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I preordered an Innuos Zen MK III back in August and it finally delivered on Friday!
I've had it in my system over the weekend and have some initial impressions... First of all, where I'm coming from is using a Mac Mini with Roon for the past 9 months or so. My library is about 50/50 between Tidal and hi res FLAC files on an SSD. I'm all-in on the Roon platform. I think it's pretty amazing and has transformed the way I interface with my music in a massive way.
The Zen Mk III is my first experience outside of the Mac Mini & Roon - I have never used a NAS, NUC, Squeezebox player, UPnP or anything like that. So I don't have much to report on that side of things... my observations come from using the Zen III as a Roon Core exclusively.
Setting up the Zen was incredibly simple. I pulled up the Zen on my network in my browser and selected Roon Core integration, and it installed Roon on the Zen and was good to go. I did not install a backup and wanted to start with a clean Roon install. I also pulled up my FLAC backup on my laptop and imported them through the browser interface and the files were immediately imported into my Roon library.
I went over to HDtracks.com and bought another 5-6 titles and imported them directly into the Zen, and then ripped a CD directly into the Zen unit - it worked great... imported all the tracks and found the meta data (Prince's "Piano & a Microphone 1983") and that also popped right up in my Roon library.
Incredibly dead-simple integration and implementation with my system. The interface is awesome and pretty fool-proof. I realize people say they can build a NUC for much less than the price of an Innuos but the Innuos platform is so user-friendly it's easy for someone like me who doesn't want to spend hours figuring that stuff out and well worth the money.
My Luxman DA-06 is not Roon certified, but it was easy to connect it via Wireworld Starlight 7 USB cable and Roon recognized it as an ALSA USB device connected to the Core right away. I also have a Google Chromecast Audio speaker group which is Roon-certified and it recognized that and set everything up right away.
Since the Luxman has a clunky "click" sound every time it changes sample/format, and because I usually listen to mixed format playlists, I used the Roon DSP settings to upsample everything to DSD128 with 7th Order (CLANS) Sigma Delta Modulation and the Zen handles all of this without a hitch.
For me, all of this ease of use and setup over the Mac Mini would be worth it alone, but of course the point is to improve sound quality as well, and I can confirm that I like what I hear, very much so. The music seems to spool seamlessly with a weightier presence and thicker, more expansive soundstage. It's hard to describe, but here's an analogy... imagine the music is being painted with a brush. With the Zen III, the brush seems to be loaded with more paint than it was with the Mac Mini. Just overall a thicker and more robust presentation of the music.
I'm really happy with how things turned out. And I'm not terribly experienced in music networking and streaming and computer audio stuff. I'm basically a Roon/set-it-and-forget-it streamer type guy and I'm sure there's other benefits to the Zen I haven't even scratched the surface on.
Anyway, if you're considering trying out one of the new Innuos servers, I think you're going to be very happy. Highly recommend with no hesitation.
I've had it in my system over the weekend and have some initial impressions... First of all, where I'm coming from is using a Mac Mini with Roon for the past 9 months or so. My library is about 50/50 between Tidal and hi res FLAC files on an SSD. I'm all-in on the Roon platform. I think it's pretty amazing and has transformed the way I interface with my music in a massive way.
The Zen Mk III is my first experience outside of the Mac Mini & Roon - I have never used a NAS, NUC, Squeezebox player, UPnP or anything like that. So I don't have much to report on that side of things... my observations come from using the Zen III as a Roon Core exclusively.
Setting up the Zen was incredibly simple. I pulled up the Zen on my network in my browser and selected Roon Core integration, and it installed Roon on the Zen and was good to go. I did not install a backup and wanted to start with a clean Roon install. I also pulled up my FLAC backup on my laptop and imported them through the browser interface and the files were immediately imported into my Roon library.
I went over to HDtracks.com and bought another 5-6 titles and imported them directly into the Zen, and then ripped a CD directly into the Zen unit - it worked great... imported all the tracks and found the meta data (Prince's "Piano & a Microphone 1983") and that also popped right up in my Roon library.
Incredibly dead-simple integration and implementation with my system. The interface is awesome and pretty fool-proof. I realize people say they can build a NUC for much less than the price of an Innuos but the Innuos platform is so user-friendly it's easy for someone like me who doesn't want to spend hours figuring that stuff out and well worth the money.
My Luxman DA-06 is not Roon certified, but it was easy to connect it via Wireworld Starlight 7 USB cable and Roon recognized it as an ALSA USB device connected to the Core right away. I also have a Google Chromecast Audio speaker group which is Roon-certified and it recognized that and set everything up right away.
Since the Luxman has a clunky "click" sound every time it changes sample/format, and because I usually listen to mixed format playlists, I used the Roon DSP settings to upsample everything to DSD128 with 7th Order (CLANS) Sigma Delta Modulation and the Zen handles all of this without a hitch.
For me, all of this ease of use and setup over the Mac Mini would be worth it alone, but of course the point is to improve sound quality as well, and I can confirm that I like what I hear, very much so. The music seems to spool seamlessly with a weightier presence and thicker, more expansive soundstage. It's hard to describe, but here's an analogy... imagine the music is being painted with a brush. With the Zen III, the brush seems to be loaded with more paint than it was with the Mac Mini. Just overall a thicker and more robust presentation of the music.
I'm really happy with how things turned out. And I'm not terribly experienced in music networking and streaming and computer audio stuff. I'm basically a Roon/set-it-and-forget-it streamer type guy and I'm sure there's other benefits to the Zen I haven't even scratched the surface on.
Anyway, if you're considering trying out one of the new Innuos servers, I think you're going to be very happy. Highly recommend with no hesitation.
