a read. http://www.digitalaudioreview.net/2017/10/richer-sounds-with-the-innuos-zenith-mkii-se/
Hi Nuno
May I know the Max Roon upsampling setup for Zenith II in order to match the hardware spec?
In fact I tried the dsd128 at 5th modulation and the Zenith II is capable of doing so
Many thx
Keith
Hi Keith,
Normally it struggles to do upsampling to DSD128 already but this was a few versions ago. It may depend largely on what’s happening at the same time, other DSP, Roon indexing, etc. DSD64 was ok on all our tests. Whether you get a benefit in doing so is another question… It will depend largely if your DAC handles better DSD or PCM. We’ve had quite a few cases where upsampling to 24/352.8 was yielding better results than DSD. YMMV of course.
Nuno
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Thx Nuno,
Yes you are right
My experience is, when I convert PCM to DSD 128, Zenith II is working well with processing speed >1.5
Personally, I prefer PCM upscaling to 352.8 for files with lower resolution than DSD
For some DSD 64 files, Zenith II will struggle during upsampling to dsd128, esp on files with higher recording range.
according to my limited understanding, will the upsampling performance improve when Roon is running in Multi Threads instead of single thread approach??
Keith
As a new Roon user this has taken my interest as I would like to get my lap top out if the music chain. I have a Melco N1A at present so this could be an ideal replacement . What’s the difference between the mk2 and the SE editions?
Hi Nuno,
A quick question: I am running Roon core on NAS (Sinology server), which I use all around the house. I have just got Zenith SE as my dedicated listening room player. What is the best set-up here? Is there an advantage of moving my library to the SE internal storage? If yes, what is the best way to set-up Roon on it: as a core or as a player? Is there any easy way to maintain synch between my NAS library and Zenith library?
Looking forward to hearing your words of wisdom
Regards
Alexander
Hi Alexander,
Sorry for the late response, busy times here at Innuos HQ…
Our customers have consistently reported the using the SE as Roon Core connecting directly to USB will yield better sound quality. If your music library won’t fit in the 2TB SSD then at the moment you can only sync using external tools running on a computer. Some users just place their favourite music on the SE while leaving everything else on the nas, meaning you would configure Roon on the SE to read those files from the NAS.
Hope this helps.
Nuno
Hello, determines the sound quality not the downstream device (DAC vs Streamer) there should be no difference whether USB or LAN ?? Or I think wrong
friendly greeting
Detlef
Anything special that Innuos does that Nucleus cannot do?
If you want to do upsampling in Roon you might want to look at the sonicTransporter i7. It has a full quad core i7 Kabylake 7700 processor. It can do DSD512 upsampling using 30% CPU load and can also run HQPlayer for even more upsampling options.