Media Server Reviews

Jason Victor Serinus returned to the Innuos Statement in November 2023 (Vol.46 No.11):

On April 2020, when I reviewed the original version of the top-of-the-line, two-box Innuos Statement Music Server/Streamer (then $13,750, now $16,700+), it was able to do all of the things you would hope a server could do: play back music from its internal SSD or an external NAS; stream music from several music-streaming services; and easily play and rip music from CDs inserted into a built-in disc drive (a feature some other servers lack). I liked that it allowed me to use either Roon or—for those who do not wish to subscribe to Roon or who don't need that program's rich feature set—InnuOS.

I also had some concerns. I thought the Statement offered negligible sonic improvements over playback through my considerably smaller and less expensive Roon Nucleus+ music server/streamer. The InnuOS software was best described as a frustrating work in progress; Innuos Founder Nuno Vitorino told me then that it was about to be "rebuilt from the ground up." Innuos's preference for a carefully engineered, reclocked asynchronous USB output was also a cause for concern because, in my experience, USB often sounds inferior to Ethernet, AES3, or S/PDIF.

More than a year ago, Innuos released the Innuos Statement NG ($21,700 with 1TB of internal SSD storage), which included a major upgrade to its power supply. It also introduced the Innuos Sense control app for phone and pad, and made it easy to switch between InnuOS and Roon playback software. The company had already begun to revamp InnuOS, and that work has continued. These changes mandated this follow-up review.

Before I installed the Statement NG, I witnessed Statement/Statement NG comparisons at two audio shows. Both times, the sonic improvements the Next-Gen power supply yielded were manifest. Under challenging show conditions, the differences in transparency, color saturation, and musical realism were easy to hear, not at all subtle.

During the same period, my ability to better hear components' strengths and weaknesess in my own system improved with multiple system upgrades. First, the dCS Rossini DAC/Rossini Clock pairing was replaced by dCS's top-of-the-line, three-piece dCS Vivaldi Apex DAC/Master Clock/Upsampler Plus. Instead of dCS's built-in volume control, I now use the D'Agostino Momentum HD preamp, which highlights color differences. My Wilson Alexia 2s were replaced by the considerably more revealing, better-controlled Wilson Alexia Vs with the now-standard Acoustic Diodes. Monoblock amplifiers were upgraded from D'Agostino Progressions to a pair of D'Agostino Momentum M400 MxVs. I upped the Roon Nucleus+ performance by switching its external power source from an HDPlex 200 to the notably quieter, more effective Nordost QSource with top-line QSource LEMO connectors. I simplified, upgraded, and refined my Ethernet optical streaming connection; added a Ferrum Hypsos linear/switching hybrid power supply to the NAS (network-attached storage device) and a SOtM sCLK-OCX10 Master Clock and sPS-500 power supply to the etherRegen optical converter; changed some cabling and room treatment; and upgraded my electrical wiring. So, time for a new listen.

In response to an email query, Vitorino shared with me that the Statement could be upgraded at the factory to the Next-Gen linear power supply. The upgrade entails changes to the AC/DC conversion section in the Statement's bottom chassis and the DC-regulation stage in the upper chassis. Specifically, the upgrade includes five major changes:

• Replacing passive rectification with active rectification. This change, Vitorino wrote, "drastically reduces power dissipation, heat generation, voltage loss, and diode on/off switching noise. Because the bridge is faster, it lowers the overall impedance of the power supply."

• Upgrading the reservoir capacitors in collaboration with power supply expert Dr. Sean Jacobs (footnote 1) with a "massive, 10mH choke and 500,000µF of Mundorf capacitors," an increase in capacitance of 3× over the Statement's previous supply.

• A new "Adaptive Vibration Control" platform for mounting the capacitor modules, which combines Panzerholz wood with "a specially formulated gel-layer reducing significantly the vibration at mid and high frequencies."

• Dr. Jacobs was also involved in the design of new regulator modules using CX architecture, which "allows us to lower peak-to-peak noise around 100 times compared to the previous regulator module." Component quality has also been upgraded to include "several Audio Note Kaisei capacitors per regulator module."

• A new "CPU Booster module" provides "up to 15A current to the CPU while maintaining a Linear Power Supply Design."

"The new power supply design," Vitorino continued, "benefits all components on the Statement such as the CPU, SSD, USB Reclocker with its own OCXO clock, and Ethernet module with its own OCXO clock.

"We use a direct, 24MHz OCXO with 3 parts per billion–precision clock on the USB Reclocker as well as a separate 25MHz OCXO (3 ppb) clock for the Ethernet clock module," he said. "This means the Statement already uses very high precision clocks instead of relying on an external 10MHz clock, which would then require a PLL to convert the 10MHz signal to the respective 24MHz and 25MHz required. This reclocking scheme avoids losing precision from an external clock's external cables and connectors as well as losing precision from using the [phase-locked loop]."

Once the Statement NG had settled in, it was easy to hear the improvement over the Roon Nucleus+, even with its external power supply, regardless of software choice. Results were consistent whether I played back files stored on the Statement NG's internal SSD, files stored on my NAS, or streamed from Tidal or Qobuz. On every parameter on my audiophile checklist—color, image size, transparency, weight, depth, musical flow, detail, and emotional impact—the Innuos Statement NG bested the Roon Nucleus+.

While the best-sounding input on the dCS Vivaldi Apex/Upsampler Plus/Vivaldi Master Clock trio remains Ethernet, the Innuos Statement NG delivers its best sound to the Vivaldi by sending its signal through its reclocked USB port. (There is a second USB port that isn't reclocked, which facilitates easy comparisons between clocked and unclocked outputs as well as to Ethernet.)

As Innuos has continued to upgrade InnuOS software, I've grown to use it almost exclusively because with the Statement NG, music sounds more vital than it does through Roon.

In the latest version of InnuOS, a single search now displays recordings from the internal SSD, Qobuz, and Tidal on the same page. (InnuOS previously required separate searches for each source.) Bit depth, sampling rate, format (including MQA, which Innuos supports), and liner notes (when present) are easily accessible. It's also easy to move forward and back within tracks or from track to track. 32-bit file playback is supported. InnuOS can display albums stored in its SSD by the date they were added to the collection as well as by album title, artist, and release date. For this reviewer, who is constantly adding music to his library and needs quick access to the most recent files, this is a make-or-break feature. Still missing is the ability to display albums in streaming-service searches by release date. Nor can you see all available versions of an album on those streaming services; InnuOS currently displays just one, opting for hi-rez whenever it's available.

Sometimes, InnuOS fails to display album art unless the cover files are titled Cover.jpg or Cover.png. Often the first nine tracks of a release fail to display in the correct order unless the files for those tracks begin with "0," as in "01-...", "02-...". If each track's title doesn't start with the track number, tracks will display in the wrong order.

If you listen mostly to music from streaming services or to files downloaded from commercial download sites, it's possible you'll never encounter these problems. They usually have their ducks in a row. But if you rip your CDs or, like me, deal with a lot of pre-release albums, encountering them occasionally is a virtual certainty. InnuOS shares this fault with every music OS I've tried, including Roon. Both products—Roon and InnuOS—often struggle with multi-CD/multi-folder rips (footnote 2), failing to display tracks in the correct order and sometimes splitting a single recording into several folders.

To get around these quirks, you will likely need to edit metadata by hand. Innuos allows for that, providing tools you can use to edit metadata and add imagery (footnote 3).

As of now, InnuOS can only access one volume of a NAS that's formatted into two or more volumes. Only by switching to Roon could I access all four 6TB volumes on my NAS through the Statement NG. Roon can rescan an entire 6TB volume on my NAS and add new titles and tracks far faster than InnuOS can. Vitorino assures me that future software updates will address his software's NAS-access limitations, improve rescan performance for users with large NAS libraries, and automatically add new titles once they're loaded onto an external NAS. (Roon, too, requires a rescan if you want to immediately access files newly added to a NAS.)

Currently, the largest storage option Innuos offers is 8TB; the 8TB option adds $2800 to the price. Servers from Aurender and Antipodes offer storage options up to 24TB storage.

Roon is better than InnuOS in services, integration, matching albums with their covers, metadata manipulation, and so on. InnuOS, on the other hand, sounds better.

What's more, I continue to appreciate the ability to use the Statement NG to easily rip some CDs containing recordings not available via streaming services—to its internal SSD or my NAS. I can scan and add cover art and liner notes to ripped CDs to the CD's music folder, and if I give those files the right filenames, InnuOS recognizes the cover art and liner notes I've scanned and added to those CDs' music folders.

The Innuos Statement NG music server, with its Next-Gen linear power supply upgrade and the latest InnuOS software, sounds superior to the pre-NG statement and to the current Roon Nucleus+; indeed, it is sonically excellent in absolute terms. The latest InnuOS software offers major advances over earlier versions. Roon remains the superior app for finding music, learning about artists, and so on, but Innuos is superior for playback. I now use InnuOS as playback software a good 98% of the time, because it consistently delivers superior color saturation, transparency, and musical satisfaction. While the InnuOS software has room for improvement, the Statement NG has become an essential part of my reference system. It deserves the highest rating in Recommended Components.—Jason Victor Serinus

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Footnote 1: I wasn't familiar with Jacobs, so I looked him up. He is company director and audio electronics engineer at Custom HiFi Cables Ltd., which specializes in power supplies and power cords but also makes a few interconnects, selling them at prices that are modest in hi-fi terms. He earned the title "Dr." via a PhD in robotics, received in 2010 from the University of Leeds. The title of his dissertation was Adaptive Control of a Climbing Robot. He has a master's degree from the same institution, in "mechanotronics," a mixture of mechanical and electronic engineering. That sounds like fine training for designing power supplies.—Jim Austin

Footnote 2: Think full-length opera or a multi-CD set of Beethoven's nine symphonies, especially when the individual CDs in the box do not correspond to any previous commercial release.

Footnote 3: I haven't edited metadata in InnuOS, but I've done it in Roon, and it's frustrating. It's unfortunately still true, as it has been ever since I first started ripping CDs, that anyone serious about streaming needs to learn to use a music-metadata editor. I haven't tried that many, but my preference is mp3tag. There's a learning curve; probably, there are more user-friendly apps. See mp3tag.de/en/index.html.