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Factory upgrading my Innuos Zen to Zenith

L

leroyd

pfm Member
I have had my Innuos Zen mk3 for 3 years now and I am very happy with it. Hundreds of cd's have been ripped onto its hard drive, together with it operating as a Tidal streamer. The Sense app is terrific and allows me to control everything from my phone, whilst sitting on my listening chair, Yes I have a TT and love my vinyl, but the convenience of the Zen means the TT is being used less and less.
So like us all, the upgrade bug has hit and I was considering having my Zen upgraded by Innuos to a Zenith. I was a tad surprised at the cost being just over €2000, which includes shipping both ways. I consider it to be very expensive and it has put a halt to my gallop.
I do not have the option of hearing both the Zen and the Zenith. Opinions please.
 
Kirk said:
Can you find a s/h Zenith 3 for less than 2K euros?
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No. On the more established hifi/auction sites you are looking at around €2800. I would tread cautiously at anything advertised at €2k or below, unless it was on an established site and paypal was a payment option
 
Melco apparently charge over £1000 just to swap a hard drive that’s a half an hour job at most, excluding transferring the music back on.
 
kensalriser said:
Astonishing how often you hear 'I'm really happy with my system but just listening to music doesn't satisfy my irresistible urge to spend more money'.
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If you have never experienced this, then count yourself as one of the lucky ones.Then again, I mostly buy used, open box, or items on blow out sales and have got myself some tremendous deals over the years. Its part of the fun.
 
Not sure how the OP uses his Zenmini, as a stand alone unit or with an exteenal dac, but if upgrading to Zenith status wouldn’t you also need to factor in the cost of a new dac?
 
vacuum_tubes said:
Love the Innuos interface and software but IMHO the whole upgrade thing is just rubbish (beyond increasing storage)
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Having upgraded through their Zen Mini, to a Zen, a Zenith and then a Statement I might raise a slight eyebrow of astonishment at your assertion there. I found them all to have quite a clear delta of sound quality uplift with each change.
 
DonMarks said:
Not sure how the OP uses his Zenmini, as a stand alone unit or with an exteenal dac, but if upgrading to Zenith status wouldn’t you also need to factor in the cost of a new dac?
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I don't have a Zen Mini I am referring to a Zen mk3 that I own;, which like the Zenith, requires a separate DAC.
 
leroyd said:
I don't have a Zen Mini I am referring to a Zen mk3 that I own;, which like the Zenith, requires a separate DAC.
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I was unsure of how much advantage there would be by upgrading a Mk3 Zen to a Mk3 Zenith because after all, the mother board is exactly the same and the only circuit change is the power supply which gets a big upgrade and has more discrete voltage rails. Of course the Zenith also gets a SSD as opposed to the HDD in the Zen but I’m not sure how much difference that makes (But I took the opportunity to get a bigger 4TB SSD fitted when the upgrade was done compared to the original 1TB HDD).

In the end I was able to compare a Zen 3 and Zenith 3 side by side and all I can say is that I think it is a very worthwhile upgrade. Later I added a PhoenixUSB and that took the Zenith mk3 quite a bit along the way towards Statement territory.

I don’t know where you live but if you are close enough you are more than welcome to bring your Zen Mk3 and compare to my Zenith Mk3.
 
Fourlegs said:
Having upgraded through their Zen Mini, to a Zen, a Zenith and then a Statement I might raise a slight eyebrow of astonishment at your assertion there. I found them all to have quite a clear delta of sound quality uplift with each change.
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It's a streamer/transport so I wouldn't expect it to have sound differences unless the manufacturer was deliberately hobbling their products to create an upgrade path.

I went from a Zen Mini mk3 to a Zen mk3 and found no improvement beyond the Zen having more storage.
 
leroyd said:
No. On the more established hifi/auction sites you are looking at around €2800. I would tread cautiously at anything advertised at €2k or below, unless it was on an established site and paypal was a payment option
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The best option then is to send your unit to be upgraded; however, I would suggest listening to both units first to see if the delta in SQ is worth 2K. In the meantime, here's a nice video about the new Innuos factory to keep you occupied while you mull over your options :).

 
Fourlegs said:
I was unsure of how much advantage there would be by upgrading a Mk3 Zen to a Mk3 Zenith because after all, the mother board is exactly the same and the only circuit change is the power supply which gets a big upgrade and has more discrete voltage rails. Of course the Zenith also gets a SSD as opposed to the HDD in the Zen but I’m not sure how much difference that makes (But I took the opportunity to get a bigger 4TB SSD fitted when the upgrade was done compared to the original 1TB HDD).

In the end I was able to compare a Zen 3 and Zenith 3 side by side and all I can say is that I think it is a very worthwhile upgrade. Later I added a PhoenixUSB and that took the Zenith mk3 quite a bit along the way towards Statement territory.

I don’t know where you live but if you are close enough you are more than welcome to bring your Zen Mk3 and compare to my Zenith Mk3.
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That is a very kind offer, but I live in a remote part of the west of Ireland, so unable to take it up. Many thanks.
 
Kirk said:
The best option then is to send your unit to be upgraded; however, I would suggest listening to both units first to see if the delta in SQ is worth 2K. In the meantime, here's a nice video about the new Innuos factory to keep you occupied while you mull over your options :).

Click to expand...
Thank you. Looking forward to watching this tonight
 
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