Innuos Network Isolation Switch and Reclocker (Phoenix)

@nyev On the basis of the points you made regarding the powering of the Phoenix's I decided to overhaul the setup of the powering of my digital sources.

Cable-wise, I previously had a couple of old Ecosse Big Reds, an unshielded Russ Andrews Yellow, and an entry level Isotek Multiway mains block - all of which were very 20th century.

The first change I made was to purchase the current Isotek Evo3 Gemini to feed both my Innuos Zenith Mk3 and Phoenix USB, and this made a huge improvement in pretty much all areas of sound quality.  I was very pleasantly surprised, as I assumed the various high-end linear power supplies in the Innuos boxes wouldn't be that sensitive to power quality.  I expect that reducing RFI/EMI as much as possible is the goal here.

Emboldened by this, I ditched the Russ Andrews for Belden 83803 to feed the Isotek, and re-terminated the Ecosse Big Reds all with MS HD Power Blue plugs (silver), and transferred my existing QSA light-blue fuses across.  These feed the Innuos boxes from the Isotek.  All cables are now fully shielded and earthed.

The improvement across the board is quite something.  I can't say for sure if spending big money on better power cable makes a difference to digital sources, though it does seem to me that filtering and shielding with the aim to reduce noise into the Innuos boxes should be enough to get you most of the way there.

A few months ago, I consulted with the UK QSA importer, having heard significant gains using QSA fuses with my Hegel H390.  Interestingly, he spoke more enthusiastically of the gains from also using QSA wall plates.  Of course, I have to take his "advice" with a pinch of salt - though my curiosity was very much piqued.  It's probably a itch I'll have to scratch in the future.

Hi all, I currently have the PhoenixNET and I like it very much. I was wondering if anyone has compared it to the Nordost Qnet? with the Qsource PSU... Thank you so much!

Curious if Innuos provides any comparison commentary regarding the 3 box PNET>ZMK3>PUSB compared to the Statement? If you are adding upgraded PCs and quality interconnects the 3 box solution is close to or possibly more than the cost of a Statement with standard PSU. 

I did actually ask Innuos about the need to re-clock both incoming ethernet and outgoing USB signals.  My question was:  isn't one enough?  This was their response.

"The PhoenixNET offers two benefits primarily; increase incoming signal precision and lower system noise. The signal precision element is a little more 'active' in how it applies when there is incoming audio streams thanks to the re-clocking, meanwhile the lowering of system noise is more 'passive' in that any network devices connected will receive less incoming noise than compared to cheaper switches and their associated switch mode power, ground plane, and high frequency chip noise and so on.

In the context of local files from your ZENith into a DAC, only the latter part of lowering system noise really applies because Ethernet is not the primary source of audio, it is coming from the internal SSD. There is not much network dependency involved here, but the PhoenixNET is providing a lower noise floor than a cheap regular switch.
In the context of incoming Tidal/Qobuz streams, the PhoenixNET is certainly more involved and it's re-clocking help ensure minimal jitter and lower phase noise due to clock inaccuracy. This results in reduced latency and buffering in the ZENith which in turn helps sound quality when it actually gets to the stage of producing the square waveform transmitted to the PhoenixUSB. Having the PhoenixUSB built-in to the ZENith would be even more advantageous as you could leverage even more clock coherence between the devices and even shorter signal paths, and that is one of the reasons the STATEMENT has the advantage it does.

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To put another way, the PhoenixNET reduces harm in the DATA transfer stage, whilst PhoenixUSB reduces harm in the AUDIO SIGNAL stage which are two different types of transmission, so they have a similarly holistic approach but are doing at two different stages which is why there are cumulative benefits to having both.

​Although a very different budget consideration, instead of PhoenixNET i would say that if there is a way to get to STATEMENT instead (potentially through trade-in of ZENith, PhoenixUSB) then this would be the way to go. Don't forget there's several less cables involved also which would save on cost.

I would also strongly urge to check out the Hans Beekhuyzen video on Youtube titled 'Why digital circuits influence the sound quality'. He excellently summarises the whole topic, whilst below i can relate those principles more to your system directly."

In the time that has elapsed since my earlier post, I have been informed by John Rutan (Audioconnection), that the Innuos PhoenixNet is worth the cost as it is provides a very significant sound quality improvement.

I've been looking for a used one, but they get snapped up pretty quickly.

Bob