In the spirit of providing feedback i have found the UPnP interface option to be a good thing, especially for SQ compared to USB, however i have ran into some issues noted below.
Gear
Zen Mk3 running Sense 3.3.0 connect to DAC through the ethernet streamer port to DAC
DAC is a WEISS 501 Mk2 connected ethernet to ZEN directly
Zen is connected to a router/switch which connects to my house router for WAN service.
Feedback 1
Radio streaming service and UPnP.
- For normal interface song selection from Qobuz, Tidal and internal HD everything works great.
- When i select a radio streaming service, any one does not matter, it is found and starts up and updates the interface fine.
- Problem arises when i want to stop the service or switch songs to something from Qobuz or what ever else it does not matter.
- The radio stream does not stop. I need to hard reboot either the DAC or my Zen Mk3 to break the connection and internal processes of the Zen to get the stream to stop.
- Even switching to ToslinK, USB or COAX on the DAC does not break the UPnP stream connection.
- Sense becomes uncontrollable.
- I have tried all compatibly settings on Sense with no help.
- The only thing that works is a hard reset (power cycle) of the DAC or ZEN.
Feedback 2
- FLAC song titles display on my DAC which supports this capability
- AIFF files do not display song titles.
- Bit rate information displays for both formats.
Feedback 3
- DSD files are not played back properly using UPnP no matter what i configure in the compatibility settings.
- My DAC only supports up to DSD 128 and that is what i am sending.
- I either get music with a strong hiss in the background not unlike Pink Noise or no music / sounds at all.
Feedback 4 Edit June 25, 2025
- I had previously stated that UPnP had much better SQ than USB and this is no longer the case.
- USB is now on par with UPnP as i found a poor cable on the Phoenix USB.
- I am now using USB again as it is more reliable than UPnP.
Feedback 5 new June 25 2025 UPnP
- Periodically songs when they would begin would crackle and pop, get interrupted momently.
- I am not sure what caused this interruption as it was not consistent. Did not occur before the very latest update where it started to occur.
Those are my experiences summed up, and as stated, i no longer use UPnP as the reliability is not great across the use cases listed above.