The reason that the Zen sounds better than CI can have multiple reasons. One is of course the software. Which unix version is used ? How is it optimized for audio ? Does it correctly handle the audio data ?
The other is the hardware itself. Does an active CI board have an impact on the other parts of the amp ? How sensitive is it with an imperfect ethernet signal (I think very sensitive) ?
Fact is the Zen sounds very clearly better, and it is not introducing any sounding (frequency response is the same as with CI).
I guess one reason is the very good signal quality:
https://goldensound.audio/2021/07/22/ifi...surements/
Interesting is that jitter and noise is significally better than with a Mutec MC3-USB. I had 2 of them with a REF10 and was never really satisfied with the results.
btw., I found out how to get USB working with the Roon exclusive mode. You can change the output setting in Roon itself. In the audio settings you can find a link named "Device Info". If you click on that you can again click on "Configure Device".
This opens a webpage where you can select the output mode. Or you add port :3100 to the ip address of the ifi which opens the same configuration page.
This could have been mentioned in the ifi manual somewhere...
The other is the hardware itself. Does an active CI board have an impact on the other parts of the amp ? How sensitive is it with an imperfect ethernet signal (I think very sensitive) ?
Fact is the Zen sounds very clearly better, and it is not introducing any sounding (frequency response is the same as with CI).
I guess one reason is the very good signal quality:
https://goldensound.audio/2021/07/22/ifi...surements/
Interesting is that jitter and noise is significally better than with a Mutec MC3-USB. I had 2 of them with a REF10 and was never really satisfied with the results.
btw., I found out how to get USB working with the Roon exclusive mode. You can change the output setting in Roon itself. In the audio settings you can find a link named "Device Info". If you click on that you can again click on "Configure Device".
This opens a webpage where you can select the output mode. Or you add port :3100 to the ip address of the ifi which opens the same configuration page.
This could have been mentioned in the ifi manual somewhere...
