Innuos Phoenix USB Reclocker Review

[Thighsofsteel]

I suspect our Innuos loving friend is SchiitMjolnir2 from the Innuos forum. There was reference to setting up an ASR account to pitch up for a fight. It got pretty heated over there pretty quickly. All of the usual subjectivist posturing - "Golden Ears" ridiculing science based on years of being into hi-fi and outlandish claims of jitter over async USB. There are very good reasons why I stay away from other hifi discussion groups.....

I am a non posting member there as I have Zen mini. To be honest not much goes on, but you can post bug reports and offer potential future software enhancements.

 

[BeeKay]

I see... I may well pop in to their forum then and say hi.


JSmith

 

[Purité Audio]

‘I trust my ears’ the abject wail of the octogenarian audiophile.
Keith

 

[Thighsofsteel]

‘I trust my ears’ the abject wail of the octogenarian audiophile.
Keith

Yes, but only after getting the wallet out, spending even more on a USB and Ethernet cable then lovingly installing it whilst wearing white cotton gloves.

 

[Esprit]

So you're saying people are lying when they say they hear a difference?

Autosuggestion.

 

[BeeKay]

‘I trust my ears’ the abject wail of the octogenarian audiophile.
Keith

While endlessly ‘matching’ gear until the blown up treble finally lets them hear something at all. A job DSP could have fixed in a minute.

 

[Mnyb]

What none off these clowns will ever regognize is that a large proportion of us are recovering “subjectivists” audiophiles ? I had an spdiff reclocker once for example, the list is to long totally all the cables and other stuff .
Been fooled for decades not anymore.

So I have done all the “ just listen “ for a lifetime.

I won’t bother until there is an actual difference. In this review it has been shown that the signal out from a quite normal DAC are identical before and after this product ie the sound waves hitting my ear are identical ?
Where should the difference come from if the sound waves are the same ? It’s not up to anyone here to explain, let Innous do that .

 

[antcollinet]

So you're saying people are lying when they say they hear a difference?

No, we are saying that - just like all humans - they are subject to perceptive biases in which the brain CHANGES what they percieve in a way that has nothing to do with the sound waves reaching their ears. This is happening all the time - we cannot turn it off - it is the way our senses work.

A visual example.
Horizontal lines paralell to each other - or not? You can measure them and they are parallel. You can't "see" them that way, but it appears correctly on the retina of your eye (as correctly as that very imperfect instrument can do it)

 

[Thighsofsteel]

No, we are saying that - just like all humans - they are subject to perceptive biases in which the brain CHANGES what they percieve in a way that has nothing to do with the sound waves reaching their ears. This is happening all the time - we cannot turn it off - it is the way our senses work.

A visual example.
Horizontal lines paralell to each other - or not? You can measure them and they are parallel. You can't "see" them that way, but it appears correctly on the retina of your eye (as correctly as that very imperfect instrument can do it)

View attachment 433937

You can give examples like this all day long. But once audio types have gone deep down the rabbit hole, logic and reason very rarely bring them out.
They are convinced by their own infallibility and anything that contradicts it is obviously wrong.

 

[DavidEdwinAston]

I think I'll just stop here. You guys can't stand criticism and don't acknowledge that many people think it's a good product.

Goodbye

Bye, close the door on your way out.

 

[Mart68]

You can give examples like this all day long. But once audio types have gone deep down the rabbit hole, logic and reason very rarely bring them out.
They are convinced by their own infallibility and anything that contradicts it is obviously wrong.

Many are not convinced otherwise they wouldn't get so angry when they see evidence that they've been ripped off.

Ofc they don't get angry with the con men but with the people that expose the con.

 

[antcollinet]

You can give examples like this all day long. But once audio types have gone deep down the rabbit hole, logic and reason very rarely bring them out.
They are convinced by their own infallibility and anything that contradicts it is obviously wrong.

Often my posts are targeted less at the person replied to than at those who are reading (but perhaps not otherwise participating) whose minds are not so ossified.

For them it is important to point out (in this case) that we are not accusing of lying, but are simply aware of the "flexible" nature of human perception.

 

[solderdude]

One can't cure 'stupid'.

That said... it is highly likely that with some not so well designed DAC's (where the USB implementation is not done well) that there might well be an improvement and that would be quite measurable as well.
DACs like the D70, of course, won't show any difference.
Perhaps some boutique 'estoric DACs' might even have not so well designed USB receivers simply because the designer feels it should be done in a certain way.

Chances are any half decent USB hub might 'improve' things equally well in the above case.

Fortunately these expensive devices are aimed at the audiophool market and I really don't care if any of those people buy some over-priced device out of belief that it works (and thus it will for obvious reasons) and it doesn't even make a small dent in their wallets.
It looks impressive, has an impressive price, add the required 'audiophool' cables that go with it and impress yourself and the people they show this marvel of engineering to.

The audiophool market is small but highly profitable.

 

[antcollinet]

One can't cure 'stupid'.

But we can cure ignorance. As demonstrated by the many members of this forum who have found that cure, myself included.

 

[tw99]

You can give examples like this all day long. But once audio types have gone deep down the rabbit hole, logic and reason very rarely bring them out.
They are convinced by their own infallibility and anything that contradicts it is obviously wrong.

"Such examples are obviously ridiculous, because we do not listen with our eyes"

 

[gfinlays]

What none off these clowns will ever regognize is that a large proportion of us are recovering “subjectivists” audiophiles ? I had an spdiff reclocker once for example, the list is to long totally all the cables and other stuff .
Been fooled for decades not anymore.

So I have done all the “ just listen “ for a lifetime.

I won’t bother until there is an actual difference. In this review it has been shown that the signal out from a quite normal DAC are identical before and after this product ie the sound waves hitting my ear are identical ?
Where should the difference come from if the sound waves are the same ? It’s not up to anyone here to explain, let Innous do that .

I'm a chemist. I also studied optoelectronics and laser engineering and I've covered a fair amount of electrical and electronic engineering.

I went deep down the rabbit hole, had all of the hi-fi magazines and bought loads of gear.

When I wasn't hearing what the reviewers were telling me I should be hearing with hi-fi components, cables and all the other frippery, I started to think about things from a science and engineering perspective, had a light bulb moment, and quickly realised that there was no way any of this stuff could account for the claimed differences.

I started building my own speakers and soon realised that speakers and rooms are where it's really at.

Then I found ASR.

And then REW and DSP, room treatments and now Acourate and fully active linear phase, time-aligned speakers.

The biggest improvements (by orders of magnitude) in my audio experience have been from DSP and room treatment - costs have been minimal compared to some of my other historical spends and I've learned (and am still learning) a lot of things along the way.

 

[Thomas Savage]

Some of us *are* experts. My team at Microsoft developed and managed the entire audio stack in Windows. What is your expertise in how the data and clock pipeline work in a DAC?

Careful , let's not give him too much information, he might start digging.

 

[pkane]

I had an spdiff reclocker once for example

Ha! I had a chain of no less than 5 reclockers from SPDIF to I2S interface. The sound was simply amazing! At least five times better than a single one. I did try adding another one, but that one seemed not to improve anything. So take it from me, if you're not using 5 reclockers in series, you getting 1/5 the sound quality.

 

[Thomas Savage]

I thought everyone dealt with that really well , you can't please everyone but that exchange handled the way it was by all of you helps us.

He seemed to come here with a deal of prejudice, that's always a good opportunity for us to show the neutrals who will be reading how reasonable and decent the community is here at ASR .

Still I'm glad he chose go when he did , off to enjoy his USB recocker no doubt. Good luck to him , maybe one day he will give us another go.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Seems to me an opportunity is being missed to improve sound. All these reclockers take a dirty clock and try to clean it up. I think we need a digital declocker. It takes the clock away leaving pure data. We then use a proper clock to clock it right at the beginning. No way can you reclock as well as you can clean clock following a declocker.