Sweet. Thanks for following up!
Showing 9 responses by dpac996
Here is my two cents; The InnuOs Phoenix made my AQ DragonFly Cobalt sound many times more expensive. was shocked at the sound pouring out of my headphones. Home System: DAC: Chord TT2; Server: Aurender N10; Integrated Amp: Pass Labs int 250 Speakers: Dynaudio Confidence 30 Result: I struggled to hear any difference let alone improvement. I also have on deck my InnuOs Zen mkiii server and the Pheonix improved that slightly; what I heard was a jump in front to back depth and a sort of ease in the presentation, like increased liquidity is best way I can describe it; it was subtle though; I think my gear is pretty resolving and I can hear cable changes pretty easily; I think the efficacy of the Pheonix will be highly dependent on Dac input USB circuitry, and source USB port (obviously eh?) I was shocked at how much a lowly dragonfly cobalt could sound; it’s as if I heard the pure performance of the tiny DAC chip itself for the first time; Im bummed that USB implementation in any dac is still a thing that is subject to much variation and can make or break a dac; I think Chord has a robust internal reclocking and top class jitter rejection strategy that attenuated the otherwise obvious improvement I heard with the lesser DAC. As always, ymmv |
@david_ten sure. Speaker cables: Transparent Audio Super Speaker Generation 5 usb cable: Audience Au24 /se and a wire world (forget model) xlr: Analysis Plus Super crystal oval something . I love this cable. Had bunch of xlrs over time. Something just right about AP power cable to isotek Aquarius evoiii: Shunyata NRV10 power cable to Aurender: Analysis Plus power somethingPower cable to pass: stock! Yep. Can’t beat it and tried Cardas Clear Beyond, Isotek Optimum, others. Just perfect as is. All the others do weird things to the midrange. I’ll probably keep trying stuff but so far nothing has made me want to replace stock. Circuit to system: dedicated 20A; have a Furetech super special job sitting in my drawer and PS audio upgraded Hubble hospital grade in the wall. Had Cardas clear reflection speaker and interconnect prior to this stuff above. rack is maple shades Samson 10 Vicoustic acoustic diffusers Tomorrow I take delivery of m scaler...looking forward to testing that out! @djones51 i think the Aurender n10 has a super clean USB implementation because I heard no difference with that into the chord tt2. I would be curious if others tried this combo. |
Btw, I totally understand what @stevehuff is saying; The way the improvement has been described (I read a ton about this reclocker) was what I heard massively on my Cobalt; I was super looking forward to a similar thing on the home system. I did hear that magic a bit on the InnuOs Zen and would have kept that if I was planning on Zen forever, but I just love the Aurender as is; it is a really great piece. I really like InnuOs and loved the zen for 5 months give or take. If InnuOs released a variant with this reclocker circuit board stuffed inside it would be a class leader; They could still sell the standalone but for Pete’s sake they should stick it in the next Zen series and save us audiofools another usb cable, another power cable, another box. peace all |
I have a question about the re-clocker; So pretty much all modern DACs are async, where the DAC clocks data at its own rate from the USB host (as opposed to receiving bursts of data at whatever rate the HOST sends them); When the reclocker was in the loop, async DACs still appeared as async to either the Aurender, windows PC, or InnuOs zen (as if the re-clocker was totally not there at all); I assume it's passing back the USB enumeration credentials back to the main USB HOST; So I guess what I have a question about is the role of the expensive oven controlled 3 parts per billion accuracy oscillator in the phoenix; I assume this clock pulls data from the HOST (music server), but the attached DAC is still operating in asycn mode pulling data according to its own clock-- unless the re-clocker re-configures the operating mode of the USB dac such that the re-clocker pushes data. Can someone please pipe in that has a clear understanding of what is going on here? TIA! |
hello @thyname A 4TB Statement costs an eye watering ~$14,400 USD. A top Zenith 4TB + a Phoenix = $8,800 USD; So, for approximately $5,600 USD more you get 2 chassis, a much more sporting power supply, heavy case work etc in the Statement. I assume they even tricked out further the implementation of the Re-clocker circuitry inside the Statement chassis; If the Innuos deleted the Phoenix USB Re-clocker toroid, case, and all the extra parts to make a standalone unit, just focusing on the triple linear supply and USB Re-clocker circuit board itself (with the oven controlled oscillator on it) from the BOM of the Phoenix they would be in the hundreds of bucks of parts only; The trick for them is integrating it in the Innuos Zen series chassis along with the same motherboard, which is a COTS PCBA from a PC vendor; The USB and Ethernet receptacles are directly mounted on the PCBA; I have had custom Com Express Type 6 carrier boards designed for me such that the manufacturer removed exact USB and RJ-45 jacks (seen in boards like the InnuOs zen pc motherboard) in favor of parts from JST or SAMTEC, from which we would plug a mating board to wire connector and route the high speed differential signals over to secondary break out boards for other purposes; InnuOs could totally do that here (add a larger overall VA transformer to power the USB stuff) and up the cost of the Zen series maybe $1,000 - $1,500 and still profit; Single chassis, lower costs for all; I can’t see them asking their PC supplier to add in the custom re-clocking circuitry but it is pretty trivial to break those signals out to a sub-system. I am totally not picking on InnuOs at all; Just dreaming of ways to get the highest performance USB interface out there baked in a server that is around the ~5K mark; IMHO i’m sure the statement sounds incredible but boy is it turbo expensive! |
whelp the internet sure is a dandy thing http://www.the-ear.net/how-to/power-supply-design-innuos-statement looks like that’s exactly what Innuos did; They pulled the USB signal off the PC motherboard and piped it over to the reclocker; ~14K is a lot of scratch for power supplies, a small form factor computer, ssd's, teac optical drive, and spiffy cases; SHEESH! |