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Innuos Pulse versus Zenith Mk3

I currently have an Innuos Pulse with a Phoenix USB providing streaming from Qobuz into a Bricasti M1S2. The NAS I have (Synology two bay system) does not come even close to the quality of sound my ancient Marantz 8003 SACD player provides. The Qobuz songs meet of exceed the quality the quality form the Marantz.

How does the Zenith Mk3 compare to the Pulse in regards to streaming? I do not want to take a step backwards regarding the Pulse, but I would like to have access to my CD and SACD music. The Zen NG is way to expensive for me to consider at this time. Would a Bluesound Vault or Zen Mini work better? I am concerned regarding the quality of the data going through the Pulse since the NAS is of lower quality than the SACD player.

I was considering giving up on my CD collection altogether, but just this past week found over a dozen songs that are not on Qobuz that I wanted to listen to and had to resort to using the Marantz. I do not know if the songs are available on another service. I would prefer to just pay for one service (price and convenience). Some of the songs were available a few weeks ago on Qobuz are not now available. They are not available on Amazon HD either.

Any recommendations?

thriftyaudio
zlone
714 posts
 

The format is FLAC. The connection is a Cat 8 ethernet.

Hmm, that has me stumped. Any chance you have downsampling or some other feature enabled on the NAS? Snippet:

How to enable audio downsampling 

  1. Go to Settings then Advanced
  2. Select Enable audio conversion for DLNA devices
  3. Choose the audio formats that are unsupported by your device
  4. Select Downsample audio files for better DLNA compatibility
  5. Click OK

I used to have a Synology NAS, but never had any problems with sound quality, but I know it, and some plugins, can mess with the audio files. The only other thing I can think of is noise on ethernet, but that would affect Qobuz too.

I have the Zenith MkIII, and have my files loaded on it, but frankly never use them anymore. I expect it would be an upgrade from the Pulse, but an expensive one for a handful of tracks.

 

audiotroy's avatar
audiotroy
3,822 posts
 

Op we recommend you another path forward,

we did a shootout of our 432Evo Aeon server at an Innous dealer after AXPONA last year. 

We compared our Aeon server, $7800 to an Innous Statement Next Gen.

and we all felt the Aeon sounded just as good as the 27k Innous Statement.

The Aeon, is one of the most advanced servers on the market:

the Aeon physically and electrically isolates, the cpu from the clock card and USB card,

this design allows for easy upgrades as all three major components are separated from each other including, two outboard Sbooster power supplies which supplies power to electrically isolate the cpu, from the clock and USB cards.

And the Aeon was designed to run Roon as a full Core,

 Evo utilizes a proprietary Operating system designed for low latency, while maximizing Roon’s sound quality by as running Roon in its own core on the CPU, while caching Music on another Core, and running other processes on yet another CPU core.

If the Aeon sounded as good as a Statement, then we are obviously going to outperform a pulse.

Dave and Troy

Audio intellect NJ

432evo dealers former innous dealers

thriftyaudio OP
50 posts
 

@audiotroy Thanks for the information. I have a few friends that have tried Roon over the past couple of years and they have all moved away from it for a variety of reasons. I have no interest in trying Roon myself. The Aeon sounds interesting, but the Sense app with Innuos is truly outstanding.

Best of luck marketing Aeon.

curiousjim's avatar
curiousjim
4,841 posts
 

@thriftyaudio 

That’s the only reason I still have a CDT.  I have many albums with tunes that aren’t on Amazon HD or Qobuz.  And yes I have both.

All the best.

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