Network Audio Players/Servers

Innuos's flagship Statement is not only a ripper and network-attached music storage device but, like the recent Melco N10 [HFN Jun '19], Pro-Ject Stream Box S2 Ultra [HFN Oct '18], Roon Nucleus+ [HFN May '18] and Melco N1ZS20/2 [HFN Jun '17], it is also a signal conditioning device. In practice this means re-packetising and re-clocking data between Ethernet and USB standards. As the music data remains in the digital domain in and out of the Statement, any uplift in performance over a conventional NAS or PC/Mac can only be inferred via a third-party player or DAC. The jitter suppression and/or galvanic isolation of the attached USB DAC is a factor here, so a DAC with excellent data recovery/re-clocking may not express a significant difference. Similarly, a DAC that incurs jitter at the chip level will not improve regardless of Innuos's re-clocking of the digital data.

For these tests a series of alternative outboard DACs were driven via the Statement's dedicated 'USB DAC' output and compared to the same DACs connected by the same cable to the USB hub of very high quality desktop PC. The AC-powered Novafidelity HA500H shows data-induced jitter [mkrs 4, 5 and 7, red trace, Graph 1] amounting to some 175psec that is entirely suppressed with the Statement in tow [black spectrum, Graph 1]. The remaining 15psec is residual PSU-induced jitter. Hub-powered USB DACs often provide a good indication of incoming data integrity and noise on the +5V supply, and here iFi Audio's iDSD DAC showed a drop in jitter from 140psec to 15psec (as we saw with Melco's N10). Chord's battery-powered Hugo 2 [HFN Aug '18] showed a residual ±100Hz jitter with the top-flight switchmode-PSU'd PC, amounting to 35psec [red spectrum, with mkrs, Graph 2]. Driven via the Statement, this PSU-related jitter was wholly eliminated [black spectrum, Graph 2]. This Innuos 'polish' is the icing on the digital cake! PM