Yes, my core is connected directly to my FIOS router. It’s a late 2013 vintage Quad Core Intel iMac. Runs macOS Catalina because that’s as far as it goes. roon version 1.8 b936
The ZS will be too far from the FIOS router to connect conveniently by Ethernet but we use a homewide Orbi mesh System which is solid and pretty fast. No problem connecting for the initial set up, though.
Thanks again. You’ll no doubt be hearing more from me when I actually receive the thing.
You’ll have an easier time configuring the ZEN Stream with your Wi-Fi settings if you have it on a wired Ethernet connection for your first power-up. Any firmware updates will be more reliable as well. Once it’s up-to-date and connected to your Wi-Fi, you can shut it down and move it to your main system.
Thank you for the information Michael. Much appreciated !! I was deciding between a subscription for ROON vs. using Volumio. Roon actually does more than I need or expect, but the community has helped me to get up and running with 2 different DACs, a Raspberry Pi remote box. The MQA works perfectly for me. I can tell you as one who has been using MQA for a few years… I have had 4 MQA Dacs and I do purchase MQA Cds as well ( and TIDAL-MQA)…I do not care what that nay-sayers graphs show, I honestly hear no only a difference, but a positive one…It sounds BETTER period. I have 3 systems that have sources and speakers which would definitely reveal positives and negatives.
Kind regards,
Mike S
@Michael_Harris as the expert on this device (and due some recognition by iFi in some way), I was wondering what your take on switching over to Roon only instead of AIO was.
I know that is how you are running it, did it give a noticable improvement? Is it a question of just shut down, switch the position and reboot?
Bevan I’m no expert here, just an early user that got on this train early
I have to say I am planning on staying on Roon only mode for the future.
The biggest improvement was in using SPDIF, where it literally was night and day at 24/192 playback. I had thought that the Stream maxed out at 24/96 on SPDIF because of all the micro breakups in the listening made it impossible to listen too. In Roon only mode it is perfect.
USB has very minor improvement, but it was already very good there to begin with.
Not sure what the memory and processor saving is in Roon only mode, but in the early days I saw no improvement, But that might suggest that the Volumio software may have grown larger and has a bigger memory footprint as it has improved since it’s initial release.
Yes just power off, move the dial and turn back on. Just remember that it defaults to SPDIF when it powers back up and you need to go to Settings ->Audio and click on device info to change it back to USB mode.
Let us know if you hear a difference
Smoother was the word I used to describe it originally, though very hard to quantify.
I need to get back to testing HQPlayer at some point, but similarly that has a dedicated mode which I never tested originally.
I confirm for the hqplayer mode (which can even be improved).
The version of the player remains that of the Debian Jessie (3.6 vs 4.20 current) and for HQPlayer, it is still frustrating to be limited to dop 128 and DSD 256.
Awaiting the afternoon UPS truck which promises the arrival of my Zen Stream. Hoping for an uneventful Ethernet-based setup, and then WiFi connection into my basement setup.
Good luck Stephen, some people have had anything but uneventful setups, but most seem do.
If you can get it set up over Ethernet and get the latest update installed you should hopefully be off to a good start.
New Roon global version today—943. Says it addresses issues with Tidal authentication refreshes, hoping it addresses issues I’ve had with the library update freezing when I add new albums from Tidal.
Note: I did factory reset my ZS and was able to update the bridge to version 943, before updating the firmware to Roon Ready again. Whether this makes a difference I cannot say. It seemed to be working fine with just the system update before I did this.
Thanks. As mentioned above, I am also testing Roon Exclusive mode vs AIO (and for fun comparing the results to my Chromecast Audio optical via Roon as well - connected via my Topping P50 LPS for clean power…btw I found the 15V iPower to sound better with ZS vs the P50 LPSU). My challenge is that I need to listen via Tidal as well since it’s playlists are great for discovering music and frankly Roon’s integration of Tidal could use much work. I know you found a difference between the modes (much like myself) but wondering where the rest of the community is on the difference between AIO and Roon exclusive mode.
From what I read, people find minor improvements to USB over Spdif when using in Roon exclusive mode.
As for running it via WiFi, I have 2 ZSs and I run one via Ethernet and another via WiFi…with 384K/ DSD256 upsampling, no issues to report.
Has anyone else disabled all the services via ZS system dialogue except Roon and Tidal and ran it in AIO? Does it equate the same as running the ZS in exclusive modes? Does disabling those unnecessary services lime DLNA etc equate to having the same processing as the exclusive mode, a man can wonder…
I would not recommend using it in AIO mode with Roon. AIO mode inactivates much of the Roon Ready functionality; the Roon Exclusive mode is reported by myriad users to be the most stable and allows Roon to recognize the end point properly.
As far as USB vs S/PDIF, USB will always outperform coax given that it’s asynchronous (allowing the DAC clock to act as master), and offers exponentially higher bandwidth to support higher sampling rates. Jitter is far less a concern with USB over S/PDIF—the latter protocol’s days are likely numbered as far as hi res digital audio is concerned.
In terms of the wall wart voltage, the ZS’s power supply has a variable voltage regulator and adjusts for a range of incoming voltages. The iPower X may offer more clean power for devices that have an analog stage, but the ZS exists purely in the digital milieu and analog issues such as noise don’t exist. All it’s doing is feeding the DAC a stream of ones and zeros, and in the unlikely event of errors, what you’d hear would be glitches, pops or drop outs as the DAC struggles to decode gibberish. I’d find another usage for your iPower X if you have one: the only power the ZS needs is the AC current required for it to function.
I’m not sure what you mean—the device exists solely in the digital domain. It’s just transporting ones and zeros to a DAC—all pure streamers that perform this function produce the same information (in other words they all “sound” exactly the same)…