Innuos Zenith Mk3 or OpticalRendu + separate server?

[vortecjr]

Just remember when the microRendu came out the USB Regen is what was available. The ultraRendu and the ISO Regen came out later around the same time more or less. Did you include the cost of the second power supply in your analysis;)     

[vortecjr]

2 minutes ago, BigAlMc said:

 

Hi Jesus,

 

Was this the 1.4 board upgrade?

 

If so then I bought it via Martin Smith in the UK.

 

Cheers,

Alan

Yes. I know because you stated it above. I was just trying to be complete in my answer. 

[BigAlMc]

11 minutes ago, Superdad said:

Though to be fair, the ISO REGEN--with the same FEMTO clock as the ultraRendu, plus USB3.1 hub, plus full galvanic isolation--cost @BigAlMc $135

 

Yup, loved the ISO Regent and one of the best bang for bucks purchases out there.

[BigAlMc]

1 minute ago, vortecjr said:

Yes. I know because you stated it above. I was just trying to be complete in my answer. 

 

In fairness I had the ISO Regen and the SU-1 powered off the same LPS-1 for convenience even tho I understood there was an SQ penalty in doing so.

 

But much as I like both yours and Alex's products I found the Zenith beat them.

 

But different products and different price brackets, so not trying to take anything away from either of you.

 

Cheers,

Alan

[vortecjr]

1 hour ago, BigAlMc said:

 

In fairness I had the ISO Regen and the SU-1 powered off the same LPS-1 for convenience even tho I understood there was an SQ penalty in doing so.

 

But much as I like both yours and Alex's products I found the Zenith beat them.

 

But different products and different price brackets, so not trying to take anything away from either of you.

 

Cheers,

Alan

That was not a good solution and defeats the inherent isolation. Also, the LPS-1 was replaced with the LPS-1.2 which is reportedly better than the original in measurements. IMO these are apples and oranges, but no worries I understand where you are coming from.

[Foggie]

On 3/14/2019 at 5:46 PM, BigAlMc said:

 

In fairness I had the ISO Regen and the SU-1 powered off the same LPS-1 for convenience even tho I understood there was an SQ penalty in doing so.

 

But much as I like both yours and Alex's products I found the Zenith beat them.

 

But different products and different price brackets, so not trying to take anything away from either of you.

 

Cheers,

Alan

I was going to point that out as well - the Zenith v.s. a mU or even a Ultra mU doesn't seem like an apples to apples, at least if price is indicative of performance. 

 

I suppose the Rendu SE would be a more apt comparison.  In theory, if Innuos had a product in which they were able to condense all the "goodness" from their Zenith that in just functionality terms were for individuals vested in ROON + HQP  that would be interesting (thus my ref to the SGC with embedded HQP).  IOW, I have no use for the ripping, music player, music library etc.. so its not likely a product for me, although would certainly like to try one.

 

[wwc]

On 3/7/2019 at 3:54 AM, LTG2010 said:

He can but it's not worth the effort. You can easily look up the product and find out what's different about the custom made motherboard and power supply design by Dr Sean Jacobs.

As a tech-illiterate audiophile, his tear down came across as convincing to me.

 

Is this motherboard truly "custom" or basically off the shelf?  

 

If you do a search and compare internal photos of some other audiophile servers, the Zenith would appear to be lacking.  For example the Taiko SGM and Lucas Audio Lab.  I can't locate internal pics of the Statement which is in the price range of the Taiko SGM, but would be curious to compare...

 

I believe this is on-topic to the original thread and it does seem that if you're going to say that Powell's criticisms have no basis, it would be helpful to back it up.  Help out the illiterates among us.

[Blackmorec]

15 hours ago, wwc said:

As a tech-illiterate audiophile, his tear down came across as convincing to me.

 

Is this motherboard truly "custom" or basically off the shelf?  

 

If you do a search and compare internal photos of some other audiophile servers, the Zenith would appear to be lacking.  For example the Taiko SGM and Lucas Audio Lab.  I can't locate internal pics of the Statement which is in the price range of the Taiko SGM, but would be curious to compare...

 

I believe this is on-topic to the original thread and it does seem that if you're going to say that Powell's criticisms have no basis, it would be helpful to back it up.  Help out the illiterates among us.

I use a wi-fi extender to get a clean, fast, isolated ethernet stream into my hi-fi room. The wi-fi extender is a modified TPLink RE650. The standard unit plugs into a 230V wall socket, converts the 230V AC into 5V DC using a small inbuilt SMPS that fits easily into the palm of your hand.  So how is it modified?  The SMPS is completely removed, as is the 230V plug. The output cable from a 5V 3A LMPS is connected directly into the RE650’s electronics, so functional circuitry, heat management, functionality,  cosmetics and safety are all entirely preserved. The 230V plug is actually what mounts the RE650 on the wall, assuring the as-designed orientation of the antennae. In order to preserve this orientation, a single mounting ‘button’ was attached to the RE650 case in exactly the same place as the 230V plug. This button provides a single point attachment to a custom made (perspex mounting plate with  4 o-ring suspension and ethernet cable management) anti-vibration mount.  Essentially what this customisation has achieved is the following:

1. Removed all high frequency SMPS noise

2. Removed the sonic characteristics of an ultra-cheap SMPS and replaced with high quality Sean Jacob’s DC3 sonic characteristics

3. Removed the LF noise and vibration coming from 230V 50Hz

4. Removed the AC - DC conversion noise and vibration

5. Isolated the mechanical vibration coming from the wall 

6. Removed the pollution that the 5V SMPS injects into mains and radiates into nearby cables and components

7. Removed several cheap connectors from the DC line 

8. Because the SMPS is gone, the DC3 can now be powered from my dedicated mains supplies

9 The DC3 can be placed on anti-vibration mini-racks for further isolation.

10 I can use a CHC Black IEC or any other power cable for further improvement 

 

So what do we have here? A customised ethernet extender or a modified off-the-shelf unit?  It would be easy to rubbish the mods, ala Powell, but let me tell you.....as you would suspect, the SQ difference is night and day and the extensively modified extender sounds altogether more natural, pure and musical, making the unmodified version sound a little crude and slightly flawed.  Do you think I could make a superior extender if I started from scratch? Of course not. What I did was take something that works well as an extender and that sounds good compared to others, but that still has some serious limitations in terms of SQ and I removed all those limitations and design flaws to create a sonically superior extender...almost certainly better than anything else commercially available. How do I know this? Because the standard TPLink already sounded superior and all commercial units have exactly the same sonically relevant design flaws. 

Let’s also look at pricing...a standard RE650 costs in the region of £120. The ‘customised’ or ‘modified off-the-shelf’ unit costs around £150 and several hours to modify, but that’s not the end. Add the improved PS that the extender uses, the better power cord, the anti-vibration rack for the PS and you come up to around £1220 all in.  So now, we’re comparing a £120 extender with a £1220 customised unit.....which Mr Powell would lightly dismiss as a modified off the shelf unit that customers are being dramatically overcharged for 

[barrows]

4 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

I removed all those limitations and design flaws

I would not be so sure of the above conclusion.  What would make you think the only limitations were in the power supply design?  As this unit runs on a 5 VDC supply, certainly there are on board, noisy, DC-DC converters to produce the 3.3 VDC and 1.2 VDC that it likely requires to operate at the board level.  Additionally, there is likely a very standard clock with a higher phase noise than a good, purpose built for audio, unit could employ.  Any commercial product like this, built to be as affordable as possible, has design compromises vs. a well engineered, high end product designed for audio. 

Although I get the approach of using WiFi for isolation, I am very skeptical that WiFi is the best approach.  Certainly putting an RF generator anywhere near the audio system is a questionable approach at best; although it would require very sophisticated RF measurement gear to objectively determine if the RF generated by the extender was effecting the audio components.  One other potential compromise of WiFi is that there are almost certainly more Ethernet packet errors via WiFi, and hence more re-sends resulting in increased processor noise. 

[Blackmorec]

2 hours ago, barrows said:

I would not be so sure of the above conclusion.  What would make you think the only limitations were in the power supply design?  As this unit runs on a 5 VDC supply, certainly there are on board, noisy, DC-DC converters to produce the 3.3 VDC and 1.2 VDC that it likely requires to operate at the board level.  Additionally, there is likely a very standard clock with a higher phase noise than a good, purpose built for audio, unit could employ.  Any commercial product like this, built to be as affordable as possible, has design compromises vs. a well engineered, high end product designed for audio. 

Although I get the approach of using WiFi for isolation, I am very skeptical that WiFi is the best approach.  Certainly putting an RF generator anywhere near the audio system is a questionable approach at best; although it would require very sophisticated RF measurement gear to objectively determine if the RF generated by the extender was effecting the audio components.  One other potential compromise of WiFi is that there are almost certainly more Ethernet packet errors via WiFi, and hence more re-sends resulting in increased processor noise. 

Hi Barrows, I listed all the changes I made, so you know what my conclusion was referring to.  To be honest I didn’t even see the circuit board as its buried under a casement-filling heat sink and anyway I know jack sh1t about modifying circuit boards and nowhere near enough to start modding clocks. The circuit board has 3x5V and 3x0V inputs which serve the whole board. If there are noisy DC-DC converters, they are now less noisy on the principal of less in, less out.  And I would hope that the clock is appreciating an altogether better class of DC. The goal of the project was clear...the result exceeded expectations and sounds clearly superior to a direct ethernet cable of SR level quality, so its doing something right. These days most components have some sort of wi-fi capability so designers obviously don’t share your concerns. The only output from the extender is along an ethernet cable. The 2.4GHz band is switched off and the 5Ghz band is dedicated to receiving signal from one of the router’s 5GHz bands, which itself is dedicated to the extender. Tons of bandwidth and no interrupts or sharing so packet errors are very unlikely.  I didn’t mention the rest of my network, which has also been modified in a similar fashion. 

Frankly its good to hear that there may be other areas that could be improved. Maybe one day someone will, but ‘til then I can thoroughly, heartily recommend the mods I made. 

 

[barrows]

1 hour ago, Blackmorec said:

so designers obviously don’t share your concerns

Absolutely not the case.  Sonore does not have WiFi on any of their Ethernet related products specifically for performance reasons.  Additionally, dCS, while it does have WiFi capability, recommends against using WiFi if one is pursuing best sonic performance.

 

I do not doubt  that adding a competent linear power supply made for an improvement, my only point is that only adding a linear supply does not address all of the potential shortcomings of commercial (built to the lowest possible price point) networking gear.  I do not know if you are experiencing more packet errors, but reports of people using WiFi and experiencing even audio drop outs in with high resolution playback are numerous (despite there nominally being plenty of bandwidth)-the only way for you to know for sure would be to do Network analysis during playback and compare the results to a wired/optical connection.

The other thing to test would be sound quality vs. distance of the extender from the audio system...  It would make the most sense to keep the WiFi extender as far as possible from the audio system. I would not be comfortable with a WiFi transceiver within any less than few meters of the audio system (and hopefully the extender is powered from a different AC line as internally generated noise will make its way back onto the AC line, linear supply or not)

[LTG2010]

On 5/18/2019 at 6:48 PM, wwc said:

As a tech-illiterate audiophile, his tear down came across as convincing to me.

I didn't listen to all the tear down it was plain silly, starting off by identifying the wrong motherboard if I recall $150, basically anyone can do it........... a bit of an insult to all developers.

Since then we identified the nearest motherboard used in the Innuos mk 3 range which is based on : Supermicro X11SAA $340. Sure if you are technically able you can remove some of the 'noisy' components and mimic the Innuos lets say 'semi' customized board.

But their is more to a server than just a motherboard.

A useful feature of the Innuos product range is that they use the same board in their lowest cost mini models as they do in their top of the line products. Therefore starting from their base model, you can hear what the board sounds like with just a plain smps brick as a power supply and then listen to how it sounds with an upgraded external linear power supply. Moving up the range you can again hear the difference a multi rail linear power supply, mains filtering, emi treatment, better casework, 3 point vibration suspension, improved cabling etc, can achieve over the base model.

Then at the top of the range we encounter OCXO clockboards for the ethernet and USB outputs and a separate box for the 8 rail linear power supply first stage regulation - better vibration damping - all based on the same motherboard. Plus a very good operating / music management system.

Hours and hours of research and development.

If the tear town is convincing, then why buy any custom server? eg. Pink Faun's top of the line server uses a gaming motherboard (and different design approach) , and if I recall one of @seeteeyou's post correctly the Taiko uses a server board therefore the argument applies equally here.

I don't believe that better looking internals or larger size automatically equates to better sound quality, there are always compromises involved in achieving that 'balance' which sounds and measures 'right' in each product.

The bottom line for me is listen and hear for yourself which one is best for you and if it's worth the money. If you have the technical know how and spare time then of course build your own.

[wwc]

1 hour ago, LTG2010 said:

 

"I don't believe that better looking internals or larger size automatically equates to better sound quality, there are always compromises involved in achieving that 'balance' which sounds and measures 'right' in each product."

 

1 hour ago, LTG2010 said:

Of course there is much that effects sonics that can't be seen in a photo.   But it did strike me, after looking through a few online pictures of server internals, how one really stood out.  The Taiko Extreme  presents an "extreme" degree of orderliness which I would guess at the very least exhibits a dedication to organization and craftsmanship.

 

[LTG2010]

@wwc I didn't write the second part regarding the Taiko extreme, I guess they are your comments? I can't disagree with any of it, its a beautiful product.

But it costs $23,000 and I would expect a bespoke product at that cost to have a high order of craftsmanship.

The Innuos zenith V3 is $3800 so what are we comparing?

[Blackmorec]

4 hours ago, barrows said:

Absolutely not the case.  Sonore does not have WiFi on any of their Ethernet related products specifically for performance reasons.  Additionally, dCS, while it does have WiFi capability, recommends against using WiFi if one is pursuing best sonic performance.

 

I do not doubt  that adding a competent linear power supply made for an improvement, my only point is that only adding a linear supply does not address all of the potential shortcomings of commercial (built to the lowest possible price point) networking gear.  I do not know if you are experiencing more packet errors, but reports of people using WiFi and experiencing even audio drop outs in with high resolution playback are numerous (despite there nominally being plenty of bandwidth)-the only way for you to know for sure would be to do Network analysis during playback and compare the results to a wired/optical connection.

The other thing to test would be sound quality vs. distance of the extender from the audio system...  It would make the most sense to keep the WiFi extender as far as possible from the audio system. I would not be comfortable with a WiFi transceiver within any less than few meters of the audio system (and hopefully the extender is powered from a different AC line as internally generated noise will make its way back onto the AC line, linear supply or not)

As I already mentioned, I compared the wi-fi extender to a direct ethernet cable between router and network switch because a direct cable was my initial solution of choice. The extender was better, even before the mods. Also, plugging the DC3 into the hi-fi’s dedicated mains circuit brought a small improvement vs having it plugged into the standard house supply, whereas the non-modified extender robbed the system of some of its magic when the SMPS was plugged into the system’s dedicated mains.  I hear what you say....however I have not heard any downsides to implementing high quality wi-fi but plenty of fairly major improvements. 

As I’ve already explained, my capabilities don’t extend to completely rebuilding a commercial networking product. However the mods I made brought substantial gains in SQ and as there’re no commercial extenders that I am aware of with your preferred properties, I don’t really see the point of this dialog, which is airing theoretical problems that I didn’t  actually encounter in practice.  For me, implementing high quality wi-fi based on fully optimised power supplies, cables and vibration control brought only solid improvements. It beat a really high quality Ethernet cable, was dead simple to install and once modified is delivering absolute SOTA performance 

[barrows]

57 minutes ago, Blackmorec said:

however I have not heard any downsides to implementing high quality wi-fi but plenty of fairly major improvements

Of course, because you have not tried better (isolation) solutions.  Just because you heard an improvement with the isolation provided by WiFi, does not mean that this approach is still not compromised in the ways I have pointed out.

[emcdade]

3 hours ago, wwc said:

 

 

 

Wow, gorgeous piece of kit right there!

[Blackmorec]

7 hours ago, barrows said:

Of course, because you have not tried better (isolation) solutions.  Just because you heard an improvement with the isolation provided by WiFi, does not mean that this approach is still not compromised in the ways I have pointed out.

Because the isolation provided by Wi-fi brought me massive improvement vs all the other strategies I tried, including a direct cable, I was pretty darned delighted with the results.  Its not just wi-fi, its fully optimised wi-fi, with SOTA power, SOTA cables, extensive vibration control and a dedicated 5Mhz band.  In this scenario the sound is stunningly good with the most drive, listener involvement and  cohesiveness of presentation I’ve frankly ever heard. As regards electrical isolation, I’m not sure how you’d do better than radio waves over a 10m air gap. There is of course optical, but that comes with its own set of problems and compromises, including the need to run a physical connection (a real PITA) and jitter from the sender and receiver.  Using optical isolation is no guarantee....it would need to be fully optimised optical, and the need for a physical connection never goes away. What I’m talking about is getting absolute SOTA sound from commercial, freely available networking products, which you can pick up at any electronics store, are dead easy to install and configure, require no cabling over long runs and can be optimised to within an inch of its life to give a dedicated, high bandwidth,  ultra stable, zero interference connection to your hi-fi resulting in a UI that is so fast it feels local and sound quality the likes of which I have not previously achieved or frankly heard anywhere else.  I’m guessing your agenda is promoting some sort of optical connection, but dissing wi-fi in the process is a mistake.....even with the compromises you mention (which you’re theoreticising  are present) it can be STUNNINGLY good if you’re prepared to set it up as carefully as you would any other piece of hi-fi.  Fully optimised optical will almost certainly beat an ISP provided wi-fi set-up...no argument;  but take the time to optimise the wi-fi’s power supplies, cables, vibration control and bandwidth and I wouldn’t necessarily bet on optical because it would mainly depend on how well and how thoroughly it has been optimised.

[barrows]

6 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

There is of course optical, but that comes with its own set of problems and compromises, including the need to run a physical connection (a real PITA) and jitter from the sender and receiver

"Jitter" from an optical connection is a non-problem, certainly in comparison to WiFi!

 

The reason I am responding here is because you are advising people that WiFi is THE solution, and that is not the best advice for folks to hear, WiFi has compromises and ignoring these compromises is a problem.

 

I am a bit confused by your response though, at first you mention how important it is to optimize your WiFi set up in order to achieve good results, then you appear to criticize an optical connection because it needs to be optimized?  Cannot we agree that any approach needs to be optimized to achieve best performance?

 

[Blackmorec]

1 hour ago, barrows said:

"Jitter" from an optical connection is a non-problem, certainly in comparison to WiFi!

 

The reason I am responding here is because you are advising people that WiFi is THE solution, and that is not the best advice for folks to hear, WiFi has compromises and ignoring these compromises is a problem.

 

I am a bit confused by your response though, at first you mention how important it is to optimize your WiFi set up in order to achieve good results, then you appear to criticize an optical connection because it needs to be optimized?  Cannot we agree that any approach needs to be optimized to achieve best performance?

 

I’m not criticising Optical...all I’m saying is that it will need to be well optimised if its going to improve on what wi-fi can deliver when power, connecting cables, vibration control and wi-fi quality are all optimised. 

As for ignoring compromises, I’ll let the music testify to how detrimental those compromises are....personally speaking I’m not hearing too many so I’d vote we think of them as yet=to-be-realised improvements. 

I’d be interested to understand why jitter with optical is a non-problem i.e doesn’t matter.  Its a concept with which I’m not familiar. Thanks

[Summit]

8 hours ago, Blackmorec said:

Because the isolation provided by Wi-fi brought me massive improvement vs all the other strategies I tried, including a direct cable, I was pretty darned delighted with the results.  

 

Don’t take this the wrong way, but if wi-fi brought you massive improvement over wired LAN it likely mean that you have some weird thing going on upstream, I believe.

[barrows]

9 minutes ago, Summit said:

Don’t take this the wrong way, but if wi-fi brought you massive improvement over wired LAN it likely mean that you have some weird thing going on upstream, I believe.

The reason to use an isolated approach to Networked audio is that it renders what is going on upstream, in terms of noisy commercial computer gear, a non-issue (whether copper Ethernet wire, optical based isolation, or WiFi)-this is a good thing, as upstream tweaks become unnecessary and make no difference (for the most part).

[barrows]

33 minutes ago, Blackmorec said:

I’d be interested to understand why jitter with optical is a non-problem i.e doesn’t matter

What I do not understand is what you think this "jitter" is doing, and why you would think the same jitter is not a problem with WiFi?  As I am sure you are aware, optical transmission of high speed data is the gold standard, hence why fiber optic Internet distribution achieves higher bandwidth and less transmission losses.  We are not talking about toslink SPDIF here... 

Optical Ethernet distribution is the gold standard for best isolation, best signal integrity, and lowest losses.

Additionally, if this jitter to which you refer (and to be clear to those reading, this has no relation to audio jitter here) is such a "problem" then certainly the very ordinary clock in your WiFi extender is a compromise vs. a Femto level clock in a well implemented (made for high end audio) Ethernet distribution device (FMC, switch, Renderer, etc)

[Nenon]

Optical is not superior at speed, but you can transmit data over much longer distances than copper. That's why it is used from carriers. In a short distance local network (a couple of meters in many cases), the optical loses its main advantage - distance. 

However, the optical cable cannot transmit electrical noise from upstream devices. The copper cable can transmit electrical noise. Electrical noise => higher jitter. The problem is in order to convert the copper signal to fiber and then back to copper, your devices need to use extra components, and your ethernet signal passes through those extra devices. That is a trade off.  

Actually, everything is a trade off.

• A well implemented optical conversion would typically sound better than a commercial copper solution.
• Equally, a well implemented copper solution can sound better than a bad implemented fiber solution.

 

It seems like Blackmorec has managed to isolate/eliminate some of the noise from upstream devices, using WiFi and good linear power supplies. While WiFI opens a new can of worms when it comes to trade offs, it actually does what the optical cable does for audio - it isolates the electrical noise from the upstream devices. 

 

All of those solutions have flows. They are also dependent on the environment. Whether your ISP comes over a fiber cable or over a coax wiring the entire city… how noisy your power line is… how much RFI/EMI you experience in your environment… the quality of your cable modem, router, wifi, etc… so many “environmental” things matter in this case. 

 

I think it is pointless to generalize and there is not right or wrong solution. People should try and do what they like the most. It would be a never ending and pointless debate otherwise.

[barrows]

The point is:

 

By adding an extra layer of isolation vs. wired Ethernet (WiFi or an optical connection) one eliminates the problem of noise from the upstream components (servers, routers, disc drives, switches, etc)-this allows one to not have to be bothered with endless tweaks to all of the upstream components, and actually simplifies system optimization.

 

I am highly in favor of having this isolation, and have confirmed theoretical advantages by listening tests using an optically isolated system.

 

Optical is preferred for long distances precisely because of its very high signal integrity (low losses and immunity to outside interferences), while unproven at this point by any measurements of which I am aware, there are still many who claim better signal integrity=better sonics.  There is no doubt that an optical connection has better SI than a wireless connection.  What is certain, is that an optical connection does not have any compromises, whereas, putting a WiFi transceiver in, or adjacent to, the audio system is a compromise, as one has now placed a device which specifically generates RF interference in close proximity to the audio system.  Just as optical requires a conversion from electrical, so does WiFi require a conversion to an airborne signal which is less robust.  If the conversion form electrical to optical were actually a problem, optical based Ethernet transmission would not be the gold standard for high speed data Networks. 

 

I agree, systems are complex, and need to be optimized-but given equal optimization and attention to detail, achieving complete isolation via an optical connection has advantages over WiFi.

 

Finally: there are, and there are very soon to be more, high end audio products using optical connections, which come standard with low noise power supplies, low noise regulators onboard, etc, etc.  These devices designed specifically for high end audio have many advantages over ordinary commercial gear: much lower noise, Femto level clocking, no need to be engineered to the lowest possible price point, etc.  These are products like the Lumin X-1, and Network gear and Renderers form the likes of UpTone Audio and Sonore.