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

The assumption that more money leads to better sound is often faulty.

 

more than one thing can be true at the same time

budget systems, well assembled, expertly set up, can sound very good, bring tremendous enjoyment, have enduring qualities

but more money, spent wisely, will yield better sound, better music, even greater enjoyment -- if properly attuned to the owners’ tastes

the above are not contradictions, they co-exist in reality... the fun (and expertise) in this hobby to put together gear that brings us musical enjoyment is to be honest about what we like, spend $ wisely up to our comfort level, find our own sweet spot

it is about the music... creating our window onto musical performances to bring us happiness

“Why spend a ton more on a Streamer or DAC to get the same performance that a low cost USB dongle gives you? ”
@vinylfan62

Except it doesn’t, I have tried and tested many tweaks in my system. Again, not saying they don’t improve the sound but a $80 USB dongle won’t magically transform a laptop to a level of well designed dedicated streamer or server.

At the end of the day, do what makes you happy!

+1@jjss49

The Wyred4Sound Recovery is another value-priced option currently on sale, lowered from $199.00 to $149.00. Used with different DACs or directly from laptop into Expert Pro’s own DAC, I fancy it offers a slight/ subtle sound improvement with a touch more clarity. It certainly is not a case of night and day improvement.

From a logical perspective, it would seem to me that money could be spent more wisely when considering expensive re-clockers, unless of course one doesn’t care about cost and can easily afford it. I would suggest that most high-quality DACs have excellent clocking solutions within the architecture already, so any improvements should be subtle. Words like ‘dramatic improvement’ would suggest that the asynchronous DAC with it’s own re-clocking chipset is not up to par. Carefully engineered DACs that use great components should not sound dramatically worse, than an external re-clocker imvho.

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.

Not sure how it compares to the Unnuos Phoenix reclocker , but the Mutec MC-3 + USB could be a viable option to try.