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

@soix

i have both here but have not had the time (nor motivation recently) to carefully set up a comparison... i was planning to a few months back but then started messing with roon and sonore opticalrendu and related power supplies

i did not feel it fair to compare the node 3 stock vs the zs with the nice lps i am using, as i don’t have a way to use a better ps to drive the node - as i said earlier the zs definitely sounds more relaxed more natural with a nice 12v lps driving it

will come back to this sometime in the next little while

I have the newest Node with LPS and external Dac too. Surprising to read about loose bass and high noise floor.  My system easily shows faults like those.  Not present.

has anyone compared the Node 2i after the PD Creative psu mod to that of the Zen Stream?  both measurements can be found on the PD website and on the GoldenSound website.  

my take, my understanding (second hand from reading/thinking, not from my own ears as i have never had a node w lps upgrade) is that the power supply mod addresses only one aspect of the node’s (necessary) cost engineering, which is the cheap and noisy internal smps

the node also has a fairly inexpensive analog driver stage, rudimentary digital noise management, timing clock and dac chip - these are not addressed by the polish lps mod

the zen stream is a different animal - there is no dac inside, it just streams, built for that express purpose, it has a better clock, better noise management in several aspects (ifi is expert at this, galvanic isolation, active noise cancellation and so on) ... i would think within its specified purpose the zen (also powered by a similar grade lps) should still handily outperform the node with lps as streamer

@blkwrxwgn 

I’d try a pre-owned Auralic Aries. They can be had in the $600-$800 range.