Innuos Zenith Mk3 vs Zen Mk3 + Phoenix

@jsqt
Yes, it is about taking concert pitch A=440, and lowering it to 432. This means the whole song is dropped via a DSP.  They say it’s more natural and pleasing to the ear and that concert pitch at some point in the past was 432. I suppose whats good about it is you can turn it on or off via a setting and see if you’d like it.

Yes, is is about taking concert pitch A=440, and lowering it to 432. This means the whole whole song is dropped via a DSP.  They say it’s more natural and pleasing to the ear. I suppose whats good about it is you can turn it on or off via a setting.

As a recovering musician it's hard to wrap my head around that... listening to music I've known inside and out for years being pitch-shifted slightly downward would probably be too much of a distraction for me. I also can't believe this would always be entirely audibly seamless, as past experience with pitch shifting software has shown (Ed Selley's review says there are some infrequent but noticeable artifacts). Nonetheless this is an interesting piece of gear. 

@ianderson 

I really have a problem with the a=432 transposition: it‘s not what the musicians heard when they played the music and as such has no business in a high fidelity setup. Either a marketing gimmick or engineers not understanding musicans.

antigrunge,

Musicians used to hear A=432 for a very long time. It is said to be more natural. Here is a little bit of background:

https://www.mindvibrations.com/432-hz/

If someone can build a box that will play it both ways and people appreciate it and prefer it, so be it.

I’m from the camp that anytime one transforms a digital signal, we introduce more distortions. So is the Evo 432 brand product was the best sounding music server even at a=440, then I wouldn’t care. I’m just chasing sound quality.

As a guitar player who has gotten used to a=440, my ears have been tuned there for years. For me it a little weird. Besides, I play in different keys most of the time anyways.

In the end it doesn’t make either right or wrong, just different and a personal choice and there is nothing wrong with that.

@ianderson 

While I agree with your tolerant conclusion, I‘d like to understand the impact of tuning on resultant overtones a bit better: good musicians build harmonies with a keen awareness on matching overtones and depending which string you use on a guitar for the same tone you get different overtones and hence different harmonies. Best I know DSP cannot adjust for that although I fully acknowledge that I don‘t really know what I am talking about😳