If you’ve heard an iFi Zen stream, anything better under $1k?

I have a Cambridge cxnv2.  Works great never crashed. Roon works flawless. Upgraded it with the Modwright tube stage. Really sounds good now. The stock Wolson dac was very good also. Looked into the Magnum Mano, but it's not plug and play. Needs to be set up with a computer. Nice unit.

fuzztone

3,815 posts

02-20-2022 8:24am

The Magnum Mano Ultra is the one to beat under $1K.

@fuzztone Can you find that for under $1k? An interesting option for sure.

vinylvalet

436 posts

02-20-2022 3:44pm

I have several Zen Streams around the house and they worked perfectly out of the box. I have not experienced anything "buggy".

@vinylvalet glad to hear, I might try it again. Mine was super buggy and the retailer I got it from had to take a lot of units back.

@blkwrxwgn I'm guessing you got an early one. Probably took a factory software revision or two to stabilize things. That makes sense since all my units arrived last month and each unit came right up perfectly.

Hoping you find the same if you try again. I think it's a great product and good value. I haven't tried to see if it makes a difference sonically but  those with a little extra cash might want to upgrade to the ifi iPower X or iPower Elite power supply at a later time. Buy these from Amazon and if you don't hear a difference, return them. Swapping out the cheap, stock power supply that came with my Roon Nucleus+ for the iPower Elite was a noticeable and cost effective improvement.

@vinylvalet thats one thing I'm bummed about!  The first few hundred they sold came with the upgraded X power supply!  So now if I want to try it again, I'm going to have to spend the extra money to get that power supply because I think that did make a difference in the sound.

@blkwrxwgn Sorry to hear that, I can imagine the frustration. Best of luck moving forward.