Innuos Zen Mini MkII as Roon Core?

Audio Gear Talk Innuos
1

Is anyone using the Innuos Zen Mini MkII Std as a Roon Core, does it work?

If I paired this with some KEF LS50 wireless it could tick a lot of boxes for around £2699.
And its a really simple setup.

E.g.

The Zen Mini

  • Roon core without always-on PC
  • Roon player
  • CD Ripper
  • NAS

KEF LS50 Wireless

  • Reasonable in-built DAC (in the KEF)
  • Lovely sound quality
  • USB input from Zen
  • Standalone Roon player (probably not needed)

Also considering a higher-end pairing of the Naim Star and KEF LS50 (non wireless), for a total of £4,300.

2

Hi,

I use a Zenith with Roon Core and it sounds amazing, and as far as I’m aware the Mini will also run Roon Core. The Innuos servers are beautifuly simple and a switch on and forget solution.

Innuos actually use the LS50 wireless with their servers at shows which tells you something.

And if you have any issues, Nuno for Innuos will be straight on the phone from Portugal to assist or dial in to your server direct. The best service I’ve ever expierneced from an audio company without doubt!

I can’t recomend Innuos enough!

Paul

3

Hi Paul

Thanks for the feedback. The Zenith is lovely, if I could budget £5K it would be a great combo with the KEF.

My only concern about the Mini so far is that it’s a HDD rather than SDD. But then again our music collection might be 100-300 albums, so not huge.

Thanks

Tobin

4

Hi Tobin,

I don’t think the HDD is an issue. I ran Roon on an iMac with HDD until recently and it worked great.

I suggest you find a dealer that sells Innuos and KEF, and go have a listen. I’m sure you won’t be disappointed!

Regards

Paul

5

Thanks Paul, that’s good to know!

I’ll contact a local dealer.

T

6

Hi Tobin,

I presume you’re in the UK?

If you don’t mind me asking, whereabouts?

7

I’m in Leeds, West Yorkshire, Paul.

8

I was really tempted by this but was too concerned about the spinning disk going forward. It seemed to be the big thing Roon advised against. So I opted for a nuc running rock. Do love these inuous servers, but if you’re running Ethernet to the kefs would it sound any better than a cheaper, more powerful nuc? You would get a cd ripper built in I guess…

1 Like
9

Thanks max

Hmm, worth a look. Like the CD burner and usb audio out on Innuos. Disk is a downside, and price is more than nuc. Food for thought…

10

https://kb.roonlabs.com/Roon_Optimized_Core_Kit

ripped all cd’s with macbook pro 2008 /iTunes and dbPoweramp, Connect the NUC to https://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Backup-Portable-External-Drive/dp/B01LZTK3E9/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1510148521&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=seagate+backup+plus&psc=1 Returned the Innuos, which i ordered because it was highly recommended by Computeraudiophile…

Roon&NUC is running now for half a year without one problem. #awesome

Endpoint: bluesound node

1 Like
11

Hey Paul: where do you place the Roon backups with your ZENith as Core?

I tried to place them on its SSD storage, but I could not find it in Roon

Thanks

12

Hi thyname,

I back up the Roon Database to Dropbox. It works well and had no issues.

Hope that helps.

13

I do that too. I was looking for an additional, redundant alternative or two. Redundancy never hurts is this stuff, better safe than sorry.

Also, Dropbox is pretty slow for backups, and especially for new Core retrieving. When I switched the Core to Innuos last night, it took me a good four (wasted) hours to restore my database backup from Dropbox

14

I agree you can never be too careful.

My music collection is backed up on to a NAS via the Innuos software which also includes the database. And just for good measure, two external hard drives.

15

I am using a Zen Mini II 2TB as my Roon Core, and also want to backup Roon, preferably without using Dropbox (for the reasons discussed above).

In a parallel thread with users of the ZENith, BigAlMc said you can use a USB disc connected to the Zen as a backup disc.
If this disc is up and running:

‘Now if you login to Roon and navigate to Backups when you select location it should see the USB as “Zenith backup drive” or something like that. Cheers,
Alan’

I have tried this on my Zen Mini, and Roon doesn’t see it. Another user said the Zen Backup disc has to be configured for Automatic Backup - I have tried this as well, and still Roon does not see it.
.
Any ideas?
Bry

16

That’s very interesting Bryan. I’m facing exactly the same issues at present with Roon Backups.

Did you ever get an answer / resolution of this problem?

Thanks.

Dave