[hash70]

Decided I was gonna stay away from this thread as this rudy guy was startin to agitate me,went to the roon labs forums tonight and guess who was on there posting the exact same nonesense,he now startin to annoy people over there

 

[mox123]

Decided I was gonna stay away from this thread as this rudy guy was startin to agitate me,went to the roon labs forums tonight and guess who was on there posting the exact same nonesense,he now startin to annoy people over there

Hahaha....i saw tat too

 

[rudy49]

as reported earlier i could not a digital signal from Zen Stream to the DAC even though in Roon showed that everything was working in the chain. track playing, Zen engaged, DAC engaged. what a mystery. all suggestion from the forums did not work but today i stumbled on something. i went into the ifi setup menu and in settings found something called "configuration wizard" i opened it and selected SPDIF and ran it. now my DAC is receiving the stream from the Zen and the sample rate is showing on the respective coax display and music is playing.
wish i had discovered this weeks ago. hopefully problem solved.

 

[Nick Taylor]

So looking very hard at the Ifi Zen Stream vs. BlueSound node as my first streamer. Likely I'll only be doing amazon hd + quobuz or spotify. I don't care about Dacs, MQA, Roon Ready I just want a simple point source streamer to control via my phone / ipad. I don't care about airplay or bluetooth either as I want it to stream directly via wifi.

For me the sound quality is important but I'm frustrated I couldn't find an affordable streamer with I2S input for my dac. Ahead of SQ is actual functionality which has me leaning slightly toward the BlueOS. I like the idea of not having to futz with crap software programs with workaround solutions just to find music.

I'm anti DIY so pc building, Rapberry Pi, DIY amps/speaker kits are like batteries to my tongue. All else being equal obviously I would choose the better sounding gear.

The general consensus is that BS node seems to be more reliable in connection and easier to use while the Ifi Streamer is the better sounding piece of gear. Does that seem accurate? Any other items I should be considering in the $400 - $600 price range?

Depends on your system -the Zen sound wise really is a high end product for a mid Fi price where the Bluesound is a mid-fi product for a mid-fi price.
There is a learning curve with the Zen OS but it seems to be getting better with updates.
BlueOS was set and forget though.

 

[rmsanger]

Depends on your system -the Zen sound wise really is a high end product for a mid Fi price where the Bluesound is a mid-fi product for a mid-fi price.
There is a learning curve with the Zen OS but it seems to be getting better with updates.
BlueOS was set and forget though.

I went with the BS Node and just made the purchase.. My hope is that I can upgrade the SQ to high end sound with something like an linear power supply and/or using a DDC to feed I2S into my Dac. I want none of the nonsense of dealing with the OS problems and just want a set and forget product. Even if that means I have to pay a premium with the DDC or LPS.

 

[and1]

I gathered he didn't want to use Airplay or DLNA (or Roon) when he said he wanted to stream direct to the Zen. With DLNA it's streaming through the phone, similar to Airplay.

I don’t think that is the case. When I stream using DLNA and MconnectLite I can switch my phone off and it still streams the music. Also I can’t control volume from the phone. My assumption is that the phone is just the remote for the ZS to stream? So MconnectLite gives bit perfect hi res using Qobuz (I think).

 

[rlw6534]

I don’t think that is the case. When I stream using DLNA and MconnectLite I can switch my phone off and it still streams the music. Also I can’t control volume from the phone. My assumption is that the phone is just the remote for the ZS to stream? So MconnectLite gives bit perfect hi res using Qobuz (I think).

Hmm. That differs from what I understood. I had not imagined that Qobuz would keep streaming even with the phone off. I could see it working with a local server (not the phone) as a source and the phone as the control point, possibly, but not with streaming services. Live and learn, I guess.

 

[esmse]

Any update on Chromecast?

There is no mention anymore of this on the product page. The * will be made available in later update * has been removed.

 

[Currawong]

as reported earlier i could not a digital signal from Zen Stream to the DAC even though in Roon showed that everything was working in the chain. track playing, Zen engaged, DAC engaged. what a mystery. all suggestion from the forums did not work but today i stumbled on something. i went into the ifi setup menu and in settings found something called "configuration wizard" i opened it and selected SPDIF and ran it. now my DAC is receiving the stream from the Zen and the sample rate is showing on the respective coax display and music is playing.
wish i had discovered this weeks ago. hopefully problem solved.

I just discovered this after I shot the review. I'd always had the Zen Stream set to S/PDIF output, but had both the S/PDIF and USB in use for digital output. Roon can connect to the USB DAC fine, but if it streams to "Zen Stream" on the network, it will output to whatever VolumeIO is set to output to.

 

[hash70]

I don’t think that is the case. When I stream using DLNA and MconnectLite I can switch my phone off and it still streams the music. Also I can’t control volume from the phone. My assumption is that the phone is just the remote for the ZS to stream? So MconnectLite gives bit perfect hi res using Qobuz (I think).

thats correct,the phone sends the address to to the zen,then the zen pulls it from the Internet,the phone is jst a remote

 

[hash70]

I went with the BS Node and just made the purchase.. My hope is that I can upgrade the SQ to high end sound with something like an linear power supply and/or using a DDC to feed I2S into my Dac. I want none of the nonsense of dealing with the OS problems and just want a set and forget product. Even if that means I have to pay a premium with the DDC or LPS.

there is hardware mods for the node where you can replace power unit inside the node with external linear psu,you can buy the parts online

 

[hash70]

as reported earlier i could not a digital signal from Zen Stream to the DAC even though in Roon showed that everything was working in the chain. track playing, Zen engaged, DAC engaged. what a mystery. all suggestion from the forums did not work but today i stumbled on something. i went into the ifi setup menu and in settings found something called "configuration wizard" i opened it and selected SPDIF and ran it. now my DAC is receiving the stream from the Zen and the sample rate is showing on the respective coax display and music is playing.
wish i had discovered this weeks ago. hopefully problem solved.

wow seriously,after all ur moaning and complaining and bad mouthing ifi all over the net that the zen is a piece of crap,not fit to use,ive tried everything and it dosent work,on here and over in roon forums it turns out it was ur dumb ass all along that didnt set it up correctly,you should be sending apologies to ifi for all the grief you put them through

 

[rmsanger]

there is hardware mods for the node where you can replace power unit inside the node with external linear psu,you can buy the parts online

Thx I'll look into it! when the usb is working I'm going to get a matrix x-spdif 2 ddc... that plus a power supply upgrade should help bring it up to snuff.

 

[rlw6534]

thats correct,the phone sends the address to to the zen,then the zen pulls it from the Internet,the phone is jst a remote

That's odd. I just tried it (turning off phone with mConnect playing a Qobuz playlist via DLNA) and it stopped after the currently playing song ended (presumably from the buffer), none of the rest of the Qobuz playlist ever played. Maybe I'm doing something wrong or misunderstood? Not a big deal as I use Roon normally.

 

[hash70]

Thx I'll look into it! when the usb is working I'm going to get a matrix x-spdif 2 ddc... that plus a power supply upgrade should help bring it up to snuff.

There is a intresting review of the matrix x spidf here -https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-and-measurements-of-matrix-audio-x-spdif-2-usb-converter.6597/. dosent seem to measure any better than the $90 topping d10