No balanced cable just yet, although I have been eyeing up an OIDIO Sound cable. Any other recommendations greatly received! (Am in the UK).
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Two Oidio balanced cableās in this house.
Very good recommendation from me and good customer service.
Iām not sure how to proceed, but thereās a lot of consternation among HQPlayer devotees about the inability of the ZEN Stream to support PCM sampling rates above 384 kHz. The highest frequency that can be represented at a sampling rate of 384 kHz is 192 kHz. Doubling the sampling rate to 768 kHz sounds impressive, but it gives us only one more octave, so, IMHO, itās not a big deal.
On the other hand, the ZEN Streamās active noise cancellation and other internal tech can make a pretty big difference to sound quality vs. other commonly used streaming devices. My argument is that this technology is way more important to sound quality than the ability to deliver a higher sampling rate to the downstream DAC.
In fact, higher sampling rates might even be detrimental in certain circumstances since they require twice as many CPU interrupts to stream the content, driving up the CPU load on the streamer.
TL;DR - if youāre happy with the sound quality you have now, none of this matters.
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All good. Thanks for expanding !
If their next flagship DAC features all this stuff, should be good.
Pro iDSDās ethernet input is quite limited in comparison.
Yeah. The Pro iDSD might have been better if iFi had not included an internal streamer. Unfortunate. The ZEN Stream is an excellent addition to the Pro iDSD or the NEO iDSD.
Hi All! I am new here! Itās been the 2nd week using the Zen stream. To be honest itās great bang for the buck as not everyone is comfortable with DIY Pi stuff. (I am one of those)!
I was in the market looking for a solution to stream music to my Qutest DAC so I donāt have to hook up to my computer which is a noisy electronic storm that affects the audio so much and unbearable for me.
Originally set my eye on SotM SMS Ultra Neo 200 a bit hesitate with the price as to get the best out of it I still need to pick up the linear power supply and the net isolator. So my dealer suggested why donāt I try the iFi Zen stream if I donāt like it just sell it! Itās a tad cheaper in Hong Kong too. The unit costed me HKD $2800 roughly USD$ 350.
Brought it home had it all setup and the first thing I noticed, itās way cleaner sounding with boost in SQ in every aspects! Cleaner highs, wider sound stage, better vocals and deeper bass. I am really happy with it at that price point. So I added the iPower Elite to it just to try it out (I happen to have one around) So again SQ improved again cleaner and more impactful & so musical.
Personally I am not a big fan of iFiās brand. This is my second ever product from them. So I am happy now for what I have but also curios what the SoTM would sound like comparing to the iFi lol.
Current set up. Roon ā Zen Stream ā Qutest DAC ā Violectric V550 amp ā Focal Clear MG
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Thanks Nicholas for sharing your experience and great to hear your positive story.
I see the iPower Elite is a fair size brick and itās always lucky to find a device like that just lying around the house 
.
Itās almost the same price as the Stream again, so would you say that was still good value for those that are looking for something even better?
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I tried it with the stock iPower that came with. I would say itās great sounding. All I meant was if you are the kind that wonāt settle for what you have and would push everything to get every bit out of your gear then thereās a way of doing it.
In fact I did other upgrades too. I am a cable believer but never believed a LAN cable would make a difference so again my dealer told me to try the Audioquest Cinnamon. Itās roughly USD$75. And boom! You have to listen to it to believe. Instantly you can tell itās better.
Also added a JCat Net isolator shortly after that and itās another great investment I didnāt notice before that will bring to the party!
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Nicholas thanks for that additional information
Funnily enough I have audioquest cinnamon USB and Ethernet cables, though the Ethernet cable is currently in my Roon Nuc Core as the start of my audio chain, so maybe I should consider using it for the Stream.
The cinnamon USB cable is currently sadly unused as I have moved to Ethernet for streaming purposes and my boxes of Piās with good cases and power supplies are sitting unused.
I will have a look at the JCat Net isolator but as a network administrator that normally sits outside my comfort zone (as did the audioquest Ethernet but that was a deal and a half)
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Yeah I totally get your feeling It just doesnāt sound right for these gadgets to actually work right?
No harm trying it out as you already have it around! But in most cases your gear has to reach a certain level to be capable to unveil another level of SQ difference! The AQ Cinnamon LAN cable use it on the last section from your switch or router to your streamer! That is where it matter the most!
For your USB cable? Why canāt you use it? You have a DAC streamer which does the rendering job as well? I am using Zen stream as ROON network bridge so itās a transport to send digital signal to my Chord Qutest. Btw I am using the AQ Diamond USB itās crazy expensive but itās also crazy good.
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I am all Ethernet streaming for now. Iām sure I will use it again at some point. For now though there are no USB cables longer that about 1 foot in use and the cinnamon is a 3m Cable (from memory) that used to run out of Pi to a DAC in my early dayās.
I will take your advice and move the Ethernet cable to the streamer and that makes total sense so thanks for that
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I ordered one about a month ago from MusicDirect and received it very quickly.
Unfortunately, my experience was less than stellar. My intent was to try replacing my existing Bluesound Node 2i (acting ONLY as a streamer, pass-thru to extenal DAC) with this device.
One goal was to utilize the USB output of the iFi to connect to my Brooklyn DAC+.
No go on that. NOTHING coming out of the USB at allā¦Brooklyn shows no lock, no signal.
Other problem MUCH worse, as for ANY audio at 24/192kHz or above would āstutterā and skip, like it couldnāt keep up. I tried both Wired and Wireless (802.11ac). Same result.
iFi werenāt any help. They wanted me to pay for shipping back to them to ārepairā the unit.
I just returned it to MusicDirect for a full refund. My Node2i actually works REALLY well, just not USB out.
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Thatās bad News and poor service, I have never heard a single stutter with mine and I have 3 USB Dac amps I have tried it with.
If it doesnāt work for you at least you got a refund and can look at something else or stick with what you already have.
Hopefully you will find something else that fits your needs better
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Yep, no hard feelings. I have several other iFi devices (Zen DAC) and a couple of their 5V and 12V āfilteredā power supplies. Frankly, I hope to see more vendors coming out with dedicated streamers only, as I am pretty picky about my DACās and want to choose what I want to stream to.
Frankly, Bluesound is hard to beat. Mostly because of their APP and ecosystem frankly. Works very well.
Now that Iāve moved to Roon though, that becomes less important for me.
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Yes I looked at a bluesound last year but held off with all the WiFi complaining I read about, but they seem to be getting better and better.
I have a ZenDac and all my Pis are run of the Zen 5v Power plugs as well and been happy with everything so far. But clearly not working for everyone and a number of people have also Had bricked unitās, so it is still clearly early days for this device
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I noticed a new update last night 2.29.2 this time installation worked first time
Only looks like a small update, but just in case anyone is interested
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Well Iām going to try again as I was offered a new one with a $20 discount via Audio46 who I bought my Final Audio iems from.
And I did figure out why my first one would not play correctly through Roon and the internal dac of my ML585 USB inputā¦
Itās limited to 24/192 and I still had Roon set to Upsampling of DSD 512 for everything 
.
Doh!!!
Iām expecting a better experience this time.
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Good luck Kevin, hopefully you will have more luck this time.
I was trying out Spotify connect and Tidal Connect yesterday and both also worked really well.
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Kevin someone shared this on Discord earlier.
Itās a very good comparison to the Bluesound Node and it comes out very well.
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My second one should be here Thursday.
Now if I can just refrain from " bricking" this one I should be ok!
And remember to disable my Roon Upsamplingā¦
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