In their defense a Pulse with the ability to play files from a local SSD would essentially be a Zenith with the Phoenix USB re-clocker (or something like that). There was a thread a few weeks ago where some of us lamented the product strategy as many details are not well understood. No question their marketing falls short to explain various use cases and how they align to current product offers. Given the propensity for audio folks to upgrade, it would be helpful for Innuos to publish their vision of "a customer journey" for users that want to stream and others that want streaming and server capabilities and provide the upgrade paths for both lines. Personally I would love to see a SQ comparison of Pulsar vs Statement vs Zenith with Pnet and PUSB when used strictly as a streamer.
Need advice on what to purchase to hold 1TB of music and connect to my new Innuos Pulsar.
I just need 1TB of file space and won’t ever need more. I am most interested in sound quality and staying under $500. The less money the better - if possible. It will be hooked up to an Innuos Pulsar that has no internal storage. The Pulsar is streamer only. My music, only 1100 CDs, is already stored on a Raid and I will only use this Raid for backup.
No idea what I need. Don’t think I need a NAS, but may. Do I just buy a 1TB SSD drive? Which one? Connectivity? This is not an area I am well versed on as in the past I have always owned servers which had on board storage ( Innuos Zenith 3).
I am a little lost here fellow Agoners. Thanks for your help. Bill
Showing 4 responses by chilehed
@grannyring, out of curiosity, what happened to you Zenith? Is it gone? If you still have it I believe you can access your Zenith music library from your Pulsar. |
@grannyring, bummer. I just checked the Innuos website and understandably the prices have increased significantly since I bought my Zenith Mk3 back in 2019. If I had to replace it I am not sure what I would do. Like @thyname, I also owned the Phoenix USB but sold it. I only use 60% of the 1TB storage I have on my Zenith but honestly my streaming SQ is so good I rarely play local files. I'm fortunate to have a couple Innuos dealers nearby so if I had to replace it I would do an in-store comparison of the Pulse vs Pulsar and then put the winner up against the Zenith in a home demo. I already have my library backed up on SSD and buying media is mostly in the rear view for me so the server functionality of Zenith is less of a requirement. If Pulsar won the SQ home bakeoff I would connect the SSD to one of the machines on my home network and map it to Pulsar. I'm guessing there would be a SQ compromize compared to playing from a Zenith, but in my case it would only be used for music not found on streaming services or the rare case where my external network to my ISP is down. |
@grannyring, great info, thanks! I'll be interested in your commentary and experience after it settles in. Best of luck and congratulations on the new piece. |