 In June 2019 I reviewed the Invis Zen MK3 music server and was rather charmed by it. The Zenith MK3, on review here, is the high spec version of the Zen. And like the Zen MK3, it can work with Squeezebox Sonos, UPMP as a Roon endpoint and even as a Roon server. A music server in essence is nothing more than a computer running specific software that catalogues the music and in many cases controls what music is sent to what renderer. Renderer is the term used for a device that plays out the music. The renderer can be integrated in the computer and can output analog audio through its integrated sound card. This normally gives the lowest sound quality. Connecting an external sound card, digital to analog converter in audio speak, already gives improvements in sound quality. But a computer is a box with loads of high frequency electronic noise that pollutes even digital audio signals. There are many ways this can be improved and that's exactly what was done in the Zen MK3 and further improved in the Zenith MK3. But let's first see how the Zenith MK3 fits in a stereo setup. Being a server might give you the idea to put it away in the study or attic. But this server is fully passively cooled and produces no mechanical noise for it lacks fans and hard disks. Instead of a hard disk it uses an SSD drive. So there is no reason not to place it near your stereo. It needs to be connected to a digital to analog converter, DAC for short, that in turn is connected to an amp driving speaker. It also needs to be connected to your home network and thus to your wifi router. This is needed for connecting an ipad of iphone to control what music is played. The network connection also provides access to the internet which is used for streaming services like Tidal, Coboose and Spotify or internet radio. It is also used for collecting metadata when ripping CDs. You can of course also play music from a shared volume on your computer or NAS. But if you already have a streamer and want to use the Zenith as a server only, you can use a second cleaned up network output on the Zenith to connect to your streamer too. Your home network is connected to the other ethernet connector. Of course you can still play music from a share. The third way of setting up is to activate the Roon Core server, which can easily be done on the Zenith but you do need a subscription from Roon too. Then you use Roon to select music and this works not only in this setup over the clean ethernet port but also in the first setup I mentioned with the DAC connected to the special USB port on the Zenith. The Zenith MK3 is elegantly shaped and measures 420 x 370 x 70 mm and weighs a hefty 9 kilos. The three feet on the bottom each have three balls of damping material and are positioned so they dampen vibrations effectively. The front holds only the power button, power light and the slot loading drive. On the rear we find the ISC mains entry plus fuse, the power switch, an HDMI connector for service purposes only, a USB A for storage media, a USB A to connect to a DAC, a local area network connector and an audio optimized network connector to feed to a streamer or network bridge. Like the Zen MK3 the top plate of the housing has been treated on the inside with damping compound again to avoid vibrations. Inside we find the same motherboard as the Zen MK3, no difference there. But the power supply clearly differs which is visible here. The Zenith has a three fold power supply while the Zen has a two fold power supply. Furthermore the Zenit uses superior Mundov capacitors instead of Niche commutes capacitors. The difference is also visible when you look at the number of wires running from the power supply board to the motherboard. Another difference is visible, or actually not visible, below the TIAC optical drive. In the Zen on the right you can see a part of the 3.5 inch hard disk. On the Zenith you see nothing at that spot since it has an SSD mounted standard which is smaller and obscured by the optical drive. So technically the Zenith MK3 is a Zen MK3 with a clearly refined power supply scheme with better components in it while storage is SSD instead of a spinning drive. So it will be interesting to see later on what these changes bring to the sound quality. The standard operating system is in UOS which is Linux based and uses Logitech Media server as base for the music cataloging and playing. The in UOS HTML user interface looks a lot better making it clearly more accessible. You access the interface by starting up an internet browser on your computer tablet or smartphone, type my.inuos.com and select the Zenith. Go to the music library and you can choose between listings of artists, albums and genres. The in UOS HTML interface is also needed for disk ripping, import of music files, backup settings, system information and other settings. When you start a ripper you are asked to insert a CD. Then the matching metadata is searched for in 3DB, Musicbrains, Discos and GD3. When found the ripping automatically starts. In this case the right metadata is found but not the album art. This can easily be corrected in the music library. Go to the album, click change cover and choose one of the options. If the web doesn't have the album art you can scan or photograph the cover and add it. Ripping is done in either wave or flag. In UOS seems to favor flag in the documentation and I fully agree. The metadata is far more comprehensive and unpacking flag on this machine is effortless. I hear no difference between wave and flag which would have been the only reason to use wave. Importing music from a USB drive or network share on your computer or NAS happens with a lot of care. Before copying all files are checked for false and unwanted filenames, for instance names that start with a space. More popular PCM and DSD file formats are supported, including Lossy MP3 and AAC. If you don't have a DSD capable DAC, the Zen can convert DSD to PCM. Automatic backup to a USB drive or NAS is also provided. Subscriptions to streaming services, Tidal, Spotify or Cublis are set here. If you already use streaming equipment it might be good to know that the Zen can work with Sonos and UMP equipment too. For day to day use an app on a tablet or smartphone is used and since InUOS is based on the Logitech media server, LMS for short and the server for the Squeezebox streamers, there are many apps around. I've used Squeezepad and iPeng with the InUOS and both work flawlessly. I do prefer iPeng since it offers more options. Another advantage of LMS is that it offers plugins, confusingly also called apps and that add features to LMS. This way Cublis, Spotify and Tidal were added. Using iPeng I could also add the BBC iPlayer and several internet radio apps. Squeezepad costs €549 and iPeng €999. Search for Squeezebox controlling your app store and you might find other options. Another advantage of using LMS. The Zenit MK3 can function as a Roon endpoint as can many other players. You then need to have a Roon Core running elsewhere on a computer. Watch my Roon Ready is not Roon video. The internal SSD drive of the Zenit can also be used to store music files for an external Roon Core. But tick a box in the same menu and it becomes a Roon Core server and player. Zenit only takes a short while and doesn't need any other interference from the user apart from setting info on where the music is stored and when appropriate what streaming services you are subscribed to. You do need to subscribe to Roon or buy the lifetime subscription like you would need for every device running Roon Core. The hardware is fast enough for thousands of albums. I tested with about 3000 albums varying from CDs to DSDs and anything in between. The Zenit MK3 can handle any popular audio format in PCM for 44.1 to 384 kHz sampling frequency and 16 to 32 bit depth. It does DSD over PCM, DOP, up to DSD128 and native DSD up to DSD512. The clean USB port for the DAC works according USB Audio Class 2 and thus will work with any modern DAC. The standard storage is a 1 TB SSD, optionally 2 or 4 TB can be ordered. The processor used, the Pentium N4200 quad core is almost as fast as the Intel i3 but runs cooler. That means that only when you want to heavily process a DSD, like up-sampling to DSD256, you might run short of computing power. There is 8 GB of DDR3 RAM, of which 4 GB is used for RAM playback. As with the Zen MK3 test I use my setup 1, see the link below this video in YouTube. Sound quality is where the extra investment in power supply in SSD must prove itself. And it does, completely. It outperforms the SOtM-SMS-200 Ultra Neo powered by the Syntax power supply where the Zen MK3 was about equal. It's not as good as the Aurelic Aries G2 I reviewed last week, but it's closer to it than it is to the SMS-200 Ultra Neo. Compared to the Aries G2 the stereo image is almost equal, as is the resolution in general. It misses the magic voice reproduction of the Aries G2. That's quite acceptable given the more than €1000 price difference. People that visited my place when the Zenit MK3 was playing were rather surprised this level of music reproduction was possible at all. The influence on any stereo setup north of €4000 will get an enormous update using the Zenit MK3. I noticed this when my heavily tweaked audio note Sorro single ended tube amp was temporarily replaced by an advanced Paris XI 125 solid state amp. I used it in high bias mode and the difference between the SMS-200 Ultra Neo and the Zenit was very clear. It keeps surprising me what to what degree sound quality can be improved by taking more care when sending a digital signal over USB to a DAC. And the Zenit MK3 does a damn good job doing just that. The Zen MK3 and the Zenit MK3 look even more alike than a BMW 318 and 325. The difference in performance is clear though, in both cases. Of course the Zen MK3 shares the same housing with all the measures against vibrations and even the motherboard is identical. The influence of the power supply topology is enormous and there lies the biggest difference. By using triple power supply you prevent one circuit to influence the other. If the SSD is red you don't want a USB driver to have a voltage dip. And you don't want the high frequency noise generated by the processing to leak into the USB port driving the DAC. You want the power supply to be able to deliver instant power so you want audio grade capacitors there. Quality capacitors that are rather expensive compared to regular components. Those measures raised the price from € 2,099 for the Zen MK3 to € 3,399 for the Zenit MK3, both the 1TB storage version. But it raises the sound quality from the level of the SOtMSM S200 Ultra Neo to not far from the Auralic Aries G2. Both models offer a lot of flexibility. If you are happy with the widely appreciated Logitech Media Server you get a complete package that RIPCD does the indexing of your music and plays it out over high quality USB. In that they don't differ. They do differ in the sound quality and the price and that's entirely your choice to make. Speaking of choices you can alternatively switch to use the Roon Core software, get yourself a Roon subscription and have a one box solution for about the price of a Roon Nucleus Server plus the SMS 200 Ultra Neo network bridge including power supply. And that brings us to the end of this video. There will be another video next Friday as always at 5pm CET. If you don't want to miss that, subscribe to this channel or follow me on the social media so you will be informed when new videos are out. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up. Many thanks to all that support this channel financially. It keeps me independent and thus trustworthy. If you also feel like supporting my work, the links are in the comments below this video and YouTube. I am Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com And whatever you do, enjoy the music.