Thanks for the clarity, that’s appreciated. I’m interested by what you say about ‘much higher performance’ though, as when I contacted Innuos support direct I was told the sound of the STREAM 1 plus LPSU was on a par with the Zen MkIII and the Pulse. I appreciate that those models were not the ‘entry level’, but once you start adding modules the STREAM 1 does end up at a pretty punchy price point, and it then becomes difficult to choose that over - for example - a very lightly used second hand Zen or Pulse which are typically around £1700 from dealers on eBay (when even Innuos are saying it wouldn’t sound any better). I’m not here to criticise pricing decisions as only you know what the margins are, it just looks comparatively expensive and I’m struggling a little to see where the justification for that comes from.
STREAM Series Megapost
- Thread starter Stephen Healy
- Start date
This was already the case with the Mk3 - they were all streamers too, so in that sense there should not be much change in terms of 'feature redundancy'. Feel free to outline your system a bit more specifically and where your concerns might be if you would like me to try and address that a bit more.
This is two subtly different things - without an output module and using the normal on board USB, yes I would say the performance is relatively comparable with the favour on the side of the STREAM1+LPS1. When you add a module to it, it does indeed get more costly - and the sound quality goes even further ahead of ZEN Mk3/PULSE towards ZENith Mk3. You do then get the other quality of life benefits of 3x operating speed, new IR remote support, new accessible storage bay and so on. Our starting price has indeed increased, but so has the starting baseline of performance.
The used market options will always be very comparatively compelling and I think it affects all brands. It's like a car; the second it's driven off the forecourt, it suddenly loses a lot of its price from being 'used'.
Understood, and thanks for clarifying. As I mentioned in a previous post, in my system and using my ears, I found the Rose RS130 to materially outperform the Stream 1 plus LPS1 in all respects (£700 price difference). Perhaps an output module would have narrowed the gap, and obviously that’s just my (and my wife’s) impression, and everyone’s mileage will no doubt vary.
I'm new to all this, having just discovered the new model ranges because the hard drive on my Zen Mini MK3 has died. While waiting to learn the repair cost, it occurred to me it might be better simply to replace the Zen Mini with a new unit to get a SSD. Would it be possible to use my old LPSU with a new STREAM1?
Hi Jeff, Yes the original LPSU is compatible with the ZENmini indeed.
They can both be used interchangably with ZENmini, PulseMini or STREAM 1
. Of course however, the new LPS1 does offer various improvements over the original and will visually match STREAM series too.ok. thank you for. have you compared dac perfomance modul with other external dacs? how much must I invest in an external dac to improve over the performance dac modul?They can both be used interchangably with ZENmini, PulseMini or STREAM 1
We've done some DAC comparisons but it would be unfair to name those. There's a huge variety of DACs out there which makes it difficult to put an absolute proportion on how much extra needs to be spent, so this is something that the dealers can help with. But needless to say we think it competes very well indeed!
Regarding buying an external DAC from another manufacturer, you will be paying a fair bit of extra cash for that company's R & D including unit housing etc.
Will be interesting if the Performance DAC module is put up against other external DAC's for listening tests for comparison.
Will be interesting if the Performance DAC module is put up against other external DAC's for listening tests for comparison.
I think I will get my Stream1 with Performance Dac module and LPS1 next week....
So far it's been great... let me summarize my journey.
I started with a Innuo Zen MK3 years ago. Liked it so much i upgraded to a Zenith MK3
I had the Zenith the longest. I have a nicely revealing system, and I tested using the Zenith as Roon core vs Sense.
Sense always won. It was just more open/organic to me (hard to describe). Not night and day, but enough for me to notice.
I then decided to try out a Grimm MU1 for the fun of it. So i sold off my Zenith and had the MU1 for a while.
It was good. I feel the build quality of the Innuos is much better than the Grimm. I liked the Roon interface.
But since i preferred Sense in the past and don't need to pay to subscribe to it (unlike Roon), i had my eye on the Stream3 since it was announced.
After the long wait it finally arrived. and i'm happy that the Stream3 replaced the MU1.
Once again i feel the Stream3 is a much better build, more sturdy, the ports more secure/tight, etc.
And finally Sense sounds better than Roon (or Stream3 sounds better than MU1)
So i'm currently set for a while, looking forward to the new features that Innuos introduces in Sense down the road.
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