[Mr BubbaHyde]

Currently listening to the ZS thru my #Chinastack !!!

Which includes, off course...
iFi Zen Stream, #supersecret/ancientchinesesecret DAC Spdif
Nobsound upgraded stacatto opamp preamp

 

[dsnyder]

Currently listening to the ZS thru my #Chinastack !!!


Which includes, off course...
iFi Zen Stream, #supersecret/ancientchinesesecret DAC Spdif
Nobsound upgraded stacatto opamp preamp

Looks great!

Have you tried the ZS with your Gustard X16 yet. That's on my list of things to do over the next week. I have high expectations, although the X16 already sounds ridiculously good when fed from a VitOS RPi4.

 

[Mr BubbaHyde]

Looks great!

Have you tried the ZS with your Gustard X16 yet. That's on my list of things to do over the next week. I have high expectations, although the X16 already sounds ridiculously good when fed from a VitOS RPi4.

I certainly have, although not as much as I would have liked too yet! To be honest I'm on an analog type kick recently, think the BF2 did that to me,

But here's what I can say, I honestly have briefly and by briefly I mean maybe an album or so inn each DAC silly creation I have, and it's done it's job admirably on every one!

Thing I do remember about the Gustard is how resolving and natural sounding the Zen was with the Spdif out to the GX16, Antiphones Blues was heavenly!!

Hope that works for now!!

Cheers!!

 

[FooFighter]

Connected to Ethernet, started up as described without issues, configured in all usage mode and running Tidal Connect to my Denafrips Pontus via USB like a charm.
SQ is superb as far as I could judge in the short time.
Wide stage, clear and transparent, tight and punchy.
Long USB/Coax cable fusses good bye, that's a keeper for me.

 

[Mr BubbaHyde]

I remember there was questions on how big of a drive can be connected. The largest drive I have is a 4tb Samsung SSD, with about 60gb of music on it. It's scanning right now and I will update later how long it takes and how it functions with the "built in" app.

 

[crowtree99]

And I was really looking forward to a good weekend with mine.
Oh well hopefully replacement will arrive soon and can get round to it next weekend instead.

 

[Mr BubbaHyde]

4TB Drive Update: Ok so it took around 10 minutes give or take to load the music, 61gb... Mind you I was streaming Tidal thru it as it was doing this. I made a quick unlisted video so you could see how the iFi App looks when loaded up. Also I would like to point out I could scroll thru things as fast as I wanted when I wasn't doing the screen capture, so there's that...

 

[wenbinbin2010]

Had a couple of skips again with Tidal using Ethernet and the Zen on AIO - have put it on the dedicated Tidal mode now and so far so good (2 hours with no skips).

Got my ZEN Stream today and it kept dropping out with Spotify, despite using a direct ethernet connection. It's actually more stable with Wi-Fi. But then I can't get it to work as an NAA for HQPlayer. Even with the wired setup, HQPlayer was full of stutters, which was never an issues with my direct USB connection. I have mine setup on the AIO setting as well, so I may try switching to the dedicated modes to get some more stability.

EDIT: Yep HQPlayer much more stable when the mode is changed to #4 for dedicated NAA use. May still go back to AIO to confirm my findings. At least HQPlayer works with it!

 

[FooFighter]

What I am regular encountering playing Tidal Connect from my IPhone is that some old track is frozen on the Tidal app screen while the Zen Stream is continuing playing other songs in the queue...
Anyone else with the same issue?
Will test other playing devices next night

 

[dsnyder]

Got my ZEN Stream today and it kept dropping out with Spotify, despite using a direct ethernet connection. It's actually more stable with Wi-Fi. But then I can't get it to work as an NAA for HQPlayer. Even with the wired setup, HQPlayer was full of stutters, which was never an issues with my direct USB connection. I have mine setup on the AIO setting as well, so I may try switching to the dedicated modes to get some more stability.

EDIT: Yep HQPlayer much more stable when the mode is changed to #4 for dedicated NAA use. May still go back to AIO to confirm my findings. At least HQPlayer works with it!

Sorry to hear that you're having problems. My ZEN Stream has been playing continuously all day, high-rez content streaming on loop from Roon. Can you give that a try?

In the middle of the day, I upgraded the power supply on the ZEN Stream to a 9V, 2.5A iPower X. No more power supply issues.

 

[dsnyder]

Note: For any folks having problems with the ZEN Stream, a word of advice. Do NOT press and hold the "reset" button until you know for certain that you have a good power supply. Many power supplies that shipped with the ZEN Streams are failing to deliver stable voltage. Mine is marked at 9V but the actual voltage measures between 6.4 and 5.4 volts, steadily dropping over time. If you reset the ZEN Stream and it loses power or the voltage drops too low, you may end up bricking it. Sort-of like removing power during a firmware update.

If you have a digital multimeter and are comfortable doing so, select the DC mode, insert the red lead into the center of the barrel and touch the black lead to outside edge of the barrel. You should see a reading of around 9.3 volts. Anything under 9V…discontinue use until you find another adapter that can reliably deliver 9V/1.8A - 15V/0.8A DC.

 

[crowtree99]

Note: For any folks having problems with the ZEN Stream, a word of advice. Do NOT press and hold the "reset" button until you know for certain that you have a good power supply. Many power supplies that shipped with the ZEN Streams are failing to deliver stable voltage. Mine is marked at 9V but the actual voltage measures between 6.4 and 5.4 volts, steadily dropping over time. If you reset the ZEN Stream and it loses power or the voltage drops too low, you may end up bricking it. Sort-of like removing power during a firmware update.

If you have a digital multimeter and are comfortable doing so, select the DC mode, insert the red lead into the center of the barrel and touch the black lead to outside edge of the barrel. You should see a reading of around 9.3 volts. Anything under 9V…discontinue use until you find another adapter that can reliably deliver 9V/1.8A - 15V/0.8A DC.

And I think that is exactly what happened to mine.
It makes sense now.
Already informed iFi support that if my replacement arrives with a 9v PS I will not even chance it and buy a 12v PS and will be requesting the cost of said 12v iFi PS to be refunded by them.

No response from them so far.

 

[FooFighter]

Next stage: Uninterruptible power supply from data center

 

[iFi audio]

At least HQPlayer works with it!

That was the intent

We're software agnostics, but HQ Player is great

 

[kaushama]

I wonder I should buy an iPower X 15V for the new unit if and when I get it.