Innuos Zen MK3 vs Aurender N100
Thinking of celebrating my 50th with an upgrade to my system. Currently, using an old mac mini (so old can't upgrade the OS anymore) to MHDT Atlantis, Melody EL34 amp and Zu Druid V speakers. I have read some great things about the Zen and heard it running through an Ideon Ayazi dac and DeVore speakers which was amazing, sounded like the band was in the room, but have also read that some people are having issues with the Sense app. The aurrender also gets good reviews but concerned, whether this is warranted I am not sure, that its technology is getting a little dated as it was released quite a few years ago. Any thoughts?
I have no experience with Aurender, but I can share my experience with my ZENith Mk3: I use it with Roon, and it works flawlessly. I love Roon, and I think Roon is miles away every other software in the space. Sense works fine, but, having Roon really makes me not use Sense at all. Maybe also because of my familiarity with Roon, having it for about six years now. Sense is nice too, and I am sure it will improve further with time. |
Innuos website does a good job comparing them side by side with easy to understand features: https://innuos.com/zen-mk3-series/ (scroll down a bit on that page). Basically ZEN adds to the Mini built in Dual-Linear PSU with mains filter, and ZENith is another considerable step above the ZEN due to the Triple-Linear PSU with Mundorf Capacitors, but also SSD instead of HDD in the lower two models.
IMHO the sweet spot in the lineup price/value wise is ZEN. I currently own and use in daily basis the ZENITH. I have owned in various times the ZEN and the Statement |
