[naum]

I have an unusual question.
I tried ZS with a hand-made dac (Lampucera 1.0,TDA1541 with tube stage), of course connected with spdif.
The big disadvantage of this pair is that the dac reproduces noise whenever it is not receiving a signal from the streamer, ie. whenever a song is not playing, or when a song is paused. This does not happen with other streamers we tried (pi2eas mercury, m2tech 2 evo..). This is probably because ZS, when not in playback mode, sends no signal at all, while other streamers probably send a string of zeros.

Is it possible to somehow solve this with ZS?
Also, does the same thing happen with the neo stream?

I hope someone from the development team has an answer.
Thanks.

 

[fordski]

@Mr BubbaHyde Thank you for the great detailed and thorough review of the Neo Stream! I'm especially looking forward to your impressions of the Neo Stream DAC vs. the RME ADI-2 (which I believe you still own) and also comparisons between the Neo Stream and the Zen Stream using Roon. Your reviews may be damaging to my wallet!

 

[Mau10]

Qobuz, Mconnect, and the NEO Stream…Part 4


Streaming Qobuz as of this writing is best done with third-party software, as far as I know, this is the only way to obtain Hi-Rez from this service. This is because at this point, (and still) there is no Qobuz “Connect” service/app/program available. (Insert SMH Emoji)....Come on Qobuz, Really?



This in my opinion is sad. Qobuz is my favorite streaming service, and, after years of having and comparing the others, I felt they had the best sound, and a simple prospect, if Hi-Rez was available for a recording, Qobuz simply gave you the most common Hi-Rez format, FLAC for streaming. No special equipment or conversion is needed for the Highest quality listening.

With that being said I have used a very simple program in the past for Streaming Qobuz if no direct DAC Connection was available, This app is called Mconnect, and for this portion of the NEO review, this is what will be used.




Using AIO mode on the NEO is a simple process. Go into the “Play To” section/Tab of Mconnect, and Choose iFi or iFi Streamer, and you are done!

During my two days or so of straight Qobuz/Mconnect use I did encounter some issues, but none of these were sound quality related. The glitches directly related to the NEO were simply an album art issue on the display of the NEO. There were 5-10 times over those two days where either no album artwork was displayed on the NEO or Incorrect AA was on the screen.



Other than these minor glitches, and in all honesty, if I hadn’t been looking at it, I may not have known it had happened. I did not experience any losses of streaming or dropouts/skipping/glitching of music while I was using Qobuz w/ Mc. I do know that there have been these issues in the past with the Mconnect app from my time with the Zen Stream, and reports from others regarding it.

One note for me to have gapless playback with the NEO both gapless options in the Mconnect menu has to be selected, as I remember it I only needed one activated with the ZS, at least that is my recollection.



The sound from the NEO using this method was very, very good, and I continue to be very impressed with what the internal DAC is doing here. As a refresher, if you haven’t followed these posts from the beginning the setup is simple. RJ45 into the ethernet jack on the back, 4.4 mm Balanced out, to the XLR in of the Drop THX, and that’s all.



All in all, Qobuz is, in my opinion, one of, if not the best Hi-Rez options out there, it runs about 12 bucks a month, and the "Sound Quality" offering comes out on top of others without costing twice as much. To be honest, there is not a ton of things to discuss about Qobuz and Mconnect, or for that matter the NEO in this area. It is a very simple straightforward endeavor. The NEO sounded fantastic, the functionality was fine, and I enjoyed everything I listened to.

I remind everyone I am still in the "basics" part of my time with the NEO Stream, but we are nearing the end of this, and will move into External DACs, Higher end connections, and all the other goodies!


I have now come to my personal favorite option/feature of the NEO Stream and that is…

Up next, Roon Ready…



Cheers!!

Kudos! very nice review @Mr BubbaHyde. Looking forward to your impressions with Roon. I find this info very useful, I had no idea of how to stream Qobuz without Roon.

 

[Mau10]

This is my battery level after at least 9 hours of using the Neo Stream...safe to say it barely uses any power.

Have you had the chance to compare the included iPowerx vs your battery in the NEO? I am very curious about how much of a difference it can be. If so can you describe it. Are you using the wallwart for your optibox, or something else?

tx

 

[iFi audio]

A sneaky peak inside iFi HQ and what makes us tick.

Back in the middle of the heatwave here in the UK, we invited the guys from Soundstage! Canada across to see the UK HQ in action (and for fish and chips too, of course).

It’s pretty much the first time we’ve done anything like this so we so weren’t sure what to expect or how it would turn out! All in all, it was great fun and a pleasure to do. Vince and Miles have become YouTube stars and we couldn’t have had a better time with Doug and his team. A huge thank you to them for spending the time with us.

We loved it. And we hope you do too.

 

[Mr BubbaHyde]

@Mr BubbaHyde Thank you for the great detailed and thorough review of the Neo Stream! I'm especially looking forward to your impressions of the Neo Stream DAC vs. the RME ADI-2 (which I believe you still own) and also comparisons between the Neo Stream and the Zen Stream using Roon. Your reviews may be damaging to my wallet!

As it stands right now I'm hoping to hit the RME and others like the Denafrips late next week, yes I have a game plan!

I had a small bump in the road last night as I got distracted by the inticing glow of old ass tubes with the DV 336SE but I'm back on track today, couldn't be helped! Lol

Thank you very much and...

Cheers!!

 

[OuYang]

Having NS for two weeks, most thing works well. The only one I missed is I can't do DoP through S/PDIF and I2S using USB storage or Roon. Only external USB DAC support DoP, most USB DACs can accept Native DSD but DoP is the only way for S/PDIF to transfer DSD.

 

[panoptikon]

My impression is that this NEO is first and foremost a quality streamer that also includes a DAC-section that is competetive in the €300-400 range. I think someone wrote that it gives the impressions of a Zen Signature and that may well be true. Adding the DAC-section probably wasn’t a major cost driver due to iFi’s Burr Brown stock and previous digital implementations in the NEO chassis

I have a new setup of electronics and the only thing I can directly compare the NEO’s analogue output to in my stereo setup is the Audio Analogue AAdac (roughly €4000). This comparison is unfair to start with and at the couple of occasions I got to it, I stoped after a few minutes as listening became more constrained due to a more compressed sound and a less forgiving treble region. The most relevant point to be made from this is that NEO, as a streamer, scales well with better partnering electronics if you have an ambitious system on the amp/speaker/headphone side.

 

[Mr BubbaHyde]

Having NS for two weeks, most thing works well. The only one I missed is I can't do DoP through S/PDIF and I2S using USB storage or Roon. Only external USB DAC support DoP, most USB DACs can accept Native DSD but DoP is the only way for S/PDIF to transfer DSD.

I think you may have found a glitch that @iFi audio needs to take a look at. I am going to post some screenshots with a brief explanation hopefully, this can be fixed via firmware update.

When first bringing up the Roon Ready configuration screen from Roon this is what we see after changing to "digital output"...

After selecting it is there...

But after hitting the save button...

It defaults to DSD Native, and if you select the DSD/DOP option again it is not there...

So this is something that needs to be looked at...

Perhaps there is a new way of doing this with the NEO.

Good find!

Cheers!!

 

[Rowan94]

I finally got my Pi2AES HDMI I2S to work and it is outputting the correct Left/Right channels on my Wavedream, which clearly points at the NEO Stream being the problem.

We implemented I2S in a way that covers the majority of I2S-capable DACs out there. As I2S is a non-standarised interface, it's only natural that the NEO Stream won't work with some DACs with such inputs.

However, we're internally working on how to provide utilities that would allow users to reconfigure I2S in their NEO Stream devices. If this is possible, we will make it happen.

 

[Clemmaster]

We implemented I2S in a way that covers the majority of I2S-capable DACs out there. As I2S is a non-standarised interface, it's only natural that the NEO Stream won't work with some DACs with such inputs.

However, we're internally working on how to provide utilities that would allow users to reconfigure I2S in their NEO Stream devices. If this is possible, we will make it happen.

The ou out seems to be PS Audio’s, which the Wavedream also supports.
But having the channels inverted might hint at a switched polarity on the LR clock?
The Pi2AES, which is also PS Audio pinout does not have the channels inverted.

 

[Mr BubbaHyde]

The ou out seems to be PS Audio’s, which the Wavedream also supports.
But having the channels inverted might hint at a switched polarity on the LR clock?
The Pi2AES, which is also PS Audio pinout does not have the channels inverted.

This is the one reasons I sort of stepped away from I2S as a priority in Units I was looking at, that, and at the time being continually told there is no difference between it and USB, even though I perceived a difference.

I also had the Pi2AES and remeber having a channel issue with the Gustard X16 I had at the time, but that was easy enough to just swap the channel outputs, not as easily done when your using the DAC for multiple inputs, and this happened once I got a CD transport, so I had to look for other options.

Fortunately I ended up getting into DDCs and the Singxer I have had for awhile has dip switches to adjust for this.

But it is an annoying issue, hopefully it gets some type of solution.

Cheers!!

 

[cglin222]

I just got my NS, setting it up in wifi, just wondering, how do you disable wifi when I need to use the ethernet? or when I plug in ethernet, it will auto use ethernet rather than wifi? Because I don't see in settings where I can disable wifi or forget the wifi network
Thanks

 

[Mau10]

I just got my NS, setting it up in wifi, just wondering, how do you disable wifi when I need to use the ethernet? or when I plug in ethernet, it will auto use ethernet rather than wifi? Because I don't see in settings where I can disable wifi or forget the wifi network
Thanks

In ifi.local go to: settings>network> and you will see options for Wifi and wired internet. If you want to use only the ethernet, you can turn off wifi there.

EDIT *Remember to turn your advanced options to ON first: settings>system>show advanced settings> full settings mode

 

[cglin222]

In ifi.local go to: settings>network> and you will see options for Wifi and wired internet. If you want to use only the ethernet, you can turn off wifi there.

EDIT *Remember to turn your advanced options to ON first: settings>system>show advanced settings> full settings mode

ah, i see, changing it to advance setting, then I see it.. thanks