Which USB reclocker is as good as the Innuos Phoenix USB?

@tjag Well I finally sent the SOtM tX-USBultra back. It just ended up making everything sound different. That's the problem when you get to a certain level, music doesn't necessarily sound better or worse, just different. The SOtM with all the add ons is an expensive piece of kit and I tried it with a master clock too.

All in all you could easily spend upwards of $5-6k to fully implement the SOtM and that's if you have a master clock already.

I believe money would be better spent on high quality USB cables.

I am currently testing a SOtM tX-USBultra USB Audio Reclocker on behalf of a friend.

So far there's plenty of additional detail at the expense of being a bit shouty but I'm sure that'll work itself out during the burn-in.

Remember you'll need an additional LPS & DC cable approx $1k.

I'll need about another week to fully assess but I'd say this is probably a keeper but besides the LPS an additional quality USB, clock and power cable will be required.

So that's a total of over $3-4k for the SOtM.

@tjag 

A new question then, how good is sound over the I2S? :)

I use I2s with a USB to I2s DDC, I've been very happy with it and am only trying out the SOtM USB Ultra as an experiment for a friend.

However the SOtM is bringing something into the mix but it'll take about a week more to burn in.

This is the DDC and DAC I'm using to excellent results:

https://shenzhenaudio.com/products/l-k-s-audio-usb-100-usb-audio-interface-pcm384-dsd512-i2s-rj45-hdmi-coaxial-out-dsd512-with-crystek

https://shenzhenaudio.com/products/l-k-s-audio-mh-da005-es9038-pro-x-2-dac-coaxial-opt-aes-ebu-flagship-audio-decoder

I do think you'll get a better result if you do the USB to I2s conversion firstly and then maybe try the USB reclocking later, if you feel it's necessary. BTW I use RJ45 I2s.

@tjag That's correct, no re-clocker.

I used a Mutec 3+USB for several years using my laptop as source and it served me well but it can't play DSD. I now use an Aurender N20 as my source.

The Musetec 005 clocks internally and when I tried the Mutec with it, well it was superfluous. Adding an expensive LPS to the DDC gave an excellent result and proved to me that USB to I2s sounded better than USB alone.

I'll keep you updated with the SOtM but I couldn't recommend an Aurender N20 and the Musetec 005 combination highly enough.

@curiousjim That would not be a problem, provided you have a USB input and you are feeding from a USB output, but it would probably be better if you chose one of the Denafrips DDCs first because they have clock connections.

Then if you really wanted more re-clocking you could put a Phoenix in front of them. Maybe you would get some improvement, you’d have to try.

These dongles do work but it's very much on a case by case basis. I bought an original IFI iSilencer a few years back when I was ripping CDs and got a poor result from it when using it in series with my USB cable.

Fast forward to last week I found it when going through some old stuff and put it into one of the spare USB inputs on my Aurender and I was so surprised that I bought a new version too.

So just inserting them into the empty USB outputs does have a good effect decrapifying, again using them in series with the USB cable has poor results.

@timo62 Yes you can use the Mutec but it only has USB in, no USB out.

These means you can't play native DSD.

BTW I would be interested to hear from anyone who has compared the IFI iSilencer to the Audioquest Jitterbug. Thanks

@tjag 

Here is an interesting list of the I2S disadvantages. It was not designed for communication over cables. The limitations sound serious.

There are many theoretical reasons why not to use I2s but in practice I2s works just fine. You should keep the cable length to 40-50cm. I've successfully used longer cables but found super short cables, although advised by many, don't work as well. PS Audio recommend 50cm, check out their forum.

There are many USB or Coax to I2s converters to try and it's relatively easy to get custom I2s cables configured to your requirements.