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?

128x128jkontuly

Former Innous dealer and aurrender dealer we thought the inous sounded better then the Aurender, and roon is amazing.

 

We found an even better lime of servers then Innous which we now import.

432evoservers out of Belgium.

 

The 432evoservers are upgradable and are a fully modular design so

AS even better parts come out the servers can be improved this also means a client can purchase our 3500 starter standard model which can be upgraded at any time to a higher end model.

THIS IS A HUGE FACTOR as we Were frustrated with having to always take back an Iower end Innous model when the client wanted to get improved sound.

Mayjune the absolure sound page138

 

Andrew quint " the432evo Aeon is the best sounding server I have heard."

 

Dave and Troy

AUDIO INTELLECT NJ

US. importer 432EVO music servers

 

 

 

 

 

I can give you my 2 cents on Sense but have no experience with Aurender. For clarity I will tell you I have a Zenith Mk3 which is their midrange server/streamer. For the first 5-6 months I used it with the Orange Squeeze app which offers very basic player functions and it was a bit of a drag. I then tried and fell in love with Roon which was (and is) awesome but it is subscription based. In my setup I ran the core on the Zenith and it was rock solid but I did notice a degradation in sound if I tried to use any of the DSP functions. I used Roon for just under a year when Sense was introduced. I waited for 5-6 weeks before loading and trying Sense and though it was a step back functionally from Roon, it sounded better. I fortunately did not run into many of the glitches I have seen others deal with and Innuos has made steady improvements with features and stability. IMO Sense is very solid and sounds great. It is not Roon but what else is? I think Innuos is continuing to evolve Sense and overall they do a good job with support. They are based in Europe so if something comes up it can take some extra time to sync up with them but based on discussions I have seen they seem very responsive. Overall I am very pleased with their product.

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.