Innuos Phoenix USB Reclocker - amazing! transform your DAC! £3,249

[ToppingSMSL]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4fZdQnS9WU


ooooooofff!

 

[Fandango Andy]

Sounds great, where do I get one? A small tweak that cost more than my system 🤣🤣🤣. I seem to remember the SMSL PO100 does the same job for £55 (and not even its intended use!)

 

[juanclemons]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4fZdQnS9WU brawl stars online


ooooooofff!

Great video!
I bought some cheap silver plated copper wire from Ebay to replace my QED cables, and it transformed my stereo image. I also bought some rely expensive interconnects, and it made no difference what so ever. I understand psycho acoustics, but can you explain this discrepancy. Is says to me wires do make a difference; or at least speaker cables do. Or I dont understand whats going on, or indeed whos scamming me. Another example...I bought some Ogy speakers expecting crazy quality....I hate them, they are such a disappointment. I would guess that I can buy and old radio rip the speaker out and replace the drive unit and get the same results. I understand what quality sounds like ive had Quad electrostatic 63s in the past and currently own a pair Buchardt A700s (80% perfect) which are a fantastic compromise; love these. In a nutshell, im not sure psycho acoustics is real.
NB I dont know if this is relevant, but whilst holiday I took part in a hypnotists show. I was the only one not flapping around like a chicken on stage. The hypnotist looked at me with such disappointment. I was disappointed too.

 

[abacus]

Yes, cables do make a difference, and it would absolutely open up the sound stage, of that there is no doubt, however if you did a proper blind test, you would hear no difference between them, why is that you may ask? well its simple really, you are a biological life form, which means your senses suck and are easily fooled into hearing something that doesn't exist (It's the same with vision, smell and touch), this is why before comparing things you must make 100% absolutely sure that anything that could influence you, (This include illness like having a cold etc.) is removed from the comparison.

Bill

 

[GSV Ethics Gradient]

How have we gone from DAC to cables? As there are a multitude that deal with the latter, let's stay on topic please.

 

[Gray]

NB I dont know if this is relevant, but whilst holiday I took part in a hypnotists show. I was the only one not flapping around like a chicken on stage. The hypnotist looked at me with such disappointment. I was disappointed too.

I've always believed that it's relevant.
In past employment I watched a few of those live hypnotist shows.
It's amazing how easily people can be made to believe total rubbish, by persuasion.
(But the majority were not taken in).
Highly relevant in the context of hi-fi snake oil products.

(I just watched the whole of that video in post #1.
What he said about his listening tests was particularly interesting - the fact that he heard (perceived) a difference.
I'm no gambler, but I'd be willing to bet a fair bit of money that that man (Amir) could not be hypnotised).

 

[Jasonovich]

Yes, cables do make a difference, and it would absolutely open up the sound stage, of that there is no doubt, however if you did a proper blind test, you would hear no difference between them, why is that you may ask? well its simple really, you are a biological life form, which means your senses suck and are easily fooled into hearing something that doesn't exist (It's the same with vision, smell and touch), this is why before comparing things you must make 100% absolutely sure that anything that could influence you, (This include illness like having a cold etc.) is removed from the comparison.

Bill

🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣

Cables R Us - Not just for Christmas, good caring home is always essential.​

Oh, on the subject of standalone DAC clocks, I can't rely on my ears, placebo or any implied psychosis because I haven't had the chance to listen to one.
One thing is certain, these DAC clocks really Wind People Up. 🙂

 

[abacus]

Also, any decent DAC will re-clock the incoming signal to make sure it is pure, so no matter how much the re-clocker box re-clocks the signal, it will automatically be changed when it enters the DAC.

Bill

 

[Al ears]

Also, any decent DAC will re-clock the incoming signal to make sure it is pure, so no matter how much the re-clocker box re-clocks the signal, it will automatically be changed when it enters the DAC.

Bill

Do most DACs reclock incoming USB data?
If so it's news to me.
Makes you wonder why major DAC manufacturers also make reclockers......

 

[ToppingSMSL]

Do most DACs reclock incoming USB data?
If so it's news to me.
Makes you wonder why major DAC manufacturers also make reclockers......

I believe they do. Unless you use an I²S connection.

 

[skinnypuppy71]

Technically the Innuos is more like a USB regenerator, this is a piece from hifi pig review of the phoenix usb thingy jig.
" At this point, I spoke to Nuno, the R and D Director at Innuos about what the Phoenix USB is up to under the hood and got the following response which I am publishing here in full."

“The PhoenixUSB does not actually reclock the audio signal that’s being transmitted via USB, it reclocks the USB communication itself. That’s why it uses a 24MHz clock and not the pair of clocks normally used on DACs (such as 22.5792 MHz for 44.1Khz and its multiples). The PhoenixUSB works with any device you connect to it. If you connect a USB drive to it and connect the PhoenixUSB to a computer, the computer will recognise the USB drive there. So what we are doing is actually cleaning another layer of noise that results from the USB communication itself, so it doesn’t affect negatively the DAC. Additionally, instead of doing a galvanic isolation on the 5V and Ground lines coming from the source, we actually replace them with the power on one of the internal linear power supplies. For DACs that power their USB interface via the USB port itself, this alone is a big improvement."

"So, the first key takeaway is: The PhoenixUSB reclocks the USB signal, not the Audio signal. The audio is not touched in any way. We are often asked if the PhoenixUSB supports DSD, DXD, and MQA. The answer is that it supports whatever your DAC and source will support because the PhoenixUSB doesn’t care what’s being transmitted."

"The second takeaway is that we completely regenerate the 5V and ground line on the USB output connecting to the DAC, which will benefit a lot of DACs.”


"So there you have it straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth"

Personally I think you'd get better bang for buck with some new speakers....but if your past all those kind of upgrades, then these (expensive) tweaks might be worth a look, but make no mistake, I think it will be a very subtle difference at most.

 

[Al ears]

I believe they do. Unless you use an I²S connection.

Believe or know?
I would question why the likes of dCs include a reclocker in their very expensive digital stack if that were the case.....

 

[ToppingSMSL]

Believe or know?
I would question why the likes of dCs include a reclocker in their very expensive digital stack if that were the case.....

I believe it's explained in the video at the start of this thread. Would you like to watch it again?

As for dCs, they charge mega prices for audio DACs. That's a scam in itself.

 

[Gray]

Personally I think you'd get better bang for buck with some new speakers....

That's for sure.
...and you probably wouldn't have to listen hard to actually hear a difference.

 

[Vincent Kars]

My piece of armchair enginering....

In case of hybrid protocols like S/PDIF it might make sense to re-clock. The send rate of this bus is used to generate the sample rate. If the clock of the sender is jittery, you will have a ton of input jitter at the DAC.
They took countermeasures. PLL was one of them( the electronic equivalent of the flywheel).
Today almost any DAC uses ASRC (Asynchronous Sample Rate Conversion). This is the big trick to eliminate input jitter substantially. Basically you decouple the DAC from the input allowing it to run at the intrinsic jitter of its own clock.

In case of USB there is no relation between the send rate of the bus and the sample rate. Of course the bus is clock driven and as a clock is analog, there will be jitter. But does it matter? In case of UAC2 using high speed

• High Speed - 480 Mb/s with a data signaling tolerance of ± 500ppm (USB 2).
  This means every 125 µs a SOF packet arrives with a allowed deviation of ± 0.0625 µs..

Will this affect our audio?
A USB DAC audio using the USB in isochronous mode with asynchronous synchronization simply watch the amount of data. To low, it will tell the sender to speed up (adding a bit more). To high, it will tell the sender to slow down. Basically the USB receiver does the buffer management allowing the DAC to run using a free running clock. It looks like USB Audio using asynchronous synchronization is not affected by the jitter of the bus.
I don't think USB receivers re-clock. Most DAC's do over- or up-sampling but that is a completely different story.

 

[ToppingSMSL]

Technically the Innuos is more like a USB regenerator, this is a piece from hifi pig review of the phoenix usb thingy jig.
" At this point, I spoke to Nuno, the R and D Director at Innuos about what the Phoenix USB is up to under the hood and got the following response which I am publishing here in full."

“The PhoenixUSB does not actually reclock the audio signal that’s being transmitted via USB, it reclocks the USB communication itself. That’s why it uses a 24MHz clock and not the pair of clocks normally used on DACs (such as 22.5792 MHz for 44.1Khz and its multiples). The PhoenixUSB works with any device you connect to it. If you connect a USB drive to it and connect the PhoenixUSB to a computer, the computer will recognise the USB drive there. So what we are doing is actually cleaning another layer of noise that results from the USB communication itself, so it doesn’t affect negatively the DAC. Additionally, instead of doing a galvanic isolation on the 5V and Ground lines coming from the source, we actually replace them with the power on one of the internal linear power supplies. For DACs that power their USB interface via the USB port itself, this alone is a big improvement."

"So, the first key takeaway is: The PhoenixUSB reclocks the USB signal, not the Audio signal. The audio is not touched in any way. We are often asked if the PhoenixUSB supports DSD, DXD, and MQA. The answer is that it supports whatever your DAC and source will support because the PhoenixUSB doesn’t care what’s being transmitted."

"The second takeaway is that we completely regenerate the 5V and ground line on the USB output connecting to the DAC, which will benefit a lot of DACs.”


"So there you have it straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth"

Personally I think you'd get better bang for buck with some new speakers....but if your past all those kind of upgrades, then these (expensive) tweaks might be worth a look, but make no mistake, I think it will be a very subtle difference at most.

He's talking nonsense.

 

[Geoff P.]

I may be out of my depth here, but is this all just more SO, or is it out-and-out BS ?

 

[ToppingSMSL]

I may be out of my depth here, but is this all just more SO, or is it out-and-out BS ?

Reading the audio science review thread on this device might help your understanding a little. This paragraph is key:

"They are capturing the USB signal and retransmitting it with presumably a more accurate clock. They also use their own independent power supply to generate the USB 5 volt signal. Any decent high-end DAC would generate it's own power so not sure why this is relevant.

As to reclocking, in asynchronous USB which we use today, the USB clock is only used for communicating with the host to gather audio data The DAC has its own clock. A buffer holds immediate data in case the DAC is running faster in which case, the USB interface is sped up (logically) to keep the two clocks close together. At no time is the USB clock used to drive the DAC so having a fancy clock for that would be of no audible value..

But maybe we are wrong so let's measure it..."

Innuos Phoenix USB Reclocker Review

This is a review, detailed measurements, and listening tests of Innuos PhoenixUSB Reclocker. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $4,349 (not a typo). The front panel is quite attractive and gives the impression of a high-end product. Alas, I would have expected to see an indicator...

www.audiosciencereview.com