Innuos Phoenix USB Reclocker Review

[Thomas Savage]

If you put the Jackson 5 through a declocker would you end up with NSYNC ?

 

[Blumlein 88]

If you put the Jackson 5 through a declocker would you end up with NSYNC ?

Doesn't that become ASYNCH if you send them over USB?

 

[BeeKay]

If you put the Jackson 5 through a declocker would you end up with NSYNC ?

„De mortuis nihil nisi synchronum.“

 

[pkane]

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.

I suspect you can still improve things if you put a reclocker after a declocker. No matter how clean your clock really is, there are always more veils to be lifted.

 

[kchap]

I have enjoyed eating my popcorn while catching up on the last 24 hours or so of this thread.

 

[JustJones]

Don't forget to reclock your reclockers this Sunday.

 

[tt33]

Tested it with both my headphone and stereo setups feeding them through Roon. Didn't hear any improvement with headphones and even had worse SQ using it with the stereo. There you go.

 

[voodooless]

There you go.

Go where?

 

[tt33]

Go where?

Who?

 

[Apesbrain]

Go where?

There.

 

[Maximus12]

Clearly, I am in the wrong business. This thing has maybe $200 worth of parts in it, and the design engineering could be done by an unpaid intern. Even if you grant $500 for the cost of the case, the margin here is ENORMOUS, even higher than the Cartel makes from meth.

Perhaps the Cartel should go into the business of making audio gear like this - less legal risk and higher profits. Just sayin'

BUT….it MUST be expensive, or else it wouldn’t sound good and audiophiles won’t buy it

 

[jbar2797]

BUT….it MUST be expensive, or else it wouldn’t sound good and audiophiles won’t buy it

I'm almost certain if this thing was like $200 it wouldn't sell as well. People burning money on brands like Innuos would balk at the idea of buying something so cheap

 

[lc6]

Related to the notion that somehow USB reclocking improves perceived audio experience, here is an excerpt from a recent review of the Innous ZENith streamer-server:
"Some people still find it strange to attribute sonic character to a purely digital device; its only job, after all, is to send packets of bytes and bits over a wire. I'll admit—assert, actually—that I don't understand in any serious way how the purely digital stage can affect how music sounds, though the plausibility arguments are, well, plausible. For me it comes back to the notion of jitter—that in the real world, bits aren't bits but rather features of a waveform transmitted over a wire, with imperfections. True, outright reading errors are rare and usually corrected—but the leading edges of bits can be misidentified in the presence of noise and timing imperfection."

That a well established media outlet claiming to be authoritative on audio fidelity publishes such technical nonsense is beyond my comprehension.

 

[Billy Budapest]

Related to the notion that somehow USB reclocking improves perceived audio experience, here is an excerpt from a recent review of the Innous ZENith streamer-server:
"Some people still find it strange to attribute sonic character to a purely digital device; its only job, after all, is to send packets of bytes and bits over a wire. I'll admit—assert, actually—that I don't understand in any serious way how the purely digital stage can affect how music sounds, though the plausibility arguments are, well, plausible. For me it comes back to the notion of jitter—that in the real world, bits aren't bits but rather features of a waveform transmitted over a wire, with imperfections. True, outright reading errors are rare and usually corrected—but the leading edges of bits can be misidentified in the presence of noise and timing imperfection."

That a well established media outlet claiming to be authoritative on audio fidelity publishes such technical nonsense is beyond my comprehension.

Reclocking a USB data stream is completely different than reclocking digital audio. The USB receiver chip buffers the data and any jitter upstream of it is irrelevant.

 

[Billy Budapest]

Related to the notion that somehow USB reclocking improves perceived audio experience, here is an excerpt from a recent review of the Innous ZENith streamer-server:
"Some people still find it strange to attribute sonic character to a purely digital device; its only job, after all, is to send packets of bytes and bits over a wire. I'll admit—assert, actually—that I don't understand in any serious way how the purely digital stage can affect how music sounds, though the plausibility arguments are, well, plausible. For me it comes back to the notion of jitter—that in the real world, bits aren't bits but rather features of a waveform transmitted over a wire, with imperfections. True, outright reading errors are rare and usually corrected—but the leading edges of bits can be misidentified in the presence of noise and timing imperfection."

That a well established media outlet claiming to be authoritative on audio fidelity publishes such technical nonsense is beyond my comprehension.

And $20,700? Egads!

 

[AdrianusG]

And $20,700? Egads!

from the article:

So why would you pay $20,700 for the ZENith Next-Gen equipped with 2TB of SSD storage and the PhoenixLite USB output module—which is to say, as the review sample was equipped?

INDEED!

 

[lc6]

from the article:

So why would you pay $20,700 for the ZENith Next-Gen equipped with 2TB of SSD storage and the PhoenixLite USB output module—which is to say, as the review sample was equipped?

INDEED!

Among other things, you pay for an overkill 300 VA toroidal transformer in a digital device that is rated to consume 12 W idle and 15 W peak (per specs). Also, SMPSs with GaNs (called "switching regulators" according to the article), while the specs misleadingly state "triple-linear PS." And so on.

 

[Roland68]

Related to the notion that somehow USB reclocking improves perceived audio experience, here is an excerpt from a recent review of the Innous ZENith streamer-server:
"Some people still find it strange to attribute sonic character to a purely digital device; its only job, after all, is to send packets of bytes and bits over a wire. I'll admit—assert, actually—that I don't understand in any serious way how the purely digital stage can affect how music sounds, though the plausibility arguments are, well, plausible. For me it comes back to the notion of jitter—that in the real world, bits aren't bits but rather features of a waveform transmitted over a wire, with imperfections. True, outright reading errors are rare and usually corrected—but the leading edges of bits can be misidentified in the presence of noise and timing imperfection."

That a well established media outlet claiming to be authoritative on audio fidelity publishes such technical nonsense is beyond my comprehension.

Am I misunderstanding something here?
I see the ZENith Mk.3 as a mini-PC board, a DVD drive, a hard drive, a toroidal transformer, and a linear power supply board. A total value of around €700 without the case, probably too high. The development effort must then be in the software, or is there something else hidden?

The Innuos ZENith Next-Gen Streamer also has a GaN switching power supply, and the USB output board isn't rocket science either. Its design reminds me a lot of the NEC-based Lindy industrial USB hubs for around €60-100.

So the rest of the price is for the software and the case?

 

[Thighsofsteel]

Am I misunderstanding something here?
I see the ZENith Mk.3 as a mini-PC board, a DVD drive, a hard drive, a toroidal transformer, and a linear power supply board. A total value of around €700 without the case, probably too high. The development effort must then be in the software, or is there something else hidden?

The Innuos ZENith Next-Gen Streamer also has a GaN switching power supply, and the USB output board isn't rocket science either. Its design reminds me a lot of the NEC-based Lindy industrial USB hubs for around €60-100.

So the rest of the price is for the software and the case?

Don’t forget the MASSIVE profit margin.

 

[tw99]

Am I misunderstanding something here?
I see the ZENith Mk.3 as a mini-PC board, a DVD drive, a hard drive, a toroidal transformer, and a linear power supply board. A total value of around €700 without the case, probably too high. The development effort must then be in the software, or is there something else hidden?

The Innuos ZENith Next-Gen Streamer also has a GaN switching power supply, and the USB output board isn't rocket science either. Its design reminds me a lot of the NEC-based Lindy industrial USB hubs for around €60-100.

So the rest of the price is for the software and the case?

The actual streaming software is just open source LMS, so they've spent exactly nothing on that. Apparently the more recent software has their own proprietary library management, but that doesn't go far towards justifying the price.