Innuos Zenith MKIII as Roon Core

@Luca_Alebardi @Henry_McLeod - yes you are Right. I was only disappointed because of that so hard truth :smile:. Like i said to, it is doing it’s Job :wink:

@Rugby Right, Nothing else i said but now it is proved… and yes, there is a Login Need at Linux boot :grin:

So i will buy 2 ram’s of 4gb and 1 with 2gb tommorrow and see if that Linux on it supports it since the Mainboard does…

Aaaahhh…. i do not damage any seal because there was none at my mini

and they already cut my access to assetupnp settings :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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But indeed there is more… like a hidden HDMI port because the case is closed at that Location but it works since i saw the bios
And the headphone Output which is been marked as “only for Service” !?? will take a look when i assemble it back if i get some analog Sound out there :crazy_face: Maybe it gets recognized if i attach a jack to rca there or something like that.

Can’t wait to see your discoverings.
Cloning a bigger ssd sata hd should be feasible, I don’t know if you are planning to do so.

So you can’t see any ultra low noise linear regulators for the USB output?

And it is a commercially available motherboard, not custom, as per below?

@dabassgoesboomboom hhhmmm… i don’t know about the zenith… i was talking about my zenmini which i opened after Luca and Rugby made me curious :slight_smile:

@Luca_Alebardi no i am not - it does not worth the action in my opinion - more ram will be enough and biggest improvement since there is only 2gb right now…

No problem. Similar question for the Mini. No evidence of “custom audio treated components” ?

@dabassgoesboomboom - i did not see anything uncommon. It looks like the standard one you can buy.

added - But i don’t know if it is audio designed.

Now… i get only one 4gb ram because they had no more at the store. But i plugged it in and it was recognized at least in the bios. But i can not check anywhere to see if it gets used when the mini is running. It starts without gripe, thankfully he has done that and runs like before :slight_smile: roon on line and going. So i will order a second one and plug it in to then.

The thing with the headphone out i will try later at night when family fell asleep :wink:

Is there any way to see the ram of the server in roon ?


It does not work with jack to rca - maybe when i put a dac to rca - will check this out when i have time

It is this one:
http://www.mitacmct.com/IndustrialMotherboard%3DPD10BI%3DPD10BI%3Ddescription%3DEN

But keep in mind, it is about zenmini mkII - NOT mkIII or zenith or other one.
I guess with the new mkIII series they changed/solved that with that additional lpsu where there is also one achievable for the mkII. But the mainboard itself doesn’t seem to have any customization (maybe software side). In the Zen II - III or bigger, without lpsu, might be some customization because they have integrated power supply. But from Innuos i have only the mini mkII for now so i don’t know about the others.

What does a ‘custom audio treated component’ look like?

Ha, I dunno. I was hoping it would stand out like dogs b@lls when peaking inside, but apparently not…

If I owned one, I would be asking Innuous.

:laughing: maybe he was expecting similar like i did… like some anti jittering or denoising components placed like a hat to the Pi’s ? don’t no either how such components should look like.
But it has to be more about… It looks like the devices with integrated power circuit have some lpsu extra boards.
And i don’t even want to think about that the Statement looks as the mini inside :man_facepalming:

You can take a peak in this review:
http://www.the-ear.net/how-to/power-supply-design-innuos-statement

It seems, to me, that Innuos did the work on internal power supply and their customized OS. Which is fine. Customized anything can cost a lot of money.

That’s why i said i can not imagine… Of course that the Statement seem to be a very nice piece of music server hardware. I just was expected a very little bit of/like that at the mini to. That’s why i only described my feelings about the look inside … No offensing or bad talking ment against the innuos per se. And yes, no doubt that the innuos music server is a very good system. Never denied that.

But since the discussion evolved and a bit of curiosity came out about the “roon able” declared hardware. So the question why then there is no minimum required equipment and how it can be achieved is justified in my opinion. And i like that we can talk here about such things since it is our all hobby :slight_smile:

For sure…

Just thought I would add some insight to the issue of whether the internal hard drives in the InnuOS products can be exchanged for others. This is an issue that concerned me greatly because I already own a 4tb Samsung EVO SSD which I paid close to $700 for and I very much wanted to use it internally in the InnuOS ZENith MK3 product i was considering buying. I wrote InnuOS support about this issue and I received the following reply:

The main operating system of the server plus the extra required software is stored on the main storage drive, so we would need to put an additional storage drive in the server just for the OS to allow interchangeable main drives. This would push the price up quite a bit, plus in the case of models like the ZENith we manually apply a lot of EMI treatment to the drive and fix them in floating isolated brackets to eliminate vibration. These are performance steps that would likely have to be neglected to allow user-interchangeable drives.

We also write bespoke firmware and controllers to the specific storage drives that we use, so that we can control their read/write behaviour, keeping it as quiet and minimal as possible for both performance and lifespan reasons. Some brands have found out the hard way what happens to product longevity if you use generic drivers that result in the HDD spinning constantly!

I hope this information is helpful.

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I have been interested in InnuOS because I like the concept of one box. I would be upgrading from the Naim Uniti Core which is a similar one box solution but with fewer features. It contains a very good quality ripper, allows the user’s choice of hard drive, and acts as network server. It is however NOT a Roon endpoint, nor is it capable of accessing the Internet to listen to radio, nor can it subscribe to any music services and those inadequacies are my reason for wanting to move on. OTOH, it has a deservedly good reputation for the quality of its ripper and for excellent SQ. I don’t want to abandon it without solid assurance of equivalent convenience and SQ,

I was a bit confused by the conversations about InnuOS being incapable of being both an endpoint and running Core. Can someone explain that to me? And how it impacts SQ?

Also, no one has commented on the quality of the InnuOS ripper.

Also, my DAC is the Berkeley Audio DAC Reference Series 2 and it does not do DSD. Hopefully this isn’t too dumb a question, but I’m still learning: To convert DSD to PCM - is that when DSP comes into play? Which means the InnuOS Pentium mb might be underpowered for managing this?

I have the Zenith MKII and ripped around 1.500 CDs with it (that capability was one of reasons why I purchased it, besides its moderate price compared to other servers). It worked perfectly, never had any issue with the ripper. I use the Zenith as a Roon core, which does it’s own meta-thing, but also the Innuos meta matching seems very solid and reliable. Btw., you can choose two ripping speeds - fast and slow. Slow is just for reducing noise while ripping, it does not deliver better quality.

And yes, converting DSD to PCM is done via Roon DSP. The Innuos processor is strong enough to do that and it works very well. But if you e.g. do convolution filtering on top of that it might struggle and won’t work. If you want to have all DSP functions available at the same time you need a Nucleus+ or similar powerful core.

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I would say a lot of bullshits.
Custom firmware and controllers for specific hard drives?
All that genius effort for selling a few streamers?
Come on…
In anyway, cloning to a bigger or a different disk is straightforward, and if it should not work, you can always put back the old one.

Hi Guys, I am currently living in the US but I will move to Europe in 2 years time. Most of the equipment I have is 110 v but it is easily configured for 220 v. Do you know if this is feasible with a Zen/Zenith? Tks Jorge

Roon typically recommends to install the Core DB on a 64/128Gig SSD, and according to the email from @Echolane Innuos runs everything on the same storage drive which might be the reason for some of the issues described on this thread.

Has anybody tired this with the SonicTransporter AP i7?

I’m also interested in getting one box to do both roon core and cd ripping and looking at these or as an alternatively the Naim Unity Star (which unfortunately is not a roon core) as potential options.

BTW, according to Naim support side they have a firmware update to make the Naim Unity Core “roon ready”.