I’ll be trying this again when I am convinced the Statement with new PSU is fully burnt in, but before the upgrade there is no doubt that the PhoenixNet brought more to the party with its slower and quieter ports with LEDs and completely dedicated power supplies and I suspect this will still be the case, but I will certainly play around and let you know what I find.
I don’t have the PhoenixUSB so don’t know whether that would or would not have made a difference with the earlier version of the Statement into the Chord MScaler/Dave combo never mind with the new PSU. Is there any way to get a demo Statement to try this out with your existing gear?
Once I either get the final down/up in performance during burn-in or am satisfied it will never come, I’ll certainly play around with and without the PhoenixNet both for my own curiosity and to let you know what I find…
Thanks Michael appreciate the feedback, I’ve started talking to my dealer about a possible change over. I believe the USB performance of the Statement doesn’t require the retention of the PhoenixUSB but this may not be the same for the PhoenixNet, I’ve asked my dealer for his views.
I will ask for a home demo, I’m sure this won’t be an issue.
Glasnaim, my Innuos dealer doesn’t do home demos on any gear, full stop, for any clients. As such I am very envious of you!
I too have a Zenith Mk3 and PhoenixUSB, feeding the DAC module in my Gryphon Diablo 300 integrated. I also have the PhoenixNET. What DAC are you using?
So I’d be VERY interested in your results. Having said that I don’t think the Statement Next Gen has shown up as dealer demos just yet?
Interestingly the Innuos Statement vs Statement Next Gen demo at the Munich show used the same amp and I believe they same DAC as me. You can even hear the difference the Next Gen makes in the YouTube video, just playing it on my iPhone.
My dealer is quite good that way, unfortunately due to Innuos having less dealership coverage they are not my main dealer for Chord and Naim, that would be much easier. Spoke to him yesterday unfortunately just now he doesn’t have a Statement to let me demo, spoke to another dealer with an ex demo unit but sods law had just been sold. I took the opportunity to ask a few questions re the performance of the Statement, I was interested in the question I asked @Michaelb about the added value of the PhoenixNet, both agreed that it was a good addition to the Statement.
I’m using Chord Mscaler into Chord Dave with ATC 40A.
You are correct the next gen at this stage seems to be a dealer option and as such not available from stock, unfortunately we can only follow reviews and feedback from users such as Michael. Lastly to move from our current Innuos set up, especially retaining the PhoenixNet, is going to be a significant investment.
You’re right, the Statement Next Gen is a bit outlay, over our current setup of Zenith Mk3 plus PhoenixUSB. The price increase should help us, a very little bit, in terms of resale of our Zeniths and PhoenixUSB’s when we upgrade to the Statement Next Gen. I’m planning to wait a few months as I need to also fund a bit of work on our house that can’t wait, and I don’t want to spend too much at once! But I’m definitely committed to adding a Statement Next Gen to my system, based on early reports and what I can detect even though the Innuos comparison videos. I really am attached to the rest of my gear and it’s the obvious upgrade that will make the biggest difference while retaining the character of the rest of my system - each of which I don’t want to give up for what it adds.
That said I do wonder what the typical refresh cycle is for Innuos. Does anyone have an idea on this? I would guess a Statement Mk2 would be offered somewhere in the 2024 - 2026 range (hopefully with an option to upgrade the server component of the Statement for existing owners)? I think the Next Gen upgrade was 3 years following the launch of the Statement in 2019. So maybe another 3 years and there will be a Mk2? I know that no one here knows the answer to that but I’m wondering if there is any precedent that exists for Innuos product updates.
The downtick in sound quality coincided with my installation of InnuOS 2.2.1 so I wasn’t entirely sure what to attribute it to until comments from other users that were entirely favourable emerged.
The “sounding worse” period only lasted around a day, after which there was a surge of improvement.
Everything took a step forwards, really, but the most significant thing is that previously certain improvements stood out: greater dynamism and clarity, greater instrumental texture and detail, clearer vocal inflections and so on, whereas now all these elements are working very cohesively and synergistically together in a quantum leap of performance that results in a significant increase in sense of presence, insight and involvement.
Oh and the mids are now very lifelike: textured and vibrant, full bodied and detailed.
My expectation is that this is now the end of the burn-in journey, but I’ll obviously update if anything else happens, as I will about whether the impact of the PhoenixNet on the system has changed as a result of the Statement upgrade - and it’s worth reminding there’s more to the upgrade than “just” the power supplies.
The PhoenixNet experiments won’t be imminent since I’m a bit ill at the moment and we’ll have the builders in for a couple of weeks, but I’ll give them a go as soon as possible.
Suffice to conclude that this is a tremendous upgrade to the Statement in every respect and much kudos to Innuos for making it available to all Statement owners.
Very interesting Michael. I hope you recover quickly.
I must admit I am getting confused about Innuos’ UPnP development. They were working on optimising this for Naim streamers and you had been using a workaround (plugin?) for some time. Is that development work ongoing or has it essentially been completed with the launch of InnuOS 2.2.1?
You seem to have got a fabulous result now and I would be interested to hear the result of the upgraded Statement with, and without, the PheonixNET.
You don’t need the workaround any more and there are dedicated settings in InnuOS for the latest generation boards and also prior NDX/NDS models. It’s still a work in progress, though, so you don’t get artwork from Qobuz yet and can have problems with replaying certain (but not all) WAV files. Innuos are working on these issues. Overall it’s easy to use and the sound quality is very good indeed.
Finally have a litle time for listening and this last step really is a collosal final improvement. Sometimes people talk about the music snapping into focus. That isn’t what’s happening here because that suggests something static. Listening to Burhan Ocal’s Kardeniz and it really is extraordinary. @Blackmorec has written extensively in this thread about how the new Sean Jacobs power supplies with their ARC6 active rectifier models come on song. Well if any of you were wondering whether he was exaggerating, I can tell you he wasn’t.
The Statement is a truly fabulous product, but the new upgrade really transforms it.
