Glad to experiment and share my thoughts as soon as I’ll be able. We are all here to share, even if I’m in debt… because I certainly received more than what I’ve brought to this crazy community.
Oh Luca! You’re going to make me buy a PhoenixUSB you wonderful man!
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I saw in your profile you have a ZEN MK 3, so I’m confident this would be a good choice for your system. Lots of videos on the web also report Innuos and Chord synergies, take a look at Innuos demos during several events, they often use Dave and MScaler. This makes me think that also your Hugo will be happy.
What can I say to convince you more? Anyhow as usual, try to listen to it before spending money, if you can.
Hi Luca,
I’m a new user of Innuos ZENith Mk3 + PhoenixUSB to DS DAC (Mk1) and I noticed that when I’m playing back albums I ripped (flack/fast) in the ZENith that the DS DAC shows the incoming signal is 44k / 24bit.
Do you see the same with your system?
I assume that the 24bit is coming from the PhoenixUSB reclocker as the ripping in the ZENith is 16bit.
I haven’t yet confirmed anything about the above by plugging the ZENith directly to the DS DAC, just thought I’d ask a more experienced user.
I’ve just checked the display on the DS DAC. It shows exactly the same rate of the track I have on the server when I’m playing a stored file (not ripped with the ZENith itself though, never ripped one yet). I tried with PCM 44/16 and 96/24, DSD 64 and 128 files. It seems all correct.
Sorry I’m afraid I’m not able to help you.
Hi, I haven’t heard any difference from running roon from a standalone computer, laptop or Intel Nuc.
But the big advantage of the Nuc, for me has been that it is completely silent, doesn’t heat up and I believe is a bit quicker running Roon through Rock, than Roon on a multi-purpose windows based machine.
The surprising upgrade in sound with the Nuc was from bringing in a Cardas ethernet cable upstream between the Nuc and modem (which are a good distance away from the DS1/Bridge2).
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This is my philosophy.
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Thank you, I’ll do some more checking.
My Roon Core is on a QNAP server in a wall behind a bathroom. The data either comes from the internet or a separate Innuos server, and ends up going to the player over a wireless connection. Good luck working out where any noise/jitter comes from.
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The bathroom exhaust fan of course! 
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I’ve got that covered with a dedicated power line to the server cupboard, although used budget Belden 19364 mains lead. Used the same to AV department. The audio gets a better cable, Neotech NEP-4003 UP-OFC Copper Silver plated Mains Cable.
Plus it’s difficult to have a bath and listen to audio at the same time.
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We have a small Tivoli radio in one of the bathroom cabinets. I often stream Roon to it via phone bluetooth. There are days when I am amazed how good it can sound. Maybe it’s the resonance from the cabinet that makes it sound larger.
If you’re happy with the status quo, stick with it. But let me explain my choice.
I went with a NUC running ROCK simply because it turned the installation of an extremely sophisticated piece of software and audio hardware into an appliance. I don’t need to worry about obsolescence based on the underlying operating system or upgrades or incompatibilities getting introduced by some change I’m unaware of because Roon owns the entire experience, and it’s in their best interest to keep it working. If something fails that isn’t hardware-related, I know the exact culprit is Roon Labs. I keep my music on a NAS on the LAN so it can do dual duty servicing my Sonos installation and it’s a little more secure than on the NUC directly.
YMMV.
Mike in Dayton
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Hey Mike, why do you think a NAS is more secure than connecting hard drives (could be a multi bay enclosure) to your NUC? Thanks!
The ROCK installation on the NUC has no password security on it by design. If you’re on the same network, you can mount the internal hard drive with no password and thus add or delete files freely. Note that you do have to be on the network to do so, so you either need physical access to a LAN drop or to be on the WiFi. The NAS requires a login of username and password to mess with files.
The NUC also runs SMB 1 which has been almost entirely deprecated in practice. Even Sonos finally got its act together and now uses at leas SMB 2.
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Note here that I could be entirely wrong. This is just how I noodled things out. I’m not an IT expert; I just am leery of default guest account logins. (I don’t even allow “admin” accounts on any of my stuff anymore)
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“Admin” accounts are the worst of all and the easiest to hack.
I run a QNAP. They come pre-installed and downloading apps like Roon or Miniserver is no more complicated than downloading an app on a phone. They even have an app that allows you to update the software (mainly to keep it secure) without having to log in - all it requires is a couple of clicks from a laptop or phone.
Like a lot of devices, they enable 2-stage authentication. You have an app on your phone that gives you a code that rotates every 60 seconds.
So to run these things very safely all you need to do is add a new username with administration rights, enable 2-stage authentication, download Google Authenticator and scan a QR code. It is also a good idea to disable the “Admin” account.
We all have to use this stuff, on banking apps and elsewhere. Everyone has a modem and how many people still use the default Admin/Password?
Not using these simple and secure tools is a bit like living in a tent because you keep on losing your house keys.
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I have enough security that it isn’t inconvenient. And extensive cloud backup. If someone gets on my network it’s basically game over anyway, so there’s bigger things to worry about. Everything is a risk. I mean, having an open port for ARC use is a risk. But it’s worth the trade off.
Pump up the volume!
Hi @Paul, With all this discussion of how good the DS2 is, compared to the DS1 (congrats @tedsmith!), I’m very keen to hear of developments with the AirLens. Your note in the PS Audio October newsletter suggested the DS2 would be out by the end of the year, but how goes the AirLens?
Do you still see the AirLens coming out after the DS2? Trying to think whether a new DS2 and AirLens combo might be more of a 2023 than a 2022 thing.
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