Good statement but even reviewers say this is a great device completely missing or not reporting problems for advertising revenue. If I hadn’t read a reviewer on here I would have bought and discovered my new dac wasn’t supported and made popings sounds whenever DSD is played (I have hundreds of rips.)
Until most places support try before you buy even then…you need to be so thorough testing. bought a bunch of stuff in last couple of years and not much works as promised. Wish we in Canada had laws like in UK where companies are held to their promises or fined.
Hopefully this gets sorted for all of you in the meantime glad I have a good LPS and P4 with Ropieee loaded
I agree with this, but not sure it even works that well in the UK.
It’s difficult to know what works with what, though everything should work together.
I have been lucky and I have used mine with 3 devices with no issues one of which is the Zen DAC and that works lovely together to deliver DSD256 through Roon or HQPlayer.
Try before you buy with a small restock fee should be the way forward, it makes so much sense in the audiophile market.
i think the Majors i.e. Stereophile, What HiFi are holding off on reviewing the Zen Stream knowing of the problems that users are encountering. they have to walk a tight line between their advertisers and objectivity, sometimes it’s better to wait for a product to mature or just take a pass. could also be that IFI have not submitted a review sample as well. i generally read reviews to guide me towards products. my ears have the last word. too bad the Zen Stream was such a tease
I’ve given up. I’m going to contact my retailer and send my second unit back. I finally got a owes on at iFi to get back to me and they said it’s another bad unit.
It might work for Roon but that also means I can never resell it! A person wouldn’t be able to use airplay or Spotify and wouldn’t want it.
Reviewers play safe, is a business like others, and they live from the reviews if they say bad things about a product that can have the repercussion of never receiving products from that brand to review it anymore. Or even buy the one they like at a small price or even as a sponsor of their magazines.
So when products are problematic some brands take on users for posting good feedback.
I have send a ticket to IFi one month ago about the zen stream problems and no reply, even a single word would be a signal of respect, but nothing came from them, its bad, really bad.
I like the product with roon, some crashes from time to time but a power off normally resolve the issue, but is in roon exclusive use.
This is strange as IFi normally responds to support but this time is pure silence. It’s not the fist time they over promise what they do not archive. But their hardware is good this Zén stream is having a very bad start unfortunately.
I already past the return date so I am stuck with it and is playing great music, and I am hopping they correct the bugs and give the roon ready that they promised, because if not is a very disappointing attitude of a brand that I really enjoy and made my return to 2 channel audio after a 10 year absence.
this was my first foray into the world of streaming, and i was initially blown away by the Zen’s SQ and i still am. but i will die soon and at this point in life the less hassles the better. so i sent my second unit back for a refund. i would love to wait and purchase it again once they get all the niggles out. but for now i will probably have to spend 5X and get the Lumin which has been out for a year or two now to = the ZS? i really liked the ZS but life is short for me anyway.
I picked up a 15v ifi elite power supply to try out with the Zen Stream. I wanted to test it again the stock ifi 9v switching supply it came with and a cheap Chinese LPS (w/Ghent dc cable) to see how much of an impact on SQ the power supply would have to the streamer.
Unfortunately for my wallet I’m having a hard time sending the elite back now that I’ve heard it with the zen stream. Not sure I can go back now. It brought noticeable improvements in the clarity to the low end along with all the usual buzz words like “air” and separation to instruments. That along with brining the perceived noise much lower in my system. I’m using the Zen in dnla (mode 5) primarily with Audirvana. This to my ears brings out the best in my system. I went with the 15v ipower elite and the LPS is at 13.5v. To rank them (and they all sound good) 1. Elite, 2. LPS, 3. stock ipower 9v smps.
Like many here have mentioned I’ve had some issues with the software forcing multiple factory resets along the way. I “think” I’ve figured out most of the shortcomings at this point and am starting to feel more comfortable with the reliability of the streamer. My hope is they put some work into the software for future releases and do not abandon ship. My previous streamer was a Lumin mini with external Farad LPS. I prefer the SQ of the Zen to the Lumin even with it’s stock 9v smps.
to clarify where you comparing the Lumin Mini U1 to the Zen Stream? i believe that the Lumin uses a internal SW psu? i was thinking about the Lumin. what model LPS did you use? the Lumin can also be modified to accept a outboard LPS
I found a reasonably priced sbooster 15v and the improvements are very much like the ones you’ve described. Interesting that you mentioned that the lumin mini is not up to the same sq, others have claimed that the SZ is not in the same league.
Rudy,
Yes, my previous streamer was the Lumin Mini U1. I modified the internal smps power supply to an external Farad Super3 lps. Although changing the power supply did help improve things sonically, I just didn’t like the “house sound” of the Lumin MIni with my Rogue Cronus Magnum tube amp. I have a tube dac and tube sound expander as well. To my ears it was a bit soft and or on the warm side with my setup. The Zen Stream hits the details in a way the compliments my other components.
well i spoke with TREO and i agreed to just have them send me a new Zen Stream since i miss my music and i did not want to hassle with the refund. they proposed to test it for 24hrs. with my 12v. power supply continuous prior to shipping to see if it will stay on. i will say that the ZS is very neutral and compliments my Rega electronics. interesting that the Zen Stream was competitive with a highly modded Lumin Mini which cost over 5X the price of the ZS
I found the sbooster made things sound a bit softer compared to the supplied 15v wall wart, but it did not tip the scales and create an unwelcome sound in my system. Things just sounded more relaxed/open, spacious. The 15v wall wart did not lack any detail compared to the sbooster but just had some bite/forwardness to it that I suspect smothered the sense of air that the better psu was able extract.
When factoring in the sbooster, at around $1000 Canadian, it does seem like there’s a lot of value there, I haven’t compared similarly priced options but I’m not tempted to ether, which is feeling that I don’t get too often lol.
I have four streamers, Naim, Sotm, Bluesound and IFi, the first tree are solid as a rock no matter what I do and never had a crash in none of them, and that’s the behavior I expect from any product.
I still have issues of IFi despairing from the network or simple crashing, now my confidence on the product is fading slowly. I have my IFi on position 2 for roon, is anyone having similar issues like me.
Ricardo never an issue with Roon, even those complaining here about the other protocols generally accept that it is very reliable for Roon.
Did you get a proper iFi 15v power supply, as there have been quite a few bad power supplies that seem to have caused issues and crashing. There have also been some dud units shipped as well, but most issues have been with power supplies
Also are you playing music on WiFi or Ethernet, as I have only used mine on Ethernet.
Mine came with the 15w in the box, now I have a 12v IFi ipower elite connected to it.
I will see if there is a more recent update later from IFi, I updated the it with roon on the about page of roon, the latest version is 1.8 version 814 of IFi roon bridge on the IFi I think is the latest.
All streamers are connected by ethernet. I do not even attach the antenas on them.
I have a solid network but cable is always better.
i am bating 2 for 2 but i can only get an exchange and not a refund. i was hoping that these issues would have been solved by now? this does not sound good. how does your bluesound compare?
Blue sound node 2i is good. It’s in another system right now.
I ordered a Cambridge CXN V2 to compare against the Node 2i and modius DAC. Want to see if the streamer has anything to do with the sound. Was going to stick with the Node and just get a $1,500 DAC but want to experiment a bit.
do you think the digital noise cancellation implemented on the Node is as good as the IFI, so you are saying if i am using an external dac there should be no difference between the 2 in SQ?