Innuos ZEN Next-Gen music server

By: Alan Sircom [hi-fi+ Issue 240]

The Innuos ZEN has been a cornerstone of the brand’s servers for many years. Now in Mk3 form, this server, which offers 1TB, 2TB, or 4TB of hard disk drive capacity, strikes an ideal balance between performance and economy. The ZENith Mk3 serves as the ‘performance’ option, while the ZENmini Mk3 represents the ‘economy’ entry point into Innuos music serving. Towering above these is the Statement Next-Gen. However, the apple cart was entirely upended at the Munich High End 2024 with the introduction of the new ZEN Next-Gen server.

Let’s quickly address the big and straightforward question: No! The ZEN Next-Gen is not replacing the ZEN Mk3, and the original ZEN line will continue. This question looms large in people’s minds because the base model of the ZEN Next-Gen costs three times as much as the most expensive ZEN Mk3, and adding SSD storage and internal board options can bring the Next-Gen’s price up to over five times that of the Mk3. Hearing of the new ZEN Next-Gen, owners of the original ZEN range are understandably concerned that their next Innuos server could be significantly out of reach, but fortunately, their fears are unfounded.

All Change!

Other than the ZEN name and the fact that both feature a black or silver aluminium chassis, nearly everything has been up for consideration in Innuos’ Next-Gen project. Perhaps the most significant change is the introduction of a new ‘PreciseAudio’ custom mainboard. This Intel Core I3 based four-core (with four virtual cores) board with 16GB of industrial-grade DDR4 RAM has components removed, but it incorporates custom regulators specifically selected to enhance sound quality. Innuos now exercises complete low-level control over the mainboard, allowing it to configure individual clocks and hardware protocols optimised for audio performance. Given that a surprising number of servers are built around an off-the-shelf PC motherboard with ‘minimal’ changes to the components on that board, this alone puts the ZEN Next-Gen into the top tier of dedicated music servers.

The PreciseAudio board has a secondary bonus, but one that significantly improves performance. The Innuos-developed Sense 3 Operating System’s kernel now runs in real time, drastically reducing operating latency. This lets the ZEN Next-Gen allocate specific audio processes to dedicated processor cores. Translating from Modern Geek, this means interruptions are minimised. This is not so much about finding files quicker but rather ensuring audio processing does not get interrupted which adds latency and power noise. Latency is also improved by the use of custom Gallium-Nitride-based regulators Innuos specified for the system. This lowering of latency provides faster power to the processor.