New (was back in 2021) iFi Zen Stream device

Audio Gear Talk iFi
1736

According to iFi, that isn’t the case—they have a full XMOS chip in the device that is capable of full decoding; they were just unable to obtain authentication with MQA corporate. They’ve been in negotiations with them back and forth since launch, and they really put their foot in it by promising MQA capability out of the gate. The rendering process that DACs perform is the result of the very same XMOS that is included in the ZS, although there are software renderers and full decoders apparently on the horizon as well. It’s really a matter of the rendering being a very resource-demanding process that has kept it out of the software realm thus far.

Also, you can turn off the first unfold in the ZS GUI with the beta version.

I do agree that iFi has a tendency to release products with promises of future features that tend to cause strife with their consumers. I have told them multiple times that it would be so much more satisfying if they would just release their products proudly as-is, and surprise already happy customers with new features as they’re perfected.

1 Like
1737

The latest version of the node supports USB out.

1738

The node is a complete package out of the box, with good free software that has a dac an can be used as a transport. And the provided software is stable and solid.

The zen stream is a streamer only with very bad out of the box software and months after launch is waiting to be what IFi sold in the marketing material to work without bugs.

As a streamer the zen sounds better, as a product the node is a mature product that does not constantly desapoint and simply works as expected, it has stable updates and it simply works.

Since the beginning the Zen stream feels like a beta experience.

2 Likes
1739

As the owner of a Bluesound PowerNode I can understand what you say. Always lived up to its promises and always worked without issue

But I am still a big fan of the Stream and if you scroll back to a year ago in this thread I made the same comments almost a year ago. Things have got much better in my mind, but it has been slow going

1740

I’ve tried the BlueSound node, and auditioned it along side the ZS when I was deciding on a streaming solution. I did recheck and confirm that the newest node firmware supports the USB output—finally—but this was not the case until about three months ago. Prior to that (when I bought it) it was limited to coaxial outputs and a max sampling rate of 192 (and no DSD).

This fumbling around and long waiting game seems comparable to your criticisms of the ZS, which for me has worked beautifully, with Roon and otherwise, since I purchased it at launch—I’m unsure what obstacles you faced, although I’m not denying that you did by any means.

Nevertheless, this “improved” Node also comes at almost twice the price—and makes you wonder what you’re paying for. It has none of ifi’s galvanic isolation, jitter reduction or ANC tech to ensure the stability and performance of that new output, makes you pay for and (until recently) utilize an abysmal, superfluous DAC, and by documented measurements achieves an appalling SINAD of 88–well short of the resolution of a Red Book CD, and thus rendering any claims of 24 bit resolution laughably moot. BlueSound is guilty of flat out larceny.

I try not to disparage others’ gear, and I wouldn’t do so if you didn’t already have the ZS. But to discuss these two devices, especially in “audiophile” terms, as competitors is simply mendacious. The Zen Stream is an evolving but worthy addition to the existing range of the highest grade streamers in the industry, at an astonishingly low price. The BlueSound Node is a toy, and an expensive one at that. No offense, please—I’ve done my best to keep my tone less contentious than what I perceived first. Peace…

2 Likes
1741

Steven most of us really like our Stream’s despite Zen’s attempts to make us think otherwise.
This thread was created 10 months ago and the situation with the Zen software, power supplies and constantly breaking things at that point caused many of the early users to return them.

There was never an issue with Roon due to the Streams use of Roon Bridge, but there were massive issues with other protocols and locking audio outs etc.
Things got much better at the end of last year and I do not hear a huge amount of issues these days.
As a Roon streamer it is just excellent in my use, and as that is what I bought it for I cannot complain

1 Like
1742

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Zen hardware, I have here a lot of IFi gear relating to dac’s from the entry level to the pro iDSD, and all of them are good products.

Also have five streamers, the node and the IFi are the cheapest I have.

I am a little bored with IFi, because I made a reset to oficial and the update of the roon bridge stopped working. Now I am on the beta, and is working, but I do not like to be on betas.

Hardware of the zen is very appealing, and I have since it came out, my take on the zen is that IFi should had take special care and be sure the product was 100% since the day it was launched, and has be long months of small issues and bugs, I expected the roon ready firmware was final in the day roon stopped updating the bridge in the zen, not having to go on a beta, and this is wrong.

Also have two SMS200 ultra one is NEO version, and out of the box was what they anounced, never had a but with it, support responds fast and resolves the issues fast, that is service.

Also my Naim streamers had small issues with image on screen not changing but that was corrected fast. Other than that they work as anounced, Naim support at least on the dealer side is amazing.

IFi was not an experience like this, and is taking a lot of time to correct issues, and every time is creating new issues.

The zen stream is a great sounding product, it makes a big image and has a musical presentation, not that more detailed and textured as my other streamers. Compared to the Bluesound sounds a lot better, the Bluesound sounds small and congested in a direct comparison.

The Bluesound is good to connect a small pair of amplified speakers and have sound in the bedroom or kids room, but is a good product. On the other side IFi can be a great companion on the hi-fi,

I am waiting for an official non beta version that can engage roon exclusive and forget about it, and hopping it comes without breaking other things.

3 Likes
1743

Michael, I truly mean no offense and have no intentions to disdain the tribulations that others have dealt with throughout the ZS’s many iterations. I’ve taken iFi to task myself innumerable times about issues with this device and many of their other products, through long back-and-forth discussions via email, phone conversations, and threads on other forums. They have a tendency to promote features before they’re ready, and I’ve held nothing back when confronting them with this nonsense.

I personally haven’t had significant issues with my own ZS in the specific configuration and implementation that I’m using it for, other than some connectivity issues early on that resolved when I upgraded to a 15v iPower X power supply and switched to Ethernet. But I’ve been closely following others’ experiences since launch, and when I felt I had some tips that might be of use, I’ve tried to humbly share them, in addition to offering my commiseration.

However, there is one thing about me I should probably put out front that I’m particularly passionate about, and that has occasionally gotten me in trouble—and that is that I have zero tolerance for actors in the audiophile market who inflate their prices, make false claims, and fraudulently rip unwitting consumers off. And that includes those audiophile elitists who talk down their noses at those of us who worked hard for the cash we put down for the best gear we can afford—particularly those who name drop manufacturers like dCS, Chord, PSAudio and others, who charge a fortune for gear that underperforms alternatives from less ostentatious brands at a fraction of the cost. I’m also a firm believer in audio science, measurements and hard evidence, when DACs are involved—because the information they provide can easily separate authentic claims to greatness from poseurs and con artists.

That is my sole beef with BlueSound—they make fallacious claims to quality to justify outlandish prices; claims easily disproved by evidence. And because I love this hobby so much, the deception is something I take personally—there’s no need to go broke to obtain the best sounding audio setup possible, and these predatory tactics particularly piss me off when the stuff they’re selling is just so average.

Ok, I’m done. Probably went too far, which I wish I could say was an outlier—but I do appreciate your feedback. :pray:

6 Likes
1744

Actually mine came wit a good power supply, but I connected a power elite days after purchase and never used the in the box.

When I compared the zen stream with the Bluesound the ipower elite was connected with an audioquest tornado and an audioquest Diamond usb, and the Bluesound was connected with a simple audioquest Carbon coax and I think an audioquest z3 power cable.

1745

Steven no offence taken, but there were a lot of unhappy people here early on.
I have always said that for my use case which is 99% Roon, there has rarely been an issue.

These forums do have a tendency to get a bit passionate, and sometimes we have to take a step back. I am a believer in the more that we talk the better things should be, it doesn’t always work out, but mostly it does.
So please no need to be out as your feedback has been good and appreciated.

1 Like
1746

I like your comments, we are helping each other, English is not my language, so writing sometimes could give the wrong impression, many posts like yours is a help to me also.

I know IFi will correct the issues for sure, the product is good and for roon is one of the best affordable options. Maybe next time they take more care on the software first.

Edited, I wanted to reply users in global. All comments are helpful to me.

2 Likes
1747

If English is not your language, I don’t have a clue what I’m speaking! :slight_smile:

1 Like
1748

Portuguese. But is good to read that is not that bad. Thanks.

1 Like
1749

Please provide references. As far as I’m aware, this is not possible by design. The MQA Rendering process is said to implement “platform-specific DAC compensation and management.” The MQA Core signal from a software decoder is said to be “preconditioned for generic DACs.” However, it is not possible to completely Render (unfold) MQA without knowledge of the specific DAC in use. The ZEN Stream does not contain a DAC and can not know in advance which DACs will be used with it.

I also do not see an XMOS chip in the ZEN Stream, but perhaps I’ve missed it. Please provide a reference for data on the XMOS chip as well. Thanks.

1 Like
1751

I’m the service of not promoting a knowledge battle on here, I think it’s best I not try to answer your specific question—my dealings with iFi have been very confusing to say the least, and although I’ve heavily immersed myself in MQA tech for quite some time, I’m in no way an authority on the subject and don’t want to posture myself as such on this forum. I think what we can both agree on is that at the current time, the ZS is capable of processing MQA only as a passthrough, and if it has additional hidden capabilities under the hood, we should find them out in future updates.

What I was told by iFi in a PM several months ago is the following (and I probably shouldn’t even be posting this):

“Our original intention was to have this be a true transport and not be involved with these processes (MQA decoding) at all, but it’s become pretty clear to us that this is not what the community wants, and we are making those (non-accidental) implementations once TIdal approves the device to do the first round of unfolding.”

Thus it appears that their original vision for the ZS was to be purely a passthrough device, and they’ve had to revisit their blueprints based on a maelstrom of consumer feedback—apparently quite a few folks were expecting the ZS to be fully MQA-capable, similar to their other offerings in the Zen product line. It is only my guess, but based on ifi’s past behavior, I strongly suspect that we’ll be seeing a new generation ZS in the future with a strong emphasis on MQA.

All of this illustrates what a racket MQA really is, in my view. They charge manufacturers outlandish licensing fees for every device or software that features their technology, and they’ve convinced innumerable record labels to give them proprietary access to original masters—“provenance”, as they say.

And what is truly bizarre about the whole enterprise is that with the widespread adoption of mass storage and ultrafast bandwidth on the majority of phones and tablets in the recent past, the entire justification for MQA technology—smaller files—is already an obsolete benefit. At this point, their only real advantage they can invoke to maintain their stronghold in the industry is their exclusive access to the highest quality masters—which is what I think convinced many people that MQA sound quality was superior to lossless FLAC files in the first place. And honestly, they aren’t stupid—surely they saw the writing on the wall about overcoming large file sizes long ago, and I suspect what I’ve described was their gameplan all along… :confused:

1752

MQA core decoding can be done in software (Tidal app on various platforms, Tidal Connect on ZS, Roon, etc.) or it can be done by a DAC as part of full decoding (core decoding + rendering). Rendering can only be done by a DAC. My guess is iFi’s employees are confusing this in their responses to you. I have not tested Tidal Connect on the ZS but if I’m reading it right setting Passthrough MQA to off sounds like core decoding is enabled on the ZS while turning it on sounds like MQA would be passed as is to a DAC for full decoding (or just decoding if the DAC doesn’t have a full decoder). I have no idea how auto behaves. They definitely could word that whole mess differently.

1 Like
1753

With all due respect, I’m unaccustomed to being approached by someone I’ve yet to meet with an officious lecture and a condescending education on a topic that I already understand. Honestly, I don’t portend to be any smarter than any other folks on here, but I am capable of comprehending the lengthy conversations I’ve had with iFi over the past several years—and I fully understand how MQA works.

I regret bringing the entire topic of MQA up. I’m going to bow out of this conversation, as the last thing I came here for is more intellectual one-upmanship—I tolerate enough of it on Head-Fi. Perhaps I’m overreacting or misinterpreting your intended tone, and I suspect that I’ll probably regret saying this tomorrow—but if you are interested in having a collegial conversation on here about our shared hobby, please use different manners. Peace.

1755

I do—quite honestly, what you’ve made up about me is not my truth. Is it not possible to be kind here? I’m aware of all the data you’ve confronted me with, and if you read what I wrote carefully I’ve never disputed any of it—I’ve only shared what I was told by iFi themselves. I do apologize for my tone, which may have set me up to be misunderstood. I assure you that I’m fully aware that the rendering process is hardware specific (at this time), and it was for that reason that I questioned iFi at length about their claims to be seeking rendering licensing from MQA. I can only tell you what they told me in return.

Throughout this entire discussion my aim has solely been to convey iFi telling me that the ZS contained rendering capabilities that have not to date been employed. I was told that the unit had an XMOS. I fought them on this issue for the same reasons you suggest, and perhaps they misspoke to me. But I’m very frustrated by my recounting of their exact words being extrapolated to my own lack of understanding of the entire MQA process. I just don’t understand the motives at work here—maybe my texts were so over length that it was impossible to read them thoroughly. That fits.

Regarding future applications of the rendering process, I will try to find the original sources I read that suggested that software-based full decoder technology is possible, if not in the works—which is a fair request. But in the interim, please consider that MQA is very predatory about maintaining their licensing revenue, and that they make enormous profits by requiring DACs from a vast number of manufacturers to build in rendering capabilities into their products, This strategy was strategic and by design. So the current software limitations they promote in their materials do not necessarily reflect the whole story—their primary motive is to put a bottleneck on progress to ensure their stronghold on the industry.

Based on the DAC-specific profiles that allow the rendering process presently, in theory all it would take for software to handle the rendering process (other than adequate CPU/XMOS resources) would be an application that had these profiles selectable from a menu list, which could be in a rolling format that is updated as new DACs are certified. It’s not the DAC that performs the rendering process, it’s the XMOS that contains the profile. And with that in mind, it is easy to surmise that this would not be a profitable solution for MQA to pursue.

With that, I’d really appreciate the opportunity to reset and not keep digging myself into a deeper hole. This exchange has been quite dismaying to me, and whatever got me here was the furthest thing from my motives. I respect all of your opinions and expertise, and I am constantly seeking to expand my fund of knowledge. Cheers.

1 Like
1756

That has been debunked by several users in this thread so either iFi’s support has no clue (wouldn’t be the first company with clueless support these days) or they have the only product in existence that isn’t a DAC that can/will be able to do full decoding (pretty unlikely wouldn’t you say?).

No idea why a device without a USB input would have this. Again, the best bet is clueless support.

Could they have been referring to the pairing of one of their DACs (or any MQA DAC really) with this streamer? Maybe try contacting the people behind MQA to see what they have to say about iFi’s claims? Either way, it’s all a moot point for me since I won’t be using my ZS without Roon and I have a Topping D90SE in play.

1 Like
1757

Apologies if I came across as harsh. I was just asking you to share your sources / references for the claims about rendering MQA in software and the presence of XMOS in the ZEN Stream. Both of these claims sounded incredible. If true, I would have learned something. If this is just a misunderstanding between you and iFi Audio or iFi’s support not understanding how their product works, I can accept that too. :dove:

1 Like