Innuos Phoenix USB Reclocker - Sounds Worse?

@mike_in_nc, totally agree with the “simplicity is nice principle”. I know that on paper it seems it maybe unnecessary with my DAC, but if you look up the reviews and forum posts, there is an overwhelming number of folks who say this device improves sound, including many who have tested it with DACs that are far better than mine! Not one single person has had my experience with this product.  I know dealers are biased, but also @audiotroy said that they’ve tested this product with many top DACs with positive results.  Maybe @audiotroy can chime in with any ideas?

I did find that the one scenario where the Reclocker degrades things is if you connect it to Innuos’ top of the line Statement streamer/server. This is because it already has the same reclocker internally so it truly does become redundant, and the added cabling degrades the sound. But that’s it!

@nyev - It is not just dealers who are biased. We audiophiles tend to be prey to expectation bias, in spades. That’s what keeps the used audio market churning.

As to trusting what some guys you don't know say on the Internet, good luck with that.  (Me, too.) Yes, there can be real information content; just let your own ears be the final arbiter. You don't know anyone's motivations, hearing ability, or really, even what gear they have or if they are catfishing.

I’ll just say that again, trust your own ears. If you want, invite friends over and do a single-blind test. You may find (as I did with some $$$ cables) that something theoretically not needed really is not needed!

I wish you good luck with it.

@mike_in_nc , totally agree with what you are saying, but I do have one exception. To get around “consumer bias”, let’s call it, I generally trust the internet ONLY if 1) Sources are reporting all the same things with no disagreement, and 2) There are many, many such reports.

This approach so far hasn’t led me astray, including in this instance, because…. There’s been a breakthrough!

I’ve been running everything constantly for a few days, and I decided to check in on how things were sounding. To my surprise everything sounded open, dynamic, and with more impact. I thought maybe it’s just me having overly low expectations, so I removed the Reclocker to compare. Sure enough, with the Reclocker is undeniably better.

Chalk it up to another case of underestimating the degree of impact burnin makes. Or, another audiophile being falsely tricked into thinking what they are hearing is great!

Going to do more tests later to try to validate what I’m hearing, but right now, the Phoenix reclocker is here to stay….  Really, really loving the sound.  Amazing how different it is today.

I tied a lot of these tweaks/gimmicks trying to get usb to sound good years ago and each tweak/gimmick was like putting lipstick on a pig. Got rid of the usb dac and went with a better dac with i2s and Ethernet inputs

@nyev  I have an AQ Niagara 1200. But it is not the main power conditioner in my system. But your system seems to be reasonably high end. So are you planning to move up to the Niagara 5000 or so? I perceive the Niagara 1200 to not be the same caliber as the rest of your system. No? Yes?