iFi ZEN Stream – Network Audio Transport Streamer – Inputs: Ethernet/Wi-Fi/USB - Outputs: USB/SPDIF

Product Information

UPNP protocol is another available connection option. In this case I used the mconnect app for iOS. ZS acts here as UPNP Renderer. By the way, this app allows to stream Qobuz to your DAC, just log in the service in the app settings. There’s not much to report sound wise. The ZEN is a network bridge that takes digital audio and offers it up to a DAC of your choice. It shouldn’t impart any sonic character of its own, and it doesn’t. I tried the DLNA exclusive mode to see if I could validate the claims made in preference of using the ZEN in its ‘all-in-one’ mode, but I couldn’t. Even running the ZEN digitally into a Focusrite Clarette+ 8Pre interface, recording the output and comparing it against an original high-resolution PCM audio file, there was absolutely no difference what-so-ever. The Claret is renowned for being extremely flat, with conversion as close to a straight-wire approach as it gets and the equal of digital converters at any price. I don’t have an audio analyser to measure the ZEN Stream, but if I were a betting man I’d say the exclusive modes cannot be objectively validated.

Fi reception are available, as are dedicated audio streamers, many with onboard DACs – these serve the purpose of a Both USB and Coaxial outputs perform with the same quality so it depends on your DAC implementation of which one to choose. The slight harshness I hear from FLAC/computer versus ZS is due to the subtle electronic noise. The main reason I hear the ZS warmer and smoother is because my DAC and amp are warm and smooth. (Pegasus R2R and Cayin HA-3A). So the ZS is doing its job letting the DAC/amp sound at their best, as they should. NAA streaming Select this mode when using the ZEN Stream as a Network Audio Adapter in conjunction with Signalyst HQPlayer software.

All DACs we have tested, delivered a crystal clean sound with excellent transparency, great detail retrieval and without any tonal shifts. HK-870-->HiFiMan He6se v2. (Major boosts in dynamic range, spacial placement within soundstage, and greater resolution.) HEDDPhone One came close and was much easier to achieve it's best as it sounded great just from the Burson Soloist 3x Performance amp. Oddly enough, while listening through the HK-870 gave way more power, it actually took a little away from HEDDPhone's clarity & separation. Probably at first glance it is difficult to evaluate this device without fully understanding what it can do and what functionality it brings. An ingenious part of the ZEN Stream’s design is the ability to select between ‘Exclusive’ modes – individual settings dedicated to specific modes of operation to deliver the purest possible performance. These are some of the factors behind why the ZEN Stream is at the cutting-edge handling PCM384/DSD256 on LAN and WiFi (802.11n, with 100Mbps on 5Ghz).

The ZEN can provide sufficient current to power a single portable hard drive, a USB CD ROM drive or the matching ZEN DAC from its USB ports. It’s also possible to use a powered USB hub to run more than 1 hard drive from the system, or connect up keyboards, mice and other accessories. The music library feature maintains a database of content across connected external drives, connected network shares (all common protocols are supported) and the internal memory. There is no option to change the storage location of the database and it’s unclear how big of a library you’d need before the database filled the remaining space on the ZEN itself. Any DLNA-compatible streaming app – including iFi’s forthcoming Stream-iFi app – can be used to control the ZEN Stream and access audio content from online services and DLNA-certified network storage devices. In comparison to the Pi set up I currently have at home, there are some very positive things to be said about the Stream. The first major benefit is the fact that it is just plug and play, even though RopieeeXL is pretty straightforward to install and use, it does still take time to set up. As far as cost, the Stream is more expensive than the Pi set up, but it is not really that much more expensive when taking everything into consideration. The Pi4 (8G) costs around 80€, a case is around 20€ (depending on what you choose of course), an SD card is another 15€, then the power supply is around 10€, so the total in hardware is around 125€ (depending on your choice of case). We then need to add the time to set it up, which probably takes around 30 mins when you know what you are doing but if it is your first time, you will need to add multiple hours of research before getting it up and running. iFi Audio is calling this WiFi audio transport “Streaming unleashed”, and that’s exactly what it is to me as this little unit is incredibly versatile. The ZEN Stream has one simple goal: to send music in a simple way from the Internet or your local storage to your DAC. And that with no loss of quality.The second important function in my opinion is to manage all your home music content as All-in-One Solution. The exclusive modes system seems to be useful and yield better computing performance but the implementation is not so practical. Disclaimer (Let’s get the legal stuff out of the way): Below are some updates from the Development Team; they are not official announcements or positions from iFi audio whatsoever; some or all of the info below could be subject to change without notification.***** An ingenious part of the ZEN Stream’s design is the ability to select between ‘exclusive modes’ – individual settings that deliver fully optimised performance by focusing operation on one particular mode of use. The following modes are provided: All-in-one, DLNA streaming, NAA streaming, Roon Bridge streaming and Tidal streaming. ZEN STYLING Lotoo Paw Gold ti , Paw Pico , Questyle Qp1r , Ibasso DX208 Mod , DX150 , Sound Device 722 , 702 , Sony Mz1 , PCM D1 , Astell&Kern AK 380 , AK 100 , KANN CUTE , KANN OG , Sony ZX1 , ZX2 , Tascam Dr100 , Apple Ipod classic gen2 , gen3 , gen4 , gen5 , gen6 , gen7

The procedure is that you have to power ON the device with the switch set to AIO and then select the desired mode because if you power ON with the switch left to another position except the AIO, the system will not boot up. I spent most of the time using roon to test the Zen stream. Once your PC is connected to the same network as the streamer, roon will detect the streamer and you only need to go to audio settings and select the dac. Right now the Zen stream is not a roon ready device but IFI promises to add this feature in a future update. Thanks to the DAC chip’s four-channel True Native design, PCM and DSD take separate pathways and remain ‘bit-perfect’ in their direct-native form, right through to analogue conversion. In the case of DSD, there is no conversion to PCM or application of multi-bit processing – this is unusual and makes the NEO Stream an excellent choice for DSD purists.

Scores

I’m not planning to describe in detail the content and menu of the web interface. There should be special guides and tutorials for that. that the Raspberry Pi is complicated to set up and has not been designed and optimised for high-performance audio