[zolom]

I did notice SQ improvments when upgrading my ZS power supply from iFi iPower-X to iFi iPower Elite.

 

[iFi audio]

So I ended up getting the LPS (Topping P50) to see how the Zen Stream scales after finding the iPower was a good upgrade but was still wanting more.

My initial reaction was there was a further increase in impact on drums - this was after listening to the new Judas Priest album a dozen times so I was pretty used to how it sounded - first few minutes I was like 'whoa' and thought about turning down the bass (but opted to just leave everything untouched and get used to it). After that I felt it would be too hard to go back n forth so I lived with the P50 for a week before spending some time looking at them all.

Another thing I noticed right away was that my issue about vocals sounding too "recessed" or soft now was gone and everything was 'balanced' but crystal clear. My previous fix was to find a sharper sounding filter on my DAC, but now I dont need to worry about finding the right synergy and went back to my old settings. With the iPower I got the impression that vocals were either further back (softer) or undefined in location, more in between my ears than in front of me - the LPS solved that and were more obviously out in front of me with better texture as well, too.

The impact improvement was notable on a song like Traitors Gate (by Judas Priest, I was on a kick the past few weeks) where in the intro there's this drum line that goes from right to left and bouncing all over the place. With the LPS it was 3D and and really felt like those drums were jumping around the room, while with the SMPS it was more linear and less fun. For clarity, this didn't just affect the center stage but stereo details as well. On Hell Patrol, there's one guitar in each channel - with the LPS honestly they sounded like the same 1 guitar, but with the LPS it was obvious there was one guitarist on the left playing different things than the right, and the drums and vocals were all in a defined space. Same notes on As God Is My Witness, where on the SMPS I could barely make out what was going on with the left channel guitar (since they're playing the same notes with high gain) but with the upgrade I could differentiate the picking better. This also boosted the ability to hear other vocal tracks buried in the mix or off in the wings that I normally wouldn't notice until I throw it on vinyl w/ speakers.

Another thing that popped up on the Zen recently was noticing how sibilant S's are on tracks, and this is a big factor on the Painkiller album. It got pretty annoying at times when the S's were resonating louder than any other sound, and I think that was smoothed a bit and nothing was annoying me anymore.

Anyhoo, one last test I did was checking out the David Lee Roth solo album since I remembered the vocals on the mastering being especially soft in the mix. Used Ladies Nite in Buffalo as my test track. With the SMPS I had trouble understanding some of his lyrics as gibberish with the volume I had set, but with the upgrade the words were clearer and I could actually type them out correctly. So wrap that in with the previous vocal notes.

disclaimer: these are minor changes at the end of the day, my first thought going back to the SMPS was "yeah this is still good" before digging into specific things


TLDR; The negatives I noticed with the previous SMPS upgrade were gone, and the Zen Stream benefits got better. Happy camper, endgame satisfied for now.

Thanks for the extensive observations here.

Valuable thoughts for folks considering this route, no doubt.

Cheers!!

 

[Lvivske]

I'd seen the P50 recommended on a few forums/reddit threads specifically for the ZS while doing research so wanted to see what the fuss was about, since it was within my budget and a better review choice than the no-name LPSs I was considering

Also, can now say since rolling back firmware the Stream's stability has been fairly solid with only a couple minor hiccups. I don't know if it's an Airplay 1 vs 2 thing, but I can close my laptop and come back to play without it disconnecting, while on the recent firmware with Airplay2, closing or going to sleep disconnects an idle stream.

 

[Mr BubbaHyde]

I'd seen the P50 recommended on a few forums/reddit threads specifically for the ZS while doing research so wanted to see what the fuss was about, since it was within my budget and a better review choice than the no-name LPSs I was considering

Also, can now say since rolling back firmware the Stream's stability has been fairly solid with only a couple minor hiccups. I don't know if it's an Airplay 1 vs 2 thing, but I can close my laptop and come back to play without it disconnecting, while on the recent firmware with Airplay2, closing or going to sleep disconnects an idle stream.

I had a P50 for quite a while, and enjoyed it very much.

It failed one day, (This happens, no ding on the unit) since then I have used different variations, but mostly have stuck with my iFi power supplies.

No that wasn't shameless self-promotion either lol

Cheers!!

 

[Lvivske]

just typed out a question about adding an iSilencer to one of these and realized there's another thread on here - I thought *this* was the official ZS thread. Have I been lurking the wrong place the whole time?

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/ifi...ng-elevated-to-a-higher-plane.958391/page-388

 

[lydhenry]

Farad power supply is a superb LPS for zen stream. Would also do an AB test with ifi elite and see which one I prefer.

 

[zolom]

I had noticable SQ improvement with iFi Elite, replacing the iFi iPower-X, on my ZS.

 

[iFi audio]

just typed out a question about adding an iSilencer to one of these and realized there's another thread on here - I thought *this* was the official ZS thread. Have I been lurking the wrong place the whole time?

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/ifi...ng-elevated-to-a-higher-plane.958391/page-388

The official thread "sponsored" by iFi is the one you pointed out.

This one was made by me to help folks, before I started working for iFi, all good!

Cheers!!

 

[Lvivske]

I said I was endgame satisfied but I roped myself in for one more round of tweaks (and tips & tricks, since this is the thread for that?)

Noticed the Zen Stream gets super hot and seeing so many people talk esoteric networking upgrades recently I decided to experiment. Pulled out an old router set as a network bridge, disabled the broadcast antenna, and went direct LAN into the ZS with some crappy unshielded CAT5 I had in a box. I then plugged in the iPower 15v to it (even though it's a 12V router). It got a little cooler. I dont know if it got better....the soundstage felt kinda wider, but there was something "off" about the sound, or weird, or just different. Similar to when I used the iPower on the ZS, things got wider but also not necessarily better in the center. Definitely feel I'm in placebo territory but want to see where I can go with this on a budget.

ordered:
- APCOM CAT7 S/FTP cable ($5)
- GL.iNet GL-MT300N-V2 (Mango) mini router ($30)

The router is small and low powered, so easy to hide on my rack. It's 5V so I can attach it to the Topping P50 I'm using on the ZS and is a free LPS upgrade, but being power efficient versus a full switch or router probably has a benefit as well. It uses a MediaTek chipset with a lower clock speed than other models, but a surprising 128mb ram. It's only 2.4ghz, but longer range is helpful and I've read enough online debate on 2.4 being better for audio since it's has a slightly lower noise floor, and the name of this game is reducing noise variants at al costs - signal integrity or speed aren't important for audio since I'm only going to need 1Mbps of the theoretical 100Mbps maximum.

I then found a good sale on an iFi LAN iSilencer so caved and ordered that now. Should be a fun experiment! And hopefully one I can end on. Testing is a really pain with all the reboots and changing admin settings.

 

[iFi audio]

I said I was endgame satisfied but I roped myself in for one more round of tweaks (and tips & tricks, since this is the thread for that?)

Noticed the Zen Stream gets super hot and seeing so many people talk esoteric networking upgrades recently I decided to experiment. Pulled out an old router set as a network bridge, disabled the broadcast antenna, and went direct LAN into the ZS with some crappy unshielded CAT5 I had in a box. I then plugged in the iPower 15v to it (even though it's a 12V router). It got a little cooler. I dont know if it got better....the soundstage felt kinda wider, but there was something "off" about the sound, or weird, or just different. Similar to when I used the iPower on the ZS, things got wider but also not necessarily better in the center. Definitely feel I'm in placebo territory but want to see where I can go with this on a budget.

ordered:
- APCOM CAT7 S/FTP cable ($5)
- GL.iNet GL-MT300N-V2 (Mango) mini router ($30)

The router is small and low powered, so easy to hide on my rack. It's 5V so I can attach it to the Topping P50 I'm using on the ZS and is a free LPS upgrade, but being power efficient versus a full switch or router probably has a benefit as well. It uses a MediaTek chipset with a lower clock speed than other models, but a surprising 128mb ram. It's only 2.4ghz, but longer range is helpful and I've read enough online debate on 2.4 being better for audio since it's has a slightly lower noise floor, and the name of this game is reducing noise variants at al costs - signal integrity or speed aren't important for audio since I'm only going to need 1Mbps of the theoretical 100Mbps maximum.

I then found a good sale on an iFi LAN iSilencer so caved and ordered that now. Should be a fun experiment! And hopefully one I can end on. Testing is a really pain with all the reboots and changing admin settings.

Interesting findings, I actually remember measuring my ZS temp when using 12v vs 15v PS and it was cooler! LOL, don't ask me exactly I would probably have to go back and remeasure.

I and many others have left our ZSs on for weeks at a time, and "hot" is never the way I would have described it, I do remember one other person saying theirs ran Hot and used some form of cooling system. I have never had that issue, if possible please post a measurement.

I personally use a LAN iSilencer and am extremely pleased with the result. I also have a NEO Stream and it brings the ZS closer to what I hear using the Opti-box with the NEO.

Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts.

Cheers!!

 

[Lvivske]

Interesting findings, I actually remember measuring my ZS temp when using 12v vs 15v PS and it was cooler! LOL, don't ask me exactly I would probably have to go back and remeasure.

I and many others have left our ZSs on for weeks at a time, and "hot" is never the way I would have described it, I do remember one other person saying theirs ran Hot and used some form of cooling system. I have never had that issue, if possible please post a measurement.

I leave it on all the time and with the wifi disabled, on its own with plenty of circulation, it's warm to the touch, maybe warmer than my Bifrost 2 DAC with no ventilation or warmer than the amp it's with here (which is known for running hot). When I had it tucked near the back of the rack (so the ZS was closer to other warm components) and wifi on it was straight up HOT to touch.

No way of measuring at the moment, just the observation. I find the temp fluctuates, which is odd. My room is pretty cool, too.


edit next day: Today I'm using it w/ Wifi and it's basically room temperature. Go figure. (???)

 

[Lvivske]

Gonna be a bit of a wait to get the iSilencer in and test it all out, but so far couldn't help but demo what's here:

- Linksys + iPower wasn't a combo for me. Interesting but no.
- GL Mango + P50....hated it.
- TP Link WR902AC @ 5Ghz + P50....close but not hearing an improvement
- Zen Stream integrated Wifi @ 5Ghz....still my favorite

Don't write off the internal WiFi, people! LAN isn't always better (less is more; keep it simple, stupid; etc) Fingers crossed that the iSilencer and nicer cable pushes things over the line, but from a barebones level if I had to pick one chain to live with, it's the stock setup. I'll write more once the silencer arrives, but it's a long weekend and I've got time to listen to lots of music

 

[iFi audio]

As an owner of the iSilencer I believe you will be pleasantly surprised as to what it brings to the ZS, I certainly value it as one of my core pieces for the Zen.

Looking forward to your thoughts!

Cheers!!

 

[zolom]

Noticable SQ results after powring my ZS with iFi iPower Elite and installing iFi Lan iSilencer at the ethernet output of my mesh router towards ZS.

 

[Lvivske]

Noticable SQ results after powring my ZS with iFi iPower Elite and installing iFi Lan iSilencer at the ethernet output of my mesh router towards ZS.

Did you find putting the silencer in the ZS less-good than putting it in the router side?