Well all is just dandy.
I think I was playing music via Roon in oh 2 minutes…lol.
Set to 24/192 which is max my dac can handle and it sounds pretty darn good for under $400!.
I actually prefer spdif to USB for sq.
Both are only cheap basic cables so it’s not the cabling causing any perceived difference.
Much happier this time around 
Great news indeed.
So I guess you are running Ethernet to the Stream. Then SPDIF out from there.
What DAC are you using? I’m running USB into the Zen Dac, but I actually got my iFi K5 pro out this morning funnily enough to test the SPDIF out to that
It’s the onboard dac in the Mark Levinson ml5805 integrated amplifier.
I do not have a separate dac right now.
That’s why it’s just 24/192 and no dsd.
But it was easiest place to test it out.
And yes Ethernet in and have both the spdif and USB hooked up to the ml for very quick comparison.
Have to decide what to do with it next.
It’s really for a second system where I am using a CCA puck right now. But the dac in that amp is also just 24/192 so a fair test here.
I might buy a cheap Topping dac that ups the ante to 768 and dsd512 just for a test.
Like $200 on eBay right now for a lightly used example.
I did bid on a couple of Denafrips Ares II on eBay (and lost) as I thought that would work well.
So why not just keep it on the integrated, or do you need DSD upscaling?
Nope, I dont think anyone truly needs DSD upscaling, more a nice to have to exploit the Zen Streams full potential?
Now whether I can actually hear a difference is another matter…lol
And your thoughts on the spdif vs USB?
Not plugged in the SPDIF coaxial cable yet, though they will go to a different DAC headphone amp so I’m not sure it will be a fair comparison.
On meetings all day and my headphones come out of that so it would break things a bit. I will test tomorrow
The more I listen to this little Zen Stream the more I think I have not given the dac in the Levinson a fair trial previously.
After all the amp did have a retail of $12k so I guess it really should have a decent dac in it…
.
There is some real depth and muscle to the bass and mid bass here.
A very nice detailed open attack at the upper registers to boot.
I’m becoming quite impressed!
Cool and good to hear that
Hopefully it continues to work as well for you
When Chromecast arrives it will be almost perfect
Glad to hear you are getting on well with the ZEN Stream in your system. Unfortunately, it seems to be limited to 32-bit, 384 kHz PCM. For DSD, the limit is DSD256 for native or DSD128 for DoP.
My theory for the reason behind these limitations is the nearly three year old kernel that iFi has chosen for the Stream: Linux 4.4.167. I’ve been bugging them about this, but no word back so far.
Practically speaking, this is not a huge deal. It sounds great with every DAC I’ve paired it with. Gustard X16 worked better over S/PDIF than USB, but most DACs are excellent with either. Enjoy!
Some good information there David so thanks for that.
It will be interesting to see if they end up updating that or if there is any reason the are sticking with it.
Just a question…
How do you think is best to turn the Stream off?
As it gets pretty hot I wanted to shut down while not in use like overnight.
It only takes a minute or less to start back up.
Last night I shut it down via the software shutdown function.
Thoughts on this?
Hmm
Does not really seem any point in even thinking about a different dac right now then.
Especially as it appears that the ML5805 internal dac is pretty sweet!
Just hold the power button on for a couple of seconds and it shuts off.
Nice thing is it turns off the Zen DAC as well, which I quite like, for my office as I only need it on while I am working there.
BTW I tried the SPDIF out which I forgot was a different output for Roon (so lost some time there). Going to the FIIO K5 Pro it works just as sweetly but only plays 24/192 over SPDIF and no MQA (limited to USB).
Sounds great and I have just popped over to Nugs.net and bought a White Stripes Live at the Troubadour in 24/192. Not because I wanted it, but I needed it to help someone out 
I will be trying that this evening to test back and forth.
Sounds good.
As my dac is 24/192 only and I don’t have Tidal I think I will be sticking with the spdif for now.
Makes sense and it sounds great at that level to be fair.
I think I would be happy with that for now, but as I have both I will switch between them
One thing I did find that surprised me was that both the spdif and the usb outputs are both active at the same time.
It shows up under Roon audio devices as two seperate endpoints so I just enabled both and made it easy to do instant comparisons on the fly.
Yes me two, that confused me this morning in Roon as it did not work for a while, until I remembered to enable the output in Roon.
I had forgotten what a nice device the Fiio K5 pro was and was going to sell it, now it is plugged into the Stream via SPDIF and into my PC via USB for easy switching.
I think it is going to stay now with me in the house now
Can anyone point me in the right direction? I’ve got the Zen Stream and had the Android app on my old phone. I’ve swapped phones and searched the Play Store with various combinations of words but can’t track it down. Any tips? TIA
Hi Stephen and welcome to the thread, there is no app.
All settings are through the web page.
From memory it is ifi.local or you can get the IP from Roon.
Make sure you check for the latest updates.
What are you trying to do with the app?