I believe it’s DAC dependent, I have the same type of cables in USB and Coax, USB on the SZ and coax on the CD transport. The coax in general sounds slightly softer, not as resolving as the USB input. I think this is because USB implementation gets more attention on DACs these days than the Coax (ie: Schiit unison USB), although if the USB connection is not great, as is the case with DACs like the Rega dac, the coax is a better option.
I suppose I could A/B usb vs coax on the SZ to get to the bottom of it.
One of the benefits of the Stream is that there is noise suppression on both the USB and SPDIF so both should be pretty quiet noise wise and better than USB off a Pi or similar.
Just been testing mine in my Schiit Bifrost 2 and it’s close, but the USB is just slightly better. Guess it depends on the DAC and how they handle USB.
I know a lot of you are fans of this unit so far but future owners take into consideration that there is NO customer or technical service/support from this company if you have issues. They are poorly run.
I’ve had three separate tickets submitted to them and nothing happens, they have ignored my last one about this new unit. Have heard nothing from them. There is a forum on Audiocircle for iFi and the moderator that works for them is barely on there and people have complained.
Aaron we are aware that there have been complaints about faulty unit’s, bad power supplies and also some units bricking themselves after firmware updates. The recent firmware update also broke some stream services as well, so while Roon works really well, non Roon users have reasons to be unhappy.
This thread is for potential owners, happy owners and aggrieved owner’s to talk about the products, service both the good and the bad.
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AceRimmer
(Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!)
609
In my setup I just preferred spdif to USB going into the onboard DAC of my ML585.
Ymmv, let your ears be the judge.
I had both hooked up and active so was very quick and easy to swap between them for instant comparison.
Not questioning your experience, but mine couldn’t be further from what you’ve described. When I opened a ticket Shawn was quite helpful, even answered questions on the weekend.
Looks like I have an opportunity to try out the sbooster 15v from a dealer on a 7 day full refund policy. Quite tempted to see what the ZS does with a premium linear psu, because so far the switching power supply “upgrades” have been disappointing.
Anyone try the ZS with a sbooster before? Sorry if I missed a previous post.
Did you do the comparison of Zen Stream vs the Allo USB Bridge Signature Player.
Could you let me know if you found any substantial improvement / difference.
I’m using the Allo Usb-bridge Signature Player with Allo Shanti. It has Ropieee XL. I also have done the dynobot tweak to prioritise audio. Plus I have it grounded to the Shanti as well. Oh and I don’t have the optional Digione Signature board as I am using a pure USB DAC.
Btw - miss you over at FB. Glad to bump into you over here. Hope everything is good.
I’m using the Zen Stream with a HD-Plex linear PSU at 15V and it sounds remarkable. The HD Plex output is adjustable. 12v sounded really good, and 15v added some warmth and even better reproduction of space.
Shawn just plug in Ethernet and the update the firmware (if required).
Roon will automatically find the Zen, you just need to go to Settings->Audio and enable Roon.
Once that is working you can add the IP address to Roon and try that as well.
Though for HQP it depends if you already have it running or not, but if you do that should be enough.
If you don’t then you need to look at some other thread’s like this one.
I have it working, unfortunately in my setup the performance suffers enough that its better just plugging my iMac into my Gustard X16 and using my iMac as a source. Looks like this will be going back to Amazon.