[skrzyp]

Thanks - I think it must be ok to power off with the button. iFi may want to consider adding this to the instructions/manual.

 

[rudy49]

Rudy, as mentioned... it’s a non-issue now as power cycling the device resolved it. Besides that initial glitch, which was during its initial power up, I’ve experienced no issues and certainly nothing to indicate an “inefficient processor”, as you’ve hypothesized, for whatever reason. Everything I click is responsive and plays... file, streaming service, etc. I purchased via Amazon and can return easily and I’ll tell you this... this unit isn’t going anywhere. As an aside... I’ve always scratched my head at the “multi-terrabyte music library” stuff. 6TB of data is what, 6,000 albums - at least? That‘s ~6 months of listening, 24hrs a day? I can easily get by with <500GB of “stuff I really like”. The rest is like the bread they bring out so you won’t eat as much meat at the Brazilian steakhouse... filler / background noise from a streaming service.

thank you

 

[stephens]

Not sure if these means it will do what you want but this is displayed in the app...

Thanks @jmimac351, but I suspect that the "UPNP Renderer" option enables the Stream itself as a UPnP Renderer endpoint. What I'm looking for is for the Stream to output to external UPnP Renderers. I'd love to be corrected if I'm mistaken though.

 

[Mr BubbaHyde]

For those interested, the "topping" acrylic rack makes a nice Zen products holder as well as for things like the Schiit Modi,Loki...

 

[skrzyp]

I tried attaching a USB drive with part of my music library and notice that the Zen Stream interface doesn't display embedded album art on many of my albums. All artwork works correctly on other platforms I've tried (iTunes, Audirvana, Moode, piCorePlayer/LMS). Searching around this seems to be a Volumio issue - apparently it won't read track metadata and needs external artwork stored in album folders. This is annoying since all my tracks are tagged with embedded artwork...

 

[rlw6534]

I have been successfully using the Zen Stream, so far only to play alac files from Audirvana on my Mac. Works fine for 24bit/96khz, but the iFi interface shows "wav" as filetype, and a bit rate of 32. Not a big deal, but I'm curious if Audirvana transcodes when sending to the UPnP renderer in the iFi. The unit was easy to set-up and sounds great (playing via SPDIF into a Chord Mojo).

I have an unrelated question about shutdown/poweroff for the Stream: Is it safe to unplug, or shutoff via the power button, or must a "clean" shutdown be executed first via the interface? I know that some raspberry Pi players risk filesystem corruption if shutdown improperly.

Audirvana decodes flac to wav before sending it to UPnP clients. It's just how it works. I guess the thought is to reduce the load on the renderer.

 

[windplr]

I tried attaching a USB drive with part of my music library and notice that the Zen Stream interface doesn't display embedded album art on many of my albums. All artwork works correctly on other platforms I've tried (iTunes, Audirvana, Moode, piCorePlayer/LMS). Searching around this seems to be a Volumio issue - apparently it won't read track metadata and needs external artwork stored in album folders. This is annoying since all my tracks are tagged with embedded artwork...

No experience with the ifi Stream, but I run Volumio on an RPi and my experience with album art and Volumio was that for many of my CD rips, the album art did not show up right away. If I remember correctly it took a couple of days for everything to populate. Eventually it did, and I have had no issues since then. I'd give it a little time. Also, did add album art jpegs and gifs where needed. So I think it might be true that Volumio doesn't read the metadata from the tracks.

 

[innocentblood]

thanks to everyone who responded. the culprit seemed to be my Curious Cable - when I replaced the Curious Cable with a generic USB cable, I am able to get things working again. this is strange because the Curious Cable worked perfectly fine when I use it connect my Oppo HA-1 directly to my macbook pro. is the zen stream sensitive to certain USB cables? thank you.

 

[Taz777]

thanks to everyone who responded. the culprit seemed to be my Curious Cable - when I replaced the Curious Cable with a generic USB cable, I am able to get things working again. this is strange because the Curious Cable worked perfectly fine when I use it connect my Oppo HA-1 directly to my macbook pro. is the zen stream sensitive to certain USB cables? thank you.

Glad you got it sorted! In theory there shouldn't be an issue with USB cables. I've had one issue in the past where I connected a DAC using a USB 'printer style' cable and got a lot of interference in the sound. I replaced it with a higher quality, shielded USB cable which fixed the issue. However, that problem was different to yours, where the DAC wasn't even recognised when you used your Curious USB cable. That suggests a signalling issue to me and it may be that your Curious USB cable is actually damaged.

 

[innocentblood]

at first I was also worried that the Curious Cable was damaged but when I tried the same Curious Cable directly between the Oppo and my macbook pro, it worked perfectly fine. that's why I suspect there is some kind of incompatibility with the zen stream...

 

[pi player]

Hi, newbie here but I’ve been tempted to post… currently running volumio through a RPi 2b into an ifi zen dac or was until our last power cut sent my rpi into a bit of a melt down… refuses to fully boot constantly cycling through a reboot process (power supply issue?). So, I’ve built my rpi, and rebuilt it and rebuilt it and am now loosing the will to continue to rebuild.

so, two questions…

1) will the ifi streamer be a worthy replacement for my rpi and release me from perpetually having to rebuild the pi?

and

2) will the usb out from the ifi stream provide sufficient juice to power my zen dac - probably but I’ve not seen any comments on this!

many thanks,

Robert

 

[Mr BubbaHyde]

Hi, newbie here but I’ve been tempted to post… currently running volumio through a RPi 2b into an ifi zen dac or was until our last power cut sent my rpi into a bit of a melt down… refuses to fully boot constantly cycling through a reboot process (power supply issue?). So, I’ve built my rpi, and rebuilt it and rebuilt it and am now loosing the will to continue to rebuild.

so, two questions…

1) will the ifi streamer be a worthy replacement for my rpi and release me from perpetually having to rebuild the pi?

and

2) will the usb out from the ifi stream provide sufficient juice to power my zen dac - probably but I’ve not seen any comments on this!

many thanks,

Robert

Definitely a great replacement option, and yes it will absolutely power the Zen DAC! One of my first configurations with the Zen Stream was stand alone with the Zen DAC using the little blue USB cable that came with the DAC

It also powered my Schiit Modius with no issues either.

I will not speak to longevity as I don't believe anyone can!

Cheers!!

 

[pi player]

Definitely a great replacement option, and yes it will absolutely power the Zen DAC! One of my first configurations with the Zen Stream was stand alone with the Zen DAC using the little blue USB cable that came with the DAC

It also powered my Schiit Modius with no issues either.

I will not speak to longevity as I don't believe anyone can!

Cheers!!

Thank you for the information and reassurance - yes - still early days for longevity!

Robert

 

[innocentblood]

speaking of longevity, is it considered safe to be leaving the zen stream on 24x7? currently that is what I am doing with my ultrarendu and innuos statement. any reason to switch off the zen stream when not in use?

 

[Louisiana]

Hello,
new ifi Stream user here...
The device is nice, but the software is... i miss a lot!
So we will see, that further updates will bring.

Sound quality is absolute, an upgrade to my Rasperry with Volumio.
Then software updates will bring native Qobuz and Tidal integration, for me, this will be a keeper!

Right now, i use it with Audirvana Studio, and i say it again, SQ is top!