My Pink Faun arrived today, with the Fiber ISL intetrface.
Ridiculously easy install… as long as you don’t drop it on your foot Plug in a few wires, turn it on, open up Roon on your phone and you are playing music.
Cascade has always been so good it’s hard to believe it could be improved… but this is a big upgrade!
I’m hearing things on tracks I know, that I had not heard before. Increased clarity of vocals is stunning. Any thing that tinkles, like Knofler’s metal guitar or brushes and snares are more real. Imaging has improved. Drums are just better… tighter, not a hint of mush.
Dan, Congrats! The 2.16 is on my short list of upgrades to my Cascade this year. Do you also have the Renderer module in your Cascade? It would be interesting to see a report on the differences between the two modules with your Pro ISL paired with the PF.
I do have the Renderer I didn’t use it and I don’t have it hooked up at this point.
Prior to the PF I used ProUSB.
I doubt I’ll get around too doing a ProISL vs. Renderer. It’s not just adding a network connection for me.
At this point I’m all about noise reduction and I just don’t think connecting to the PF via RAAT will better than PF via fiber ISL anyhow. But, of course, trust your own ears, not mine.
The upgrade is stunning. The clarity it adds to vocals is impressive. I have a couple of tracks I like to use for a quick image test. The MonaLisa twins, Duo Sessions, sing very tight harmonies. Their voices are not quite identical, but you can clearly hear the difference voices both by sound and position.
There is a track on Bill Evans Conversations With Myself, Round Midnight, where the middle piano is often hard to spot. It’s much clearer now. I had a guest who couldn’t spot the middle piano prior to PF but now can.
There is an album of 16th century a cappella music. I think the track Sicut lilium Inter Spinas on Queen of Hearts is a good one for imaging. The voices can be hard to separate. The separation much improved.
In any case I, and one guest I had today, are hearing things we haven’t heard in tracks before.
I would say go PF+MSB ISL and don’t look back… no testing needed
Hi Dan, Congrats on the new streamer. Can you remind me what streamer and connection you were using before the Pink Faun? How is the Faun ISL connection different than using MSB’s Pro ISL interface beyond bypassing the streamers USB connection?
Congratulations Dan on the next improvement in your system! What a whirlwind you have been going through, a real journey over the last year. Most excellent to hear
Prior to PF I was using a Nucleus Titan via ProUSB. BTW, ProUSB is ProISL, except it includes a USB dongle for one end of the fiber. The dongle converts the MSB ISL fiber protocol to USB.
So to install the PF all I had to do was remove the USB Dongle from the end of the fiber and plug the fiber into the PF. I didn’t have to touch the DD all. Easy, peasy.
What I’m trying to understand is how PF ProISL recieves its data. Is it an “internal” USB connection used or does it bypass USB altogether? In other words why is it a better connection than the ProUSB module? Thanks for anything you can describe.
No USB involved. If you buy the MSB ProISL the interface you get exactly the same the same thing as when you buy the ProUSB interface, except you don’t get the USB dongle.
The ProISL input on the DD has a connector for an SFP, that’s a terminator of an optical fiber. PF also has a connector for an SFP. You are getting a direct fiber connection between the DD and the PF.
So ProISL just eliminates a the circuitry for converting ProISL to USB.
So I think it’s a no brainer that ProISL is better than ProUSB because ProISL eliminates circuitry… assuming everything is well designed, which it is..
I think a better comparison is plain ol’ USB vs, ProISL. However fiber can be used over longer distances.
But in the end there are so many variables involved and all the unknown design details of PF and MSB, you can really tell by just looking at the topology of how things are hooked up.
But my guess is that both PF and MSB designs exactly match each other, because they worked together, and cleanly transfer all the audio information there is. This should produce in a better result than you can get when you are forced to use an standard protocol like USB Audio.
Thanks Dan. I now get what’s going on. I recently upgraded my Innuos Zenith MK3 to Innuos Zenith NG with a PhoenixUSB Reclocker unit. I felt that upgrade was not significant given the 4X-5x the price. I guess I’m in the camp if the connections are optical how can the 1’s and 0’s carry noise that is significantly audible. With typical room noise at 30db it’s hard to understand how minute “noise” can influence the SQ in an audible way. Just my opinion in this crazy hobby. Glad to hear you had a positive result in your system.
How do you think it compares with the Oladra? I think the Oladra sounds great with my Cascade; however, functionally, I find it somewhat quirky—too many reboots are needed, and they’re interminable.
Also, I can’t be bothered with Anitpodes’ Squeeze player option. Is is my imagination, or has the Cascade “Roon Ready” firmware update closed the gap between the Squeeze and Roon players’ sound quality?
“I guess I’m in the camp if the connections are optical how can the 1’s and 0’s carry noise that is significantly audible.”
I’d point out that any of the servers implementing Pro-ISL (there are now 4 of them) use the same MSB card, so the fiber part is standardized. Any relative improvements would be in what’s going in the server and on the PCIe board which interfaces with the MSB card.
I couldn’t find much on this yet, so thanks to Dan for starting the thread.
Dan, does the PF Ultra 2.16 have fiber input from the Internet or is it Ethernet input into the PF? I understand the output by Pro ISL using the AOC cable. What I am trying to decipher is what does the PF do that is different from the Renderer if both can be connected by Ethernet with output using the AOC optical cable which galvanically isolate noise with either implementation.
At the heart of what I am trying to understand is what is the PF doing with the data compared to what the Renderer is doing with the data, OS and GUI aside using the PF, which has its own merits for sure.
Thanks for the patience with my questions. I have the budget to buy the PF Ultra 2.16, but I want to very clearly understand what sonic value it has over the Renderer. And separately, I do want to come to terms with the GUI and ease of use, but with priority on the sonics.
If you don’t mind my answering, as I’ve owned both MSB modules, the Renderer module hosts a small endpoint computer, an inherently noisier interface than the Pro-ISL. As to what’s going inside a server, most server companies will reveal little substantive info, advising to hear it (not always easy for most of us).
For me, the question is which one of the 4 servers (really 3, because Taiko Olympus is beyond my budget).
EDIT: That said, one of the design goals of Digital Director was to isolate differences between input modules. Isn’t this ambiguity fun :?
Innuos Nazare has the Pro-ISL option (see below). If they introduce it as an output module for my Zenith NG I might give it a try. I will remain open but still a bit skeptical. “The NazaréFLOW is a dedicated high-performance output stage designed to complement the NAZARÉ streamer, while remaining fully compatible with any USB audio source. It features a high-precision USB reclocker with synchronized clock connections to internal boards, ensuring accurate signal timing. The FLOW also includes on-board I2S output conversion and supports dedicated output modules for proprietary DAC interfaces like MSB ProISL. All components are powered by the latest generation NAZARÉ PSU architecture, which provides separate, low-noise power rails for the clocks, reclocker, and output boards.”
PF has an RJ-45 socket that you plug your network into, just like most other streamers.
Operationally it’s just a plain ol’ Roon Nucleus. You connect to it with the Roon client software on your phone or whatever. PF has Roon Core built into it.
PF has a number of different outputs available. On my PF chose the MSB Optical ISL, which connects to my Cascade. There are other choices. When I open the Room software on my phone it lists PF as a place I can send a stream to. If I had the MSB Renderer plugged into my Cascade it would show that too, as a separate endpoint.
PF injects very little noise into its Optical ISL output, so it injects very little noise into my Cascade. If I used the MSB Renderer my Cascade would have to contend with all the noise injected into my network by all the equipment on it. Although Cascade does a fantastic job rejecting noise, less noise in is better. YMMV… It depends on innumerable variables as to whether this difference will be audible in any particular system… test by listening.
As far as galvanic isolation goes… galvanic isolation blocks DC currents flowing between pieces of equipment, not AC currents, i.e. galvanic isolation doesn’t block noise. BTW almost all modern ethernet interfaces include galvanic isolation via little transformers, typically implemented in an SMD package (i.e. a chip) .
Hi Dan, thanks for starting this thread. I’m on the fence about the Ultra+Pro-ISL because my Taiko Extreme+XDMS sounds better than any USB system I’ve heard, and Taiko is supposed to have their Pro-ISL card as an option later this year. If I only I could hear it, I’d go for the Ultra if it’s better than Taiko XDMS USB.
It’s one of those things you can only tell by listening. Taiko is one the streamer companies that focus on quiet electronics, so you are in a good place no matter what happens
Plug in a few wires, turn it on, open up Roon on your phone and you are playing music.
