What do you think of Zen NG and Zenith NG
- Thread starter YYH
- Start date
Hi,
What I can tell is that on the short term no. We do have the PULSE line and we will continue with the ZEN Mk3 series for some more time as it's a stable platform that has been working very well. Having said this, we are always working on the next generation of products.
On that topic, I'll open a new thread to understand what would you like to see on new products as this would certainly be appreciated feedback!
What I can tell is that on the short term no. We do have the PULSE line and we will continue with the ZEN Mk3 series for some more time as it's a stable platform that has been working very well. Having said this, we are always working on the next generation of products.
On that topic, I'll open a new thread to understand what would you like to see on new products as this would certainly be appreciated feedback!
I've been considering upgrading my Zen MK II bought in 2017 for a while, but I'm not sure what to do. I understand that you can upgrade to the Zenith MK3, but how much will it cost and I can't help but wonder when the new lineup will come out? Will it also be possible to upgrade the Zenith MK3 in the future?
As Nuno says above, there is no imminent risk of Mk3 being replaced and that line will continue to run for awhile. The ZEN MkII cannot be upgraded on a component level to a Mk3, so you would perhaps need to look at a full trade-in or part-exchange with a dealer to move up to either ZEN Mk3 or ZENith Mk3, either of which would be an upgrade but the ZENith Mk3 especially so.
Don't forget you could also consider PhoenixUSB as an add-on upgrade, or depending on the budget perhaps even the PULSE; it shares quite a bit of DNA with the ZENith Mk3, so you could make this yout player/streamer and confine your current ZEN MkII to just NAS/server role.
Hi Thrifty, i invite you to raise this question on a new thread on the Product Chat board - this specific thread is about first reactions to new NG devices.
I think the Zen and Zenith NG look excellent developments by Innuos and look forward to the opportunity to hear them. I do wonder about which segment of the hifi marketplace they will compete ? Currently high end streaming solutions tend to be combined with high end DACs, very few of these DAC manufacturers don't have a streaming solution built in. Are Innuos thinking of any DAC development/partnership to compete with this ?
I try and avoid duplication of streaming functions and currently run the Innuos Statement NG with Chord DAVE. Personally I avoid overlap of functionality with the likes of DCS, Weiss, Linn etc.
I try and avoid duplication of streaming functions and currently run the Innuos Statement NG with Chord DAVE. Personally I avoid overlap of functionality with the likes of DCS, Weiss, Linn etc.
Hi Malc, they'll compete in a broadly similar area to the STATEMENT; we're of the philosophy that once you reach this level of system, digital source becomes separate from DAC, just as an integrated amp will start moving to separate pre and power.
Whilst it varies between brands/products, don't assume the DAC section and Streaming section are of equal quality when looking at some high-end streamers. Though i understand your resistance to feature-duplication, it might be an acceptable cost depending on the DAC if its an exceptionally good one (yet has a very basic streaming section which in reality represents a very small proportion of the cost).
Think of it this way; imagine you don't have the STATEMENT NG but were keen on one and close to buying. But then Innuos replaced it with a revised version where it had the DAC from a ZENmini inside and the RRP would go up by £250. Would it be worth striking it off an as option with all its benefits just because of this?
This, in a way, is largely at the heart of the modular design in the NG units where you can really tailor it to your exact needs in terms of storage and outputs, and everything has a very specific purpose, and like yourself with a very carefully matched system, the new NG units would make sense in this segment.
Hi Stephen, from a personal perspective I don't disagree with the points you make, after all I made the choice to to go with the Statement NG and PhoenixNet after comparison with a number of alternatives. However there are a number of well thought out high end DAC/Streamer/Preamp solutions, others are primarily DAC manufacturers that recognised the benefit of adding a streaming board, many are of a reasonable quality.
Another feature duplication issue I have is with additional operating systems, Sense is a very good software solution and to me provides Innuos with a competitive advantage, alternatives normally involve factoring in Roon to achieve the same level of usability.
I agree with the modular approach of the new NG units, this makes a lot of sense and has proved attractive to the likes of Linn users. Good luck with new products, exciting times for Innuos.
Another feature duplication issue I have is with additional operating systems, Sense is a very good software solution and to me provides Innuos with a competitive advantage, alternatives normally involve factoring in Roon to achieve the same level of usability.
I agree with the modular approach of the new NG units, this makes a lot of sense and has proved attractive to the likes of Linn users. Good luck with new products, exciting times for Innuos.
Roon-Ready only applies to endpoints. The ZEN/ZENith NG works as Roon Core so the Roon-Ready certification does not apply.
Sorry my bad - can I put it another way
. Can Roon core/ server safely be installed on either ZEN NG or ZENith NG. Although it was possible to install it on the ZENith mk2 it was not, apparently, recommended or supported by Roon!There is much disinformation about our relationship with Roon. We've always been in touch with Roon since 2017 and we are one of Roon's largest partners in this space. Our agreement with Roon is that Innuos provides user support for Innuos customers using Roon as Roon does not have access to our OS, so it would be difficult for them to troubleshoot issues that may be caused by some interactions between our OS and Roon. We're happy to provide support to our user base when using Roon. Hence Roon Support team says they do not support our platform because that's our job. They also mentioned the CPUs we used before the ZEN/ZENith NG we're under Roon's minimal specs but, as explained many times, as long as you don't need very CPU intensive operations such as DSD upsampling, they've been just fine. This is similar to Roon's own Nucleus One.
Many thanks NVitorino for clarifying the Innuos/Roon relationship (this relationship does not come over very well in some of the posts I have seen in relation to Innuos and Roon on the Roon Community forum!).
The reason I am interested in clarifying this is that I am very strongly thinking of upgrading my existing ZENith mk2 SE to a ZENith NG. I currently use Roon ROCK, on an Intel NUC, because I do occasionally have need to upsample to DSD128 and have some minor DSP operations carried out in Roon (room correction and speaker positioning) but would very much like to have my Roon core/server on the Innuos because I think this would be more sensible and efficient, as I currently hold my library on the ZENith mk2 SE and would also do this on the NG if I went for it. So, before spending a large amount of money (for me) on an NG, I need some confidence that it will do what I want - including running Roon Core/server and it’s upgrades.
As an added point, l do use Innuos Sense, on occasion, and must say that it is a great piece of software, but having invested in a life time Roon membership (before turning to Innuos) so like to make use of it and some of the additional benefits that it brings to the party
.The ZENith NG has an i7 and 16GB of DDR4 RAM along with a very low latency SSD, so this should be well on par with the recommended Roon Core specs.Many thanks NVitorino for clarifying the Innuos/Roon relationship (this relationship does not come over very well in some of the posts I have seen in relation to Innuos and Roon on the Roon Community forum!).
The reason I am interested in clarifying this is that I am very strongly thinking of upgrading my existing ZENith mk2 SE to a ZENith NG. I currently use Roon ROCK, on an Intel NUC, because I do occasionally have need to upsample to DSD128 and have some minor DSP operations carried out in Roon (room correction and speaker positioning) but would very much like to have my Roon core/server on the Innuos because I think this would be more sensible and efficient, as I currently hold my library on the ZENith mk2 SE and would also do this on the NG if I went for it. So, before spending a large amount of money (for me) on an NG, I need some confidence that it will do what I want - including running Roon Core/server and it’s upgrades.
As an added point, l do use Innuos Sense, on occasion, and must say that it is a great piece of software, but having invested in a life time Roon membership (before turning to Innuos) so like to make use of it and some of the additional benefits that it brings to the party
I have now had the opportunity to home demo a ZENith NG against my ZENith Mk2 SE. I must say that, to my ears and in my system, the differences were not night and day! The difference is more subtle and is about an increased level of “transparency” - ability to sense more space around instruments and voices, perhaps this is a function of the improvements in the power supplies, but anyway, I have placed an order
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