Before the upgrade to Roon Ready status, Roon detected my DACs settings, such as PCM 768–but no, it was not playable because the ZS doesn’t support that sampling rate.
With all due respect I am not sure how to answer your questions without a wholesale explanation of how Roon Bridges work, and I don’t think it’s my place to do so. I can only offer my opinion to the best of my knowledge. So…
First, Roon Bridges are designed to be installed on computers that are separate from the main core, to act as hosts for attached DACs—and there are many that don’t impose limitations on the device, just as a computer’s installed sound card doesn’t impose limitations in sampling frequencies when an external DAC is attached.
Nonetheless, in my experience trying out a bunch of streamers, I’ve found it far more common for network streamers to be Roon endpoints themselves, not to have built in bridges in their firmwares (which the ZS definitely has). This is evident by the fact that Roon now recognizes the ZS as a Roon Ready endpoint, but still prompts you to identify the device anyway—typical Roon endpoints are identified automatically. It is Roon bridges that prompt you to identify the attached device.
The ZS didn’t use to be an identifiable device in Roon, but iFi updated this, with a dedicated icon and preset parameters. These are now overriding Roon’s ability to detect the native capabilities of the attached DAC, as it could when the ZS was merely a bridge.
I’ve already offered evidence that the bridge is still evident in vestigial form in my original post, and this was confirmed by iFi. It’s there in the signal path, and it’s there by how Roon is trying to identify the device, both prior to the Roon Ready status and before.
I’m really here to try to be of use to others who are experiencing similar issues as I with their ZS, as these betas progress. Your most recent post seems to be a bit of a take down of my credibility to do so, and all I can offer is to disregard my contributions if you don’t find them helpful. The last thing I want to do is engage in a knowledge war here, or to imply that my grasp of Roon’s software is superior to anyone else’s. That’s what the folks at Roon are here to do. Peace…
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I’m sure that RAAT reported correctly that your DAC is capable of 768 kHz, but did you actually try playing via the ZEN Stream at that sampling rate? When I do, nothing good happens. I have to artificially limit the max sampling rate to 384 kHz so that DSP features like Sample rate conversion to “Max PCM rate (power of 2)” don’t cause problems.
While sampling rates above DSD256 and PCM 384 kHz are of questionable sonic benefit, it is irksome to spend $399 for a streamer with these artificial limits. Perhaps iFi did this to ensure reliable operation over Wi-Fi? Otherwise, I can think of no valid reason. The hardware is capable of delivering higher rates, especially over a wired Ethernet connection (the way that I use it).
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I agree, and one of the questions I have posed to iFi is whether these limits can be extended via a firmware update. They said they would get back to me on this question. In the meantime, I’d just like them to fix the runtime issues that still persist—such as Roon identifying the ZS as capable of DSD 512 when it’s not. They did manage to get the PCM limits correct.
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However, I must say that in terms of sound performance and versatility (if using Roon’s GUI), the ZS is far superior to many other network streamers I auditioned at a fraction of the price. It’s the only streamer available with USB outputs and high sampling rates at this price point other than building your own with an RPI, and those definitely don’t offer ifi’s full galvanic isolation or ANC capabilities…
Switching to DSD512 or PCM 768 requires 25Mb of bandwidth, which should not be a concern.
As we have already mentioned, iFi audio has made a product that is a Swiss army knife and inevitably has limitations when it comes to responding to so many features.
I posted here (NAA thread), it is still possible to go further on the exclusive mode but what is the point for iFi audio to answer to some audiophile geeks.
Most requests are: I plug into my dac (iFi audio) and stream Tidal with my phone.
DSD 512 is not a necessity but it is frustrating to end up with DSD128 because you are going through dop.
And the same goes for PCM, 768 should be the “norm”.
Even iFi Audio is getting there with the Gryphon… they may move but they still haven’t answered the hardware question.
Is it possible to upgrade the kernel to a recent version and open it to PCM 768 / DSD 512 / dop 256.
No clear answer: “possible but not a priority”, “possible for July”… to be continued.
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I generally agree. I’ve been wanting to have a solid (relatively) inexpensive Roon endpoint recommendation for a long time, and the ZEN Stream is pretty close at this point.
I wish iFi Audio would engage a few of us to do Beta testing for future Roon products. I want them to be successful, and a lot of the heat that iFi has taken could have been avoided by having some of us check things out first and provide pre-production feedback.
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Steven the DSD512 was actually mentioned in the Blog post as part of the coming developments.
It certainly does not work with anything I have, but maybe it will soon
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The ZS is the only iFi product I know of (and I have stacks of them) that has offered beta firmwares. And they’re also now publishing a blog about the ongoing updates:
I don’t see that (?)
And even doubts about a possible switch to Volumio 3, which is generally considered positive by users… even if it is not yet totally stabilised (I agree).
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It was in the original post that was on here a week or two ago.
It was specifically talking about DSD512 over WiFi so that could be fun
It looks like they have been updating the same post and just changed 512 to 256.
I saw the message that Volumio 3 was not ready for prime time, but then quite often the Zen Stream hasn’t either in terms of the bugs that kept breaking Tidal, MQA and other features.
I prefer to be able to pull down a beta on demand as we have been doing as you can see the progress then
What are best settings for MQA in the current beta?
Does the beta decode and render MQA. I use a non MQA prepro after the Zen stream.
Thanks
Joel
It astonishes me what folks are willing to pay for BlueSound streamers, and how much positive press they’re getting, for a device that is limited to S/PDIF outputs. I tried out both a $1,000+ Cambridge Audio and a similarly priced Cocktail Audio streamer in the futile quest for a “higher quality” streamer than the ZS, and encountered a mess of problems—not to mention serious hassles with their hardware GUIs, which seemed to be primarily what I was paying for.
This is why I believe that the ZS was ultimately designed to be paired with Roon—surely there is no more user-friendly GUI than Roon, and without it the Volumio-based menus in the ZS would be intolerable.
So I’m not certain what advantages Volumio 3.0 would offer, in the setting of Roon. It does appear that iFi prioritized compatibility with their own DACs first, but given that most of them are now capable of PCM 768 and DSD 512, I think they should focus on those improvements.
But let’s be real about how iFi does things—before they expand the capabilities of the existing ZS, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a “Zen Stream v2” or a “Zen Stream Signature” popping up in the coming months… 
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At present the ZS is capable of handling the first unfold (when set to “auto”, and they’re apparently working on rendering authentication with MQA as well. But there’s no advantage to this over Roon’s own decoding capabilities at present.
I think that compatibility with other iFi Dacs is nice, and bought the Stream in the first week of release to replace by Pi based streamer at that point with the original Zen DAC and Roon has been a dream (excluding MQA issues).
Non Roon protocols have been all over the place. I never intent to use Volumio with the Stream as it is my study setup and it is Roon (or Tidal Connect if I have Roon issues) or nothing.
I would have no problem with a Stream v2 or Signature as long as they continue the small steps forward with the V1. It’s been slow and steady and I will be honest I never thought we would see the RR day arrive, and I was not bothered as it worked well enough before for my use case. But now we have it that will be a boon to some who would only look at RR.
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I posted them in another thread last week for another user.
I think it is this one iFI Zen Stream to Peachtree Nova is DSD Native Possible? - #18 by Michael_Harris
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We’ll wait quietly and positively.
I’ll let you test the betas… 
just because I need some time to get the whole processes down to a minimum in my “personal exclusive mode”.
I have of course automated a bit and noted what I did… but I will wait for a new kernel and the DSD512 option to do the job again !
Thanks. So roon does both decoding and rendering when set for MQA?
My point was the product has been out for nearly a year. There are significant design issues and snafus related to marketing messaging and documentation that could have been avoided if iFi Audio had chosen to get the product into the hands of a few knowledgeable users in advance of release. Not to mention the faulty SMPS that were included with the first batches.
It’s great that they have made Beta firmware available, but if they do not have a formal Beta program with a way for testers to provide actionable feedback, I’m not sure how beneficial this will be. Proof will be in the quality of the final (and prematurely announced) Roon Ready release.
This does not really make sense. When used with TIDAL Connect (not Roon), the ZS performs MQA Core Decoding. In fact, I could not find a way to turn this off. However, the ZS will never be able to perform MQA Rendering. This must be done inside the DAC.
Perhaps you are saying that the ZS will eventually be able to perform MQA Authentication? For example, the right LED may turn a certain color when the ZS authenticates a stream as MQA Studio instead of just being green for MQA streams.
When I tested it, CPU load went up quite a bit when the ZS was doing MQA Core Decoding. This also seemed to have a negative impact on sound quality with certain DACs. I’m hoping that with the Roon Ready firmware, the ZS will continue to leave MQA Core Decoding to Roon Core. That’s a far better division of labor.
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