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?

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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.

I have been very happy with the Innuos Zen Mk3 and the Sense app. I have not experienced any problems with Sense, although a few users reported early problems that have been resolved. I do not have any experience with Aurender, and I do not use Roon. 

Overall, I agree with chilehed's comment that "Sense is very solid and sounds great."

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences, very helpful. I guess the one question which I should have asked is will I hear a noticeable improvement going from my Mac mini to the innuos. I assume the answer is yes otherwise why bother. 

I have had both in my system and the Innuos Zen Mk 3 is on a whole other level better than the N100 in every sonic metric.

If you can, try to compare both in your system before deciding as with any new component in the chain, it is all system-dependent.

As for the Sense app, it is wonderful with no issues to date. It is a lot more integrated than the Aurender app.

One big feature in favor of the Zen Mk 3 is that it has a CD slot to convert your music to flac or wav files. But in the end as always, its SQ is way superior to the Aurender's.