Innous zen mini mk2 review

[twotone]

There was an ex dem 1TB one on eBay at the weekend for £450 but the version 3 is out now so people must be upgrading.

[ianlenco]

That might have been the one I bought although it was £499 ex dem. I'd been thinking about a Zen for a while and when someone mentioned they'd replaced a mac mini with Audivarna (my set up) and got good results I decided to pull the plug. It should be arriving in the next half hour so I will know soon if it was money well spent.

[Jimbo]

Here were my impressions of the Zen mini Ian, I reviewed it along with Audirvana on Macbook Pro using Qutest DAC

https://theartofsound.net/forum/show...t=chord+qutest

[ianlenco]

Thanks for the link James, I'm looking forward to trying mine which won't be long as it arrived shortly after I posted. I've been very impressed with the mac mini which is set up just to be a music server and has 8gb ram and an SSD holding the music files. I recently added a Eastern Electric Minimax DAC and the Mac mini was good enough to let me hear the opamp upgrade to Bursons I did on the Minimax.
Some of the reasons for going to the Zen are convenience - easy ripping rather than pluggin in a CD drive, attaching remotely to the mini etc. I used to have a Vorexbox and this was so much more convenient than the mini. Also I missed internet radio with Audivarna. You've attributed the analogue sound to your DAC which is fair enough and I would say that the mini + minmax has similar qualities. There used to be quite a gulf between my vinyl set up and the digital but it's a lot closer now. Nearly finished transferring files and iPeng is waiting on the iPad so should know soon if that gaps even smaller

[twotone]

That might have been the one I bought although it was £499 ex dem. I'd been thinking about a Zen for a while and when someone mentioned they'd replaced a mac mini with Audivarna (my set up) and got good results I decided to pull the plug. It should be arriving in the next half hour so I will know soon if it was money well spent.

Aye I think it was £499 thinking about now Ian, there was one on AV forums recently for £350 the 2TB version.

I am thinking about buying one too, I was amazed at Tony saying he'd already ripped 400 CDs which is pretty quick.

[Jimbo]

Thanks for the link James, I'm looking forward to trying mine which won't be long as it arrived shortly after I posted. I've been very impressed with the mac mini which is set up just to be a music server and has 8gb ram and an SSD holding the music files. I recently added a Eastern Electric Minimax DAC and the Mac mini was good enough to let me hear the opamp upgrade to Bursons I did on the Minimax.
Some of the reasons for going to the Zen are convenience - easy ripping rather than pluggin in a CD drive, attaching remotely to the mini etc. I used to have a Vorexbox and this was so much more convenient than the mini. Also I missed internet radio with Audivarna. You've attributed the analogue sound to your DAC which is fair enough and I would say that the mini + minmax has similar qualities. There used to be quite a gulf between my vinyl set up and the digital but it's a lot closer now. Nearly finished transferring files and iPeng is waiting on the iPad so should know soon if that gaps even smaller

Ipeng works a treat and is so cheap, I was pretty impressed with it. Hope you enjoy the Zen!

[ianlenco]

Fortunately I just had to transfer 450 files from the mac mini to the Zen. Took a while as it's a two stage process and some of the albums seemed to get duplicated but easy enough to sort out the "quarantined" stuff.

I've had a chance to listen to a few favourite test tracks and, well, mmmmm, I didn't realise my speakers could go deeper than what I had previously heard. Very low bass is both stronger and deeper. Crazy! It's looking promising though I'm going to have to get my head round iPeng as it's not as intuitive as Audivarna.

[Jimbo]

Funny you should pick up on the bass as this was something I noticed. There is a real dynamic power and drive in the bottom end.

[Frazeur1]

Nothing like a good bottom end! I agree. It was also one thing I noted when I played my Telemann DAC for the first week or so, seemed the bass end was improved a bit. With both, I am well pleased.

[wee tee cee]

For me it was an improvement in frequency extremes...bass and treble.

I reckon, now having got a few hours on it the zen sounds even sweeter- the resolution is just breath taking.