Innuos Zen MK3 tips and tricks

I have the same streamer.  Setup was very simple. I don't recall anything special, but my memory sucks and that was months ago. 

You can set the ripper to automatically rip a CD when it's inserted, or do it manually.  I let it do it automatically. Pop in a CD and around 5 minutes later, it pops out and it's done. Pretty slick.  Before I got the Innuos, I tried ripping software on a laptop and never got consistent results.

I think you'll like the Innuos and the Sense app. 

No tricks, Innuos products are very straightforward.

lol I know all about that memory thing.  Great thanks 

You can access the LMS configuration here:

https://innuos.com/kb/access-the-internal-logitech-media-server-lms-software-settings/

Note the cautions, and don’t mess with it if you don’t know what you are doing. Some of the config has no effect as far as I can tell. For example, LMS provides support for accessing the Live Music Archive (Deadhead ears perk up), but enabling it does not make it appear as a feature in the Sense app. I wish it did. 

“settings for ripping CDs”
It depends on your priorities. Do you have lot of CD’s to rip? Are you able to discern differences between WAC vs FLAC?

I have upto 16TB of space, so my entire library of CD’s are in WAV. To my ears, WAV files sounds slightly better than FLAC. Even though most people cannot tell a difference between FLAC vs WAV, FLAC is a compressed file and uses more processing power to decompress whereas WAV is technically a perfect copy of the original audio file…zero compression. 

I have only ripped to Apple Music back when I had my iPod (those were the days).  I assume WAC sounds better but takes up more storage space.  I will go with WAC to maximize the sound quality.  Thanks.  

The dealer is setting it up for the Sense app so I won’t mess with it.  Access to more live Dead is tempting though.  Thanks.  

You’ll love it, I love mine and it’s been trouble free since 2020 when I bought it. The sense app is great!

Came to say Sense App is great

Customer support is A+

Congrats 

Hi, Can anybody share there experience how Innuos Zen perform as a streamer to another streamer ?

https://innuos.com/kb/connecting-network-streamers/

Looking forward to using the app. Thanks. 

You should toggle the latency mode for USB, determine which way it sounds better. The factory default is Normal--but I prefer low.

Below is more info on how to make this change.

https://community.innuos.com/threads/tip-of-day-usb-low-latency-setting.108/

Screwing in a lightbulb has a higher degree of difficulty than a Innuos setup. Was definitely designed for Luddites. 

@jayrossi13 Thanks for the tip. I’m running in low latency and no issues, so far. I could swear there is a bit more clarity now. I’m listening to Carolin No - Carolin No and I seem to be hearing more detail. Maybe it’s the coffee.

If you haven’t heard Carolin No, check it out. It’s on Qobuz.

Thanks for the tip on the latency mode.  I will definitely check it out.  Thanks. 

@sls883 thank you for the “low latency mode” tip. Excellent music by Carolin No. 👍

@chemarcelo Gotta give credit to @jayrossi13. The latency setting idea that was posted in the Innuos forum was posted by a co-founder of Innuos, so it's pretty credible.

Carolin No is awesome.  You might also like Angus and Julia Stone. 

I'm also a fan of Riverside and RPWL. Good tunes. 

Anyone know if the sense app will stream 'similar songs' after your playlist is over? I have Roon, which does do that, and currently use Sense. Just miss discovering new music when I had that feature.

Thanks

I hooked up my Zen.  Bought it used for 1/2 price in really good condition from a great local dealer.  Set it to low latency and I’m noticing right away more detail and more separation of instruments in the soundstage.  It’s also incredibly quiet which is noticeable.  So far so good.  

Half price is good! Congrats. 

@bassbuyer When you get your streamer, you should listen to both latency settings.  I think I actually prefer the normal setting in my system. 

Thanks.  What difference do you hear between the normal and low settings?

I spent a good amount of time listening last night and one of the other improvements for me is the Sense app and connectivity compared to BluOs and my Node N130.  Even with a wired Ethernet connection the BluOs would drop the connection from time to time.  I could continue playing what was cued up but it would pop up saying it was unable to find a connection.  Using the same Ethernet cable the Sense app is lightning quick and I haven’t lost connection after hours of use.  Very happy so far and I haven’t even ripped any CDs yet.  It will keep me busy this winter.  Highly recommend if you’re looking for a streamer.  Thanks for all the comments. 

The Innuos has a large buffer. I used to have trouble because my internet tends to drop at times. You can literally unhook the ethernet cable during playback and it keeps playing. 

I need to do more listening with the two buffer settings. I'm breaking in my new dac, so there's that going on as well.  You should try both and see what you like in your system. 

Thanks.  I would be interested in your feedback about any difference with the settings.  I have A/B tested the 2 settings on a few well known tracks and don’t notice any significant difference so far.  

Initially, I felt that there was a bit of additional detail and clarity with the first few songs that I played (on low latency). After extended listening, I felt that the music had lost some fullness. Thinner, I guess.  Some upper frequencies were a bit too sharp for my preference. In my system. My dac, cables, etc. 

I did a lot of listening last night and it sounds great on normal. I've read that some people prefer low latency. 

First of all, congratulations: Innuos products are reliable, with great customer support and sound great!

A small group of my friends and I have been using various Innuos products for years including: Zen mini w LPS power supply, zenith SE and Statement Next Gen. I have actually re-ripped my entire CD collection after an initial import from an Aurender (all originally lossless apple files) re-ripped as WAV files using the Zenith. I also run a separate Roon Nucleus + and have a large NAS and have something like 8 TB of files (flac, WAV, DSD, and many, many high resolution files). We all use QoBuz but I have had Tidal as well in the past. I later re-ripped again all my CDs with Zenith into .flac files due to a great deal of experimenting and comparing. Following are results that all of us share in common:

1. Innuos Sense sounds better than Roon, in any of it’s formats (although Roon is at it’s best when files are upsampled to DSD) whether played direcly into dacs through USB or using Innuos as Roon endpoint. It is not necessarily a huge difference but we all find it to be significant and therefore choose Sense. (I am fortunate as with the Nucleus I can run both platforms and gain all of the user interface benefits of Roon, but I do all serious listening through Sense).

2. On all of our systems, apple files sound slightly inferior to either .wav or .flac files. .aiff is noticeably better than.ALAC.

3. .flac files generally sound slightly better than .wav files. We feel that the Innuos platform is optimized for .flac. Additionally you save about 30% of disc space due to lossless compression. Since I have the NAS with near unlimited storage space, I don’t care about this, however the improvement in .flac sound quality over .wav was significant enough for me to re-rip over 500 CDs!… for the 4th time! Ugh!!!

4.  Files coming in from NAS storage actually slightly outperforms files stored locally on the Innuos. Note that all of us have audiophile level switches and most of us are running separate linear power supplies for NAS and switches and using top of the line ethernet cables to “feed” the Innuos (I am using jcat m12 gold, others are using Nordost QNet with QSource power supplies) so if you don’t have all of these tweaks I don’t know if you will have same experience. It appears that removing the processing power of running the internal hard drives ever so slightly improves the Innuos’ sound.

5.  QoBuz sounds slightly better than same file types on Tidal. This difference is small and not 100% across the board but is consistent enough that most of us discontinued Tidal. Crazy as this sounds generally QoBuz sounds as good and sometimes even better than locally stored (internally or on NAS) stored files. This is not 100% of the time and sometimes even varies on same music.

6.   DSD files almost always sound better than any other format: streamed, Roon, local or otherwise.

In summary, I encourage you to do some comparing yourself but my recommendation would be to save the file space and rip files as lossless .flac for all of Innuos products. Good luck and have fun! I hope you get as much enjoyment out of your Innuos products as I have and I hope this experience is helpful to others.

Thanks for all the information.  Will try and see how it sounds in my system.  

Take time to try isolation under the chassis, I have found that makes a positive difference.  Also, 100% agree with comments about the Sense app sounding better than Roon. 

@koslekt1 +1

SortKones TC or even better Stillpoints make a big difference.

Also, very sensitive to Power Cable

Synergistic Research fuses.  I have Pink.

@bassbuyer If you look at the rear panel of the Zen Mini Mk3 you will see the DC inlet accepts 9-24v.

I have it on good authority that, if everything else were to stay the same, simply turning up the wick to provide a higher DC input voltage will run the circuitry in its sweet spot.

The stock wall wart produces 12v.

The Zen LPSU produces 16v.

Innuos would doubtless argue that a warranty is invalid if you use anything other than one of their PSUs (even a 12v or 16v from another manufacturer) but loads of people do.

I actually run mine with a customised LPSU producing around 21v ie. with around 10% safety margin, though one would imagine the 24v stated on the rear panel also has a margin of error of its own on top of that. It doesn't run physically hot at 21v ! My combo has been on 24/7 for over a year and continues to deilver faultless service and smiles.

This might be for further down the line but I thought I would share a potential upgrade path for you.

Thanks for the recommendations