Man, I’m starting to think that I should buy one of these just for the “fiddle factor” alone. Those long Welsh winter nights must just fly by…
I’m not being completely facetious, there’s a lot of love for a device that appears to be “awkward” and I’m interested 
Oh I’m totally obsessed with this device! All the intellectual debates aside, this thing is brilliant in terms of performance, and in it’s current iteration it’s incredibly easy to use (once it’s set up). If you buy one, I hope you’ll confer with one of us on here, because we’ll help you get it setup with a minimum of hassle—I think most of us have it down through muscle memory at this point! 
Largely uneventful and altogether successful setup and install last night of my ifi zen stream. Connected to FIOS via the ethernet cable provided. Proceeded smoothly until the “enter ifi dot local” stage when I couldn’t connect. Switched to the app on my phone and completed the setup.
Moved the unit to the opposite side of the room where my listening equipment is and connected via FIOS/Orbi mesh. Initially I plugged a Dragonfly black into ZS and connected directly to the Saga preamp by mini-jack to RCA cable so that I could decode MQA. By this morning I’d decided to connect ZS to the Modi Multibit (and Loki tone control). Overall gain was immediately better (discovered that I liked the room adjustments I put in the DSP last night). And I really like listening through the Modi. At some point I’ll need to decide if MQA is worth the extra money to Tidal for headphone use at my desk, etc.
Thanks for the help and support, and to all the early adopters who shared their struggles far above in this thread. I’ve learned a lot and am sure I avoided some obvious errors I’d likely have made.
I’m going to enjoy a lot of listening today, but it’s beautiful outside and later on I need to put some stuff together for dinner, so I can’t let myself get completely lost down here.
Thanks Steven this is interesting to know. Now that I am in Roon only mode I am missing all this fun learning
Funny thing is I have not tweaked a setting on months, everyone else is taking care of this for me now
I feel like I am in training for retirement !!
Stephen great news and hopefully we get some future contributions from you 
Oh man. So much debate on this device. I am surprised Spdif is being preferred on Roon Exclusive mode by many here. I will not try it and report back VS USB.
Update: OK so just compared…I did notice that MQA content in Tidal exclusive mode was detected as HiRes on my DAC…maybe ZS is unfolding the MQA stream before feeding it to DAC over Spdif. USB works fine with MQA.
In terms of SQ, for me in my $10K+ system (ZS-VMV D1SE-Topping Pre90-NAD C298-KEF R7s), I liked USB more. Spdif has sharper edges with beefy lows and lesser sound stage…typical of a relatively jittery output…I notice the same with my very jittery Chromecast Audio Optical to the same DAC.
I prefer USB, but the difference between the two narrows dramatically under Roon exclusive mode. I could hear a bigger difference in AIO mode. As an tinkerer it’s important that I try the different options available in multiple ways 
I use this only in my headphone rig in my office so I tend to notice more from it for that reason. I have two headphone DAC Amps and one happens to have a SPDIF input and it would be rude not to utilise that in testing I feel.
Hello, I am new to the forum and do not have a roon yet. However I found this Ifi Zen Stream topic very interesting.
I have just ordered Ifi Zen Stream and it should arrive today. I wonder if anyone has used it with the M2tech Young Mk1. That is the DAC I have at this moment.
I am streaming from the Allo Digione Sig, so I am very keen to see what (if any) the difference will be in the SQ.
Hi @Tomasz_Ryniecki and welcome to the Roon forum. I’m also an Allo Digione Sig owner and am fighting the itch to buy a Zen Stream unit. I wouldn’t expect there to be a difference in sound quality but I’m curious as to your impressions so do let us know.
Hi Thomasz and welcome to the thread, not sure anyone has used this DAC yet (or I do not remember it being mentioned at least), so you might be the first. The Allo Digione sig is already a very good streamer and that is often compared to the Stream.
Are you only looking to use Roon or also Tidal Connect or any of the other services.
I also look forward to getting an update from you once you have it all running.
Remember there are a number of custom modes like Roon Only, HQP NAA only and you might want to play with these and maybe SPDIF & USB to see what works best for you.
There are also many messages here on what power supply works the best, so I am sure people will be interested in what you have gone with, if changed from the out of the box.
Thanks @killdozer @Michael_Harris I am going to have the Stream with 30 days return policy, so it will be tested beside the Digione Sig and decision made, either return the Stream or sell the Digi.
My biggest worries are about the Stream software based on the Volumio. I love the Allo/RPI system for its flexibility. I have tried the Volumio many times and always was coming back to the MoOde.
Currently I am using Spotify and NAS source music for high quality.
My DAC has both SPDIF and USB, so all will be played :).
I am going to update you once checked.
A friend shared this comparison… clearly preferring Coax over USB. I have been using USB but now will need to test the Roon exclusive mode again with Coax.
Just had a quick read thanks, I use both USB & SPDIF but disagree that the USB output is bad (at lease into my systems).
But it is an interesting read, and if what he has to compare too is much more expensive then so be it, and it is difficult to argue with.
In the end he kept it and gave it a great value, which is really what we have been saying here for the last year.
Agreed. I did have the Node 2021 and ZS in the house to compare and on USB…there was no comparison…this was last year.
As for Spdif sounding better…I have to test but I think if the clock sits with the the ZS in case of Spdif (instead of the DAC) and that Spdif is managed by the Roon Ready piece of SW in the ZS…it may be the reason why Spdif might be sounding better to people. I did read somewhere that Roon ready SW manages signal clock somehow in their Roon Ready devices.
It is not entirely clear what kind of power was supplied to Zen. And this is a very important aspect!
I have personally tried with Topping P50 LPS and iPower 15V SMPS and I preferred the iPower…it also has the lower noise per specs…
Is it my system or don’t I get full MQA studio decode with Roon via Coax? That’s a bummer…still testing the SQ and Coax sounds pretty good actually…better than USB…I’ll need to test more
Update: I have now compared the USB and Spdif via an AQ Forest Coax cable to my VMV D1SE. I am having this challenge…on MQA standard (Green) I am getting HiRes 88.2K resampled signal to the DAC with Roon dedicated and Spdif but am getting the correct 44.1Khz signal with MQA authentication from DAC when using USB. Does this have a bearing technically? Can’t ZS pass through MQA via Coax?
USB Signal:
Coax Signal:
I have power from iFi Elite (12V) and it is not comparable (two big differences) with the power supply that is in the box.
Roon Core couldn’t find ZS this morning which may be attributable to various things getting connected, disconnected and reconnected at some point. Initially failed to reconnect using the app, which concerned me. I recalled that I was using it in Roon Exclusive mode and when I switched to AIO and it picked up the wifi connection just fine.
My SPDIF DAC doesn’t do MQA so I can’t test that sorry. Anyone else tried this?
