It is in fact more than the power supply, including a panzerholz vibration isolating mounting board for the new active rectifiers and requires both boxes to go back: it’s a very comprehensive upgrade. Here’s how Innuos describe the mods:
The impressive improvement in sound quality is achieved by an innovative Power Supply design and significant component upgrades:
The Power section uses two custom-designed ARC6 AC/DC modules – each containing a new high-precision Active Rectifier board, a massive 10mH DC Choke and almost 4 times more capacitance provided by six Mundorf caps. The ARC6 modules are mounted on the new Adaptive Vibration Control (AVC) platform, a combination of Panzerholz wood with a specific density gel layer, which is highly effective at dampening high-frequency vibration coming from the chassis.
In the Server section, the Regulator modules include a dedicated CPU Booster module, providing up to 15A of current to the CPU for faster transients. All rails are further smoothed by new Audio Note KAISEI capacitors benefitting all the main components: Motherboard, USB Reclocker, Ethernet Clock module and SSD.
There’s no doubt everything is cleaner, clearer, faster, more dynamic and more extended in the bass and treble. I’ve not yet made a final judgement because burn-in is neither linear or constant. As @Blackmorec suggested, it is also carrying on well into week 3 and probably beyond. It’s quite jaw-dropping most of the time now, revealing all sorts of previously unheard detail/texture and spatial information/presence, but sometimes still a little hard, so I’ve been holding off saying anything until I feel the SQ has settled and stabilised.
No idea. But the price of the components might preclude it. There’s a big difference in price. However the Pulsar does seem to share many of these new components with the Statement NextGen, making it a wonderful choice for those not interested in local storage.
We all need to be patient because the period required for the ARC6 mods to fully run in is months not weeks. 3 weeks is early days. You may think its a long time, but the system will entertain you in the meantime with nice little steps of improvement before the final jump….and its that final jump that makes it all worth waiting for. Essentially the biggest difference doesn’t allow itself to be easily analysed or described in typical audiophile speak…the final jump is much more about the listener and how the music is felt, that goes beyond just imaging and soundstage and bass etc. For a start the music sounds more sonorous and beautiful, its sound more ‘at ease and ‘real-axed’, a purposeful misspelling to describe music that sounds more real because it has that ease of real music about it. Then there’s the feeling of being in the venue where the music is being made. The music sounds ‘freshly created’ and spontaneous, like its being performed there and then. The space in which the music happens feels real and present and entirely different to your listening room. Entirely different between every recording with each having its own individual space, atmosphere, acoustics….some natural, some engineered, maybe a band of musicians playing music in a venue, others a complex mix of artificially created space with tremendous detail, depth and dynamic space, with different atmospheres and spaces played alongside one another to enhance the complexity, interest and excitement in the music, All these qualities are played with the utmost dynamics and detail. The music message becomes clearer….the message is essentially how the music is intended to make you feel and this feeling gets stronger the better your network and its associated power supplies become. It’s about music that grabs your full attention, gets your feet and arms dancing and make you go WOOooooooo. Rhythms have never been so compelling, it rocks, it dances, it slinks, it projects 4 dimensional sonic landscapes of surprising detail and finesse.
If I was to hazard a guess at the nature of improvement I’m hearing I’d describe it technically as being like you would expect to hear if both channels were more accurately reproduced and the matching between left and right channels improved in terms of the brain’s ability and associated processes of creating conscious 4 dimensional music with qualities we love and respond to from the sound waves the ears receive and nerve impulses the brain receives. Remember that stereo is a technical illusion….what improving your network does is to improve the creation and processing of that illusion.
In terms of the above description, the most important elements by far are the power supplies, but their full contribution takes a while to evolve and develop fully. I’d guess the long time has to do with the supply being very understressed in terms of capacity vs load, so isnt getting any heavy exercise.
I recently went to the North West Audio show in Cranage where a dealer was showcasing the Statement and Statement Next Gen in their room and at certain points during the weekend Nuno Vitorino from Innuos was doing A/B demo’s between the two.
The rest of the system was - Chord Dave, Luxman integrated Amp and Fact 12 speakers.
I was very interested to hear an A/B demo as I have a Statement myself although I have to say I struggled to hear any real differences that stood out so will probably wait for another HiFi show to have another A/B demo to check if my initial conclusions still stand before I decide on this upgrade.
It’s a shame no-one’s doing more revealing demos. It may be that as the Next Gen becomes established in the range, you can get a home demo loan through your dealer. I have no experience of the NVi - is that what you’re using? The differences show through to a surprising extent on the Atom HE, however, but obviously more on my main system.
As a general update, the midrange has now come through fully. It’s been another step up but not a massive overall change. I’m curious to see if I get what @Blackmorec is anticipating from his experience of the DC4. I’ll be very happy if it does: it’s already a significant improvement on the previous iteration of the Statement. Very good recordings are magical, but certain lesser examples are laid bare in their failings. However a number of early recordings of truly extraordinary performances (1930s Cortot for example) that were done well for the technology of the time gain in communicative power while not actually sounding obviously “better”. Interesting. I got so moved by the interpretation I forgot to analyse what was going on so can’t say anything more just yet….
Hi Yorkshireman,
The Northwest Audio show was a most enjoyable and well organised event, with one exception……sound quality levels were clearly responding to the overloaded, probably fairly ancient mains supply, with literally hundreds of cheap switched mode power supplies connected, along with an extremely underpowered, under resourced and likely very noisy network and mobile phone EMI soup. I too am a Statement user and wanted to hear the difference the Next Gen made, but unfortunately the basic sound quality was at the show standard, which is to say miles away from an Old Gen Statement, so I’m not surprised you didn’t catch any difference.
Hi Yorkshireman,
I’m pretty sure I visited all the rooms and really don’t remember anything really standing out. The few rooms I remember sounding ‘acceptable’ were based on simple two-way speaker installation but even they were quite ‘ordinary’. I heard absolutely nothing that offered things like layered depth of field with solid centre image or the feeling of immersion in the music. Most were L & R without much in the middle. Even more remarkable was that most rooms shared the same characteristics, which after a few rooms started to identify itself as the ‘show’ sound.
For me, a good sounding room starts with a mismatch between what I hear and what I see……for example standing in a small room and hearing a large auditorium. That ‘phenomena’ was completely absent and its an illusion that any successful hi-fi installation should pull-off. Its a matter of walking into a room and ‘hearing’ a hi-fi playing music vs. hearing musicians playing in a venue.
A quick update here: things are still progressively improving. On good recordings I know I can still be taken by surprise by some really breathtaking replay in terms especially of dynamics, texture and scale - as well as bass response. Old recordings are very captivating - the bad things are no worse, but the good things really can improve magnificently. Been enjoying some real treasures from the thirties.
Other Statement owners who have had the Next Generation ps upgrade have reported exactly what @Blackmorec suspected would happen from his experience with the DC4 power supply. Apparently I should be experiencing this in around a week. Let’s see.
Well, I keep waiting for the sound quality to drop off a bit before shooting to greater heights, but so far it just keeps getting gradually better. Now that I have got through rediscovering some of my 30s recordings and back to more modern stuff, it constantly surprises me. There have been one or two occasions where certain previously unnoticed weaknesses in recordings have come the fore, but overall it’s a stunning all-round improvement irrespective of recording quality.
Initially, despite being impressed, I expected I’d have to be a little circumspect where bang for buck is concerned, but I now really have no difficulty in recommending this upgrade to anyone who can afford it. I keep having jaw dropping moments even listening to the little Atom HE, never mind the full-fat 500 system.
So, I’m waiting all excited for the final step change…
Well no surprises yet, but I just have to write that even where things are now, this really is absolutely stunning.
It’s a very big change this upgrade, different but quite possibly of a similar entity to adding the Statement in the first place.
I’m having to work this morning, but have the system planning Kenny Burrell’s The Road to Love and it’s like sitting in a jazz pub. The sheer sense of presence, space, rhythm, texture, detail and percussive slam is fantastic! Really quite cheered me up