Like I said earlier, I totally agree with the comments related to comparing Node with Zenith. It should have been done with a proper USB cable, unfortunately the distributor in this case didn’t have anything else to give me and I don’t own any USB cables yet myself.
I have Chord Anthem coax cable for Node and I tried to get loaner for Chord Signature or SarumT USB cable for Zenith, but at the moment these are not in stock with the vendors I’m working with.
The most suprising thing with the Zenith was the DSD sound quality, which was just really bad. I have no way of testing is the problem Accuphases dac or Zenith, but through the Node (coax) the same files sound very good. Still it might be dac’s USB connection causing the trouble.
It would have been ideal to test Zenith with the same coax cable I use with my Node, but unfortunately only USB output available in Zenith. The reason for the test was that I know my streamer (Node) is not on par with the rest of my system as it is also case with my current dac. I’m looking significant improvement for the both dac and streamer, but the test with Zenith was not what I expected. Maybe I need to rethink my options, which were Innuos, Auralic and Aurender.