Innuos Zenith ripper/streamer

[ssfas]

So I'm new to all this since Qobuz is now on Roon:

Options seem to be:

1. Innuos ZenMini Mk III +2TB SSD + LPSU                 = £1,448

2. Zen Mk III + 2TB SSD                                            = £1,999

3. Roon Nucleus + power supply + 2TB SSD                 = £2,400

4. Small Green Computer Server + 2TB SSD + SBooster = $1,600   (cheaper to import even with VAT/duty)

????

I bought a SonicTransporter with 1GB SSD from Small Green Computer a year or two ago and have always been very pleased with this. I bought a cheapish PSU from MCRU to go with it, not that I'm sure it ever made much of a difference but it was inexpensive. My ST sits in my study next to a switch, and then it's 20M of Cat7 to my listening room switch. It feeds off a completely separate electrical circuit.

I have been considering going to the latest i5 or even i7 which would give me more DSP options, but what I have now works great. 

Guillaume

I looked at the ST carefully, but spoke to Innuos and have chosen to go with the Zen Mk 3. It has a much better interface, two internal linear power supplies, everything is focused on low noise, in particular an ethernet output that goes direct to the Devialet Expert Pro input. It does not have to go via an access point/switch at all. It has enough processing capacity, but not overkill, so will be running at the lowest reasonable level so the lowest noise level as well. 
Their view is that things like upsampling to levels like DSD256 generates heat and noise and probably creates more problems that it solves.  
The ST with 2TB SSD and an external SBooster LPSU was listed as only 10% cheaper. In fact it was cheaper to import it to the UK from the USA.

An i7 can probably stream to 8 locations while downloading at the same time. I would rarely have more than one going at any time.

The access point is fed by a 25m CAT5e (I think) cable from the modem.