Hifiman Serenade – Current, Color, Composure: A Serenade Story
Connections and behaviors tell another part of the story—the practical part that ends up being as emotional as the voicing once you’re in the thick of a collection. USB is there, naturally, though it’s the older B-type, the sort of decision that sparks forum debates but rarely changes a song.
Coax and optical, because consistency matters and old transports deserve quality of life. Ethernet and Wi‑Fi, because the Serenade is not just a DAC/amp, it is also a place for data to arrive, a Roon‑Ready endpoint that drops into a network like a civil guest. Plug it into your router and it shows up as Goldenwave, a quiet nod to lineage: HIFIMAN purchased Goldenwave, and the Serenade bears that hyphenated identity with grace—HIFIMAN pushing on the DAC side,
Goldenwave with a long-standing focus on amplification. The result feels integrated rather than committee’d: a DAC that speaks with an amplifier that listens. (The included screw‑on antenna is for Wi‑Fi; some paperwork calls it “Bluetooth,” but there’s no Bluetooth radio in practice—no pairing prompts, no codec tallies—so don’t plan on that.)
Inputs & Outputs
Front Panel (Headphone Outputs)
• 4‑pin XLR balanced headphone out
• 4.4 mm balanced headphone out
• 6.35 mm (¼″) single‑ended headphone out
Rear Panel (Analog)
• XLR (balanced) line out — fixed in DAC mode; variable in P‑AMP; follows volume in H‑AMP
• RCA line out — fixed in DAC; variable in P‑AMP; follows volume in H‑AMP
• RCA line in (AUDIO IN) — feeds the amplifier/preamp directly, bypassing the internal DAC
Rear Panel (Digital / Network)
• USB‑B audio input
• COAX (S/PDIF) digital input
• OPTI (Toslink) digital input
• NET (Ethernet/LAN) for network streaming / Roon Ready operation
• Wi‑Fi antenna connector (wireless networking for streaming)
• No Bluetooth radio; no BT codecs
System / Control
• Power rocker (rear)
• Recessed top buttons: INPUT (USB / COAX / OPTI / AUDIO‑IN / NET), SELECT (display brightness, network module power mode, etc.), OUTPUT (DAC / H‑AMP / P‑AMP)
• Display: shows input, output mode, current signal format and sampling rate (for digital inputs), or AUDIO IN for analog
There are modes, and they’re both common sense and surprisingly welcome when you’re juggling systems. OUTPUT cycles through DAC (fixed line out, headphone jacks muted), H‑AMP (headphones live, line outs follow the volume), and P‑AMP (preamp mode with variable line level, headphone jacks muted). This matters if you’re swapping between the desk and the living room in one chassis, or sending the Serenade downstream to powered monitors.
If you’re doing network streaming and occasional direct PC duty, the small trick is to set the streaming module to “ALWAYS ON” in the menu—otherwise, if you leave it on “SELECTED,” the network stage powers up only when NET is chosen and you’ll wait that extra beat when switching. It’s a tiny quality‑of‑life detail that feels, once you know it, like a secret handshake.
The box also respects both camps in the oversampling debate. There’s an oversample mode you can engage when you want that particular sense of polish and space, and an off position for the purists who enjoy the rawer, more artisanal edges of non‑oversampling presentation. Neither is “right” universally; they’re right contextually, and the Serenade doesn’t lecture you. Pick the path that makes the record more itself. For high‑rate content, network playback is the fastest lane—maximum DSD rates are only available over Wi‑Fi or LAN—another gentle hint that this device considers itself a citizen of your network first and a USB endpoint second.
