[motberg]

  I am restaining myself  from ordering one right away. Did you ask for customization to prevent blinking led when playing high-res contents?

Hi,
 
No - I just ordered a standard isolator, no modification. ( I travel a lot so wanted to try this before I had to "hit the road" again..)  The blinking led is very soft and very fast, almost looks solid. In my setup it is actually pointed away from direct view from the listening position. I have lots of blue and red led's which would be much more intrusive into the listening space, but I just block them with various covers. If I remember correct, the Intona guy has already commented that they have already engineered the led circuit to work separately from anything that would affect the sound quality.
 
Just another side comment - I did not have any trouble with my installation, but I thought it was kind of remarkable how fast they fixed that problem found with connection with some of the older XMOS chips.. I thought that was a pretty impressive response...   

 

[FredA]

Hi,

No - I just ordered a standard isolator, no modification. ( I travel a lot so wanted to try this before I had to "hit the road" again..)  The blinking led is very soft and very fast, almost looks solid. In my setup it is actually pointed away from direct view from the listening position. I have lots of blue and red led's which would be much more intrusive into the listening space, but I just block them with various covers. If I remember correct, the Intona guy has already commented that they have already engineered the led circuit to work separately from anything that would affect the sound quality.

Just another side comment - I did not have any trouble with my installation, but I thought it was kind of remarkable how fast they fixed that problem found with connection with some of the older XMOS chips.. I thought that was a pretty impressive response...   

Small company with CEO involved in development. Gives a very responsive customer service. Read a couple of posts from him on CA. He seems very professional and knowledgeable. I almost ordered one 30 minutes ago. I have a Schiit Wyrd which i used with a jitterbug upstream. This improves my sound 2-3 notches. I would like to isolate the computer furthermore. The Intona seems like the best option available for the buck and the best option period, technically speaking.

 

[FredA]

The Mcu I mentioned was my error, when looking it up I clicked the wrong link. It was late last night and was clearly tired this soic8 on the dirty side of the intona directly avid the fpga. Adesto1512 45db021e sshn .
Maybe a flash memory IC?

I can find a better higher resolution photo but...headfi won't allow me to upload higher resolution

Any quick first impressions? My finger is on the trigger...

 

[rb2013]

Hi guys:

I have an Intona too (though it needs firmware upgrade as it is very finicky with my XMOS-input DACs and some cables).  But just to be clear, its sole function of galvanic isolation does not duplicate or obviate the REGEN's function of improving USB signal integrity and impedance match (and REGEN's secondary function of providing very clean VBUS power to DACs that need it).

And given that the Intona has a single, very average clock oscillator--located on the dirty input side--for the entire device (for both PHY chips, both FPGAs, and fed over the isolator), and that the SilLabs TX/RX RF-type isolator and the FPGAs add LOTS of jitter, the output of the Intona really does benefit from the clean reclocking/generation of the USB signal the REGEN offers.

Thus the ideal set-up (short of having a galvanically isolated version of the REGEN) is to place the Intona before a REGEN.  Then you get the unique benefits of both.  That's what quite a few folks are doing.

Ciao,

--Alex C.

Interesting comments on the clocking Alex. Thanks.

 

[rb2013]

Regarding the clocks in the Intona - one must keep in mind they are non-crystal MEMS.  This was based on the design criteria of having to with stand <2G lateral acceleration 24/7.  As Intona states:
 

Then the quality of the crystal oscillator is important too. Are you using, say, Crystek oscillators? It is a SiLabs MEMS oscillator, with measured Jitter around 2ps. This is, because 1. we have some customers that need mechanicly rugged hardware because they use our isolators at repeated >2g acceleration 24h/7d - crystals will fail here - and 2. power consumption of MEMS is 1/10 of crystals. As all voltage regulators are linear in the isolator, we had to pay attention to overall efficiency.

Figure 15. Price/Performance Comparison of Si50x CMEMS Oscillator vs. Si51x, Si59x, and Si53x/5x/7x XOs​

 

 
It looks like they use the CMEMS S150X - the lowest cost and lowest performance in the SiTime line-up.  Certainly against their crystal based clocks.  I did not see a phase noise plot vs freq as is std for NDK and Crystek on these clocks.   But they do perform well in a high G environment.
 
The other point is the main intended use - that is DC line surge galvanic isolation.   And a shake-proof case.  This is because of the industrial not audio design parameters.
 

 Table 1Model Types, Ordering Codes and Differences

Standard Version	Model Nr. 7054	1kV isolation, standard temperature grade, standard connectors
Industrial Version	Model Nr. 7054-X	2.5kV isolation, specified isolation working voltage, extended temperature grade, high retention connectors

Both models are also available as bare bone version without enclosure. Resin hardened version for extreme mechanical demands (shakeproof) upon request.​

 

Not saying it won't improve some systems - but may not do much in well designed ones.

 

[GrouchoMarx1933]

   
Not saying it won't improve some systems - but may not do much in well designed ones.

 
I feel like this could be said of all/any of the USB clean-up devices on the market. It seems with all of these products, it's very YMMV.

 

[alubis]

I can understand the need for a good clock for SPDIF, but why do we need reclocking for USB? DAC USB input is asynchronous anyway. My experience with Chord Hugo is the 5V USB from transport leaking to the DAC hence decreasing the sound quality, so I would think the solution would be a good galvanic isolation and no need for regenerating/reclocking.

 

[bimmer100]

FYI, i'm dealing with family emergency related events, and have not had enough time to really listen to the intona. Intial impressions are positive, but to what extent? Nothing that less than 30minutes could give any definitive review or reply. First Impression, Noise floor sounds excellent, Possibly to the point that my system won't have audible improvements beyond a certain point. albeit It already was excellent. I did however also receive my HEX back from Hifiman today. a total new pair was sent and perfectly in tip top working order and no cosmetic issues whatsoever. I will listen for a while with the intona and then switch back after a week to see what's missing, if anything. Or if it will be a repeat of the Uptone Regen and find out it made my system sound worse. Stay tuned... overall, I can honestly say....no change is dramatic...if any. first impression is.... not a good upgrade for the money. Also tried a jitterbug, that did absolutely nothing as well.with or without. I'd hope these work for others, but i'm not one to make things up in my mind if there are audible improvements or not. I need more time with this intona to be sure. At this moment and time, I'm sure enough that I could live without it.
 
I'm not going to do the a/b back forth every 5min crap. I'm going to listen for hours/days or a week, and then switch back to no intona.  I'm also have a jitterbug i'm going to throw into the mix.
 
initial installation was a breeze. NO issues whatsoever. plugged in, and everything works perfectly.
 
I'm going to take this to a local meet on the 30th and sure to find a person who's system will benefit from this much more than my system would. I'm finding that my system is already sounding so damn good and has such clean power all around...there isn't much that can be improved on. So that means end game for me. 
But I have all these wonderful DDC's to listen to and choose my final flavor of sound presentation.
 
I'm confident I will be installing NDK's on the Audio-GD DIU8, and have the solder reflow process figured out and confident it will go smoothly.
 
I have 2 pairs of 957's, will still attempt another xmos board for the DIU8 with 957's
and the Breeze will get it's 957's, which truly is the most simple swap of all the DDC's. I figure that will be a 20-30min job tops.
The PRO3A likely will sit as is, and get some super clean Teddy Pardo Power. 
Acko dac AKR75 regulator will go into the U12, and Belleson Superpower MK2 regulator...which will sound best? not sure, but i'm told the AKR75 should technically be best for the U12 due to it's larger bandwidth and ideal use for digital gear...we shall hear and find out. Tommorrow i'm going to work on the U12 since i'm still awaiting some key components for the other builds. including still waiting for the breeze to even show up...slowest damn shipping in the world. couple weeks now... 
 
 
overall, the good thing is I don't seem to hear a decrease in sound quality. that's better to say than my experience with the Schiit Wyrd, and Uptone Regen. which were more of anti progress for stepping my system up a notch. As I said, I need more time. More testing. Sometimes I think I hear something, but want to be sure nothing is being made up. I surely want to hear a change, but honestly can't say I do. I tested a full range of different resolution songs. many 24/192 tracks and pushing bandwidth. Seems like no loss of quality with or without intona. For a moment I thought I was hearing subtle change in sound stage. I will do more testing with the HD800 and HEX and see which might revel more. They both are quite transparent and revealing imho. I don't care what others are saying at the HEX. they are simply fantastic with my system.The HD800's are with the Sonarworks plugin. But will do some mods to them to further improve them...draug2 is on the way for hd800 first. and many mods for the HD800 are in line and ready to install when my time opens up after some projects finish. HEX am waiting for funds to purchase Draug2 and grey wire to do a grey/black wire braid. Grey is on backorder til end of feb.
 
CUT TO THE CHASE...
 
ok... save your money. the Intona may or may not work. at this point...hold on to your benjamins. I will test it further on laptops, low grade pcs and crapple computers to see what results I get. Honestly, my system just doesn't seem to care if the intona is a part of the family of musical madness. Some other computers usb may welcome the Intona and likely would make dramatic differences. As the usb regen...I sold and the buyer said "what is this? sorcery! it's dramatically improved! i'm so happy for him, truly am. I wish I could say that it would of helped me, but it didn't. It's likely the intona will be attempted to be returned, or will sell it for a small loss on Headfi and use the funds towards something like the draug2 for my HEX. I know that will be an upgrade. I will update after the 30th with my final statement about the Intona. I want to be fair and give it a chance in different conditions.
 

 

[FredA]

FYI, i'm dealing with family emergency related events, and have not had enough time to really listen to the intona. Intial impressions are positive, but to what extent? Nothing that less than 30minutes could give any definitive review or reply. First Impression, Noise floor sounds excellent, Possibly to the point that my system won't have audible improvements beyond a certain point. albeit It already was excellent. I did however also receive my HEX back from Hifiman today. a total new pair was sent and perfectly in tip top working order and no cosmetic issues whatsoever. I will listen for a while with the intona and then switch back after a week to see what's missing, if anything. Or if it will be a repeat of the Uptone Regen and find out it made my system sound worse. Stay tuned... overall, I can honestly say....no change is dramatic...if any. first impression is.... not a good upgrade for the money. Also tried a jitterbug, that did absolutely nothing as well.with or without. I'd hope these work for others, but i'm not one to make things up in my mind if there are audible improvements or not. I need more time with this intona to be sure. At this moment and time, I'm sure enough that I could live without it.

I'm not going to do the a/b back forth every 5min crap. I'm going to listen for hours/days or a week, and then switch back to no intona.  I'm also have a jitterbug i'm going to throw into the mix.

initial installation was a breeze. NO issues whatsoever. plugged in, and everything works perfectly.

I'm going to take this to a local meet on the 30th and sure to find a person who's system will benefit from this much more than my system would. I'm finding that my system is already sounding so damn good and has such clean power all around...there isn't much that can be improved on. So that means end game for me. 
But I have all these wonderful DDC's to listen to and choose my final flavor of sound presentation.

I'm confident I will be installing NDK's on the Audio-GD DIU8, and have the solder reflow process figured out and confident it will go smoothly.

I have 2 pairs of 957's, will still attempt another xmos board for the DIU8 with 957's
and the Breeze will get it's 957's, which truly is the most simple swap of all the DDC's. I figure that will be a 20-30min job tops.
The PRO3A likely will sit as is, and get some super clean Teddy Pardo Power. 
Acko dac AKR75 regulator will go into the U12, and Belleson Superpower MK2 regulator...which will sound best? not sure, but i'm told the AKR75 should technically be best for the U12 due to it's larger bandwidth and ideal use for digital gear...we shall hear and find out. Tommorrow i'm going to work on the U12 since i'm still awaiting some key components for the other builds. including still waiting for the breeze to even show up...slowest damn shipping in the world. couple weeks now... 


overall, the good thing is I don't seem to hear a decrease in sound quality. that's better to say than my experience with the Schiit Wyrd, and Uptone Regen. which were more of anti progress for stepping my system up a notch. As I said, I need more time. More testing. Sometimes I think I hear something, but want to be sure nothing is being made up. I surely want to hear a change, but honestly can't say I do. I tested a full range of different resolution songs. many 24/192 tracks and pushing bandwidth. Seems like no loss of quality with or without intona. For a moment I thought I was hearing subtle change in sound stage. I will do more testing with the HD800 and HEX and see which might revel more. They both are quite transparent and revealing imho. I don't care what others are saying at the HEX. they are simply fantastic with my system.The HD800's are with the Sonarworks plugin. But will do some mods to them to further improve them...draug2 is on the way for hd800 first. and many mods for the HD800 are in line and ready to install when my time opens up after some projects finish. HEX am waiting for funds to purchase Draug2 and grey wire to do a grey/black wire braid. Grey is on backorder til end of feb.

CUT TO THE CHASE...

ok... save your money. the Intona may or may not work. at this point...hold on to your benjamins. I will test it further on laptops, low grade pcs and crapple computers to see what results I get. Honestly, my system just doesn't seem to care if the intona is a part of the family of musical madness. Some other computers usb may welcome the Intona and likely would make dramatic differences. As the usb regen...I sold and the buyer said "what is this? sorcery! it's dramatically improved! i'm so happy for him, truly am. I wish I could say that it would of helped me, but it didn't. It's likely the intona will be attempted to be returned, or will sell it for a small loss on Headfi and use the funds towards something like the draug2 for my HEX. I know that will be an upgrade. I will update after the 30th with my final statement about the Intona. I want to be fair and give it a chance in different conditions.

One thing is for sure with this fancy usb card and Hynes PSU, you have a very clean usb signal in the first place. And you probably don't have ground or ground loop issues as i do. You initial impressiions mean that the Intona does not mess that usb signal up, which in itself is quite positive, considering it is excellent already. I should have checked your setup properly before making predictions and giving you false hopes. Sorry for this.

The Intona needs a bit of buring before making an audible difference, according to other forumers. Something like 24 hours if i remember well. Did it run a bt before your brief evaluation?

Thanks for you feedback and hope this acquisition pays off after a while. It could.

I will wait. I am interested in the results with a crappy computer. Mine is good, but not excellent. And my setup is likely to have ground issues. I would be interested in buying your Intona, but do not want to pay much more than for the standard version, which is the one i was to order. Around 250 plus shipping on me would be my offer.

 

[rb2013]

   
I feel like this could be said of all/any of the USB clean-up devices on the market. It seems with all of these products, it's very YMMV.

And from my experience with the Regen fed by a linear power supply.  It made a very noticeable improvement in my office system (R2R DAC 60 - heavily modded), but actually made my main system worse (APL NWOjr DAC).

But who knows?  I doubt the industrial version is necessary - unless you plan on connecting a lightning rod to your PC.  The 'standard' version should be fine with 1K Volts protection.  The 'industrial' version also can with stand very high temperatures and has 'shake-proof' connectors.  All of these not need in an audio set-up.
 
May try if a std pops up on the used market for $100.

 

[rb2013]

  I can understand the need for a good clock for SPDIF, but why do we need reclocking for USB? DAC USB input is asynchronous anyway. My experience with Chord Hugo is the 5V USB from transport leaking to the DAC hence decreasing the sound quality, so I would think the solution would be a good galvanic isolation and no need for regenerating/reclocking.

Good question.  But from what I've read on the Paul Pang USB cards the V3 which uses a OXCO sounds much better then the V2 card which uses a TXCO - these clocks are for USB only, not audio, or SPDIF.  Both much better then the CMEMS in the intona.  The TXCO looks like a OEM JYEC with .1ppm stability versus 20ppm for the SiTime S150X.  I did not see a std phase noise vs freq graph in the S150X datasheet. But here is one for a OCXO vs the NDK SD.  The JYEC measures around -125db a 1Khz.
 

 
PPA V3 with OCXO USB card:


PPA V2 with TXCO

 

[rb2013]

  FYI, i'm dealing with family emergency related events, and have not had enough time to really listen to the intona. Intial impressions are positive, but to what extent? Nothing that less than 30minutes could give any definitive review or reply. First Impression, Noise floor sounds excellent, Possibly to the point that my system won't have audible improvements beyond a certain point. albeit It already was excellent. I did however also receive my HEX back from Hifiman today. a total new pair was sent and perfectly in tip top working order and no cosmetic issues whatsoever. I will listen for a while with the intona and then switch back after a week to see what's missing, if anything. Or if it will be a repeat of the Uptone Regen and find out it made my system sound worse. Stay tuned... overall, I can honestly say....no change is dramatic...if any. first impression is.... not a good upgrade for the money. Also tried a jitterbug, that did absolutely nothing as well.with or without. I'd hope these work for others, but i'm not one to make things up in my mind if there are audible improvements or not. I need more time with this intona to be sure. At this moment and time, I'm sure enough that I could live without it.
 
I'm not going to do the a/b back forth every 5min crap. I'm going to listen for hours/days or a week, and then switch back to no intona.  I'm also have a jitterbug i'm going to throw into the mix.
 
initial installation was a breeze. NO issues whatsoever. plugged in, and everything works perfectly.
 
I'm going to take this to a local meet on the 30th and sure to find a person who's system will benefit from this much more than my system would. I'm finding that my system is already sounding so damn good and has such clean power all around...there isn't much that can be improved on. So that means end game for me. 
But I have all these wonderful DDC's to listen to and choose my final flavor of sound presentation.
 
I'm confident I will be installing NDK's on the Audio-GD DIU8, and have the solder reflow process figured out and confident it will go smoothly.
 
I have 2 pairs of 957's, will still attempt another xmos board for the DIU8 with 957's
and the Breeze will get it's 957's, which truly is the most simple swap of all the DDC's. I figure that will be a 20-30min job tops.
The PRO3A likely will sit as is, and get some super clean Teddy Pardo Power. 
Acko dac AKR75 regulator will go into the U12, and Belleson Superpower MK2 regulator...which will sound best? not sure, but i'm told the AKR75 should technically be best for the U12 due to it's larger bandwidth and ideal use for digital gear...we shall hear and find out. Tommorrow i'm going to work on the U12 since i'm still awaiting some key components for the other builds. including still waiting for the breeze to even show up...slowest damn shipping in the world. couple weeks now... 
 
 
overall, the good thing is I don't seem to hear a decrease in sound quality. that's better to say than my experience with the Schiit Wyrd, and Uptone Regen. which were more of anti progress for stepping my system up a notch. As I said, I need more time. More testing. Sometimes I think I hear something, but want to be sure nothing is being made up. I surely want to hear a change, but honestly can't say I do. I tested a full range of different resolution songs. many 24/192 tracks and pushing bandwidth. Seems like no loss of quality with or without intona. For a moment I thought I was hearing subtle change in sound stage. I will do more testing with the HD800 and HEX and see which might revel more. They both are quite transparent and revealing imho. I don't care what others are saying at the HEX. they are simply fantastic with my system.The HD800's are with the Sonarworks plugin. But will do some mods to them to further improve them...draug2 is on the way for hd800 first. and many mods for the HD800 are in line and ready to install when my time opens up after some projects finish. HEX am waiting for funds to purchase Draug2 and grey wire to do a grey/black wire braid. Grey is on backorder til end of feb.
 
CUT TO THE CHASE...
 
ok... save your money. the Intona may or may not work. at this point...hold on to your benjamins. I will test it further on laptops, low grade pcs and crapple computers to see what results I get. Honestly, my system just doesn't seem to care if the intona is a part of the family of musical madness. Some other computers usb may welcome the Intona and likely would make dramatic differences. As the usb regen...I sold and the buyer said "what is this? sorcery! it's dramatically improved! i'm so happy for him, truly am. I wish I could say that it would of helped me, but it didn't. It's likely the intona will be attempted to be returned, or will sell it for a small loss on Headfi and use the funds towards something like the draug2 for my HEX. I know that will be an upgrade. I will update after the 30th with my final statement about the Intona. I want to be fair and give it a chance in different conditions.
 

Interesting initial review - may need some burn in time.  I think with your PPA V3 fed by the Hynes - this may not be needed.  But like the Regen it might help other systems.  But for the $300 someone could get a PPA V2 and a LPS -maybe a bigger bang for the buck.

 

[FredA]

Hi,

No - I just ordered a standard isolator, no modification. ( I travel a lot so wanted to try this before I had to "hit the road" again..)  The blinking led is very soft and very fast, almost looks solid. In my setup it is actually pointed away from direct view from the listening position. I have lots of blue and red led's which would be much more intrusive into the listening space, but I just block them with various covers. If I remember correct, the Intona guy has already commented that they have already engineered the led circuit to work separately from anything that would affect the sound quality.

Just another side comment - I did not have any trouble with my installation, but I thought it was kind of remarkable how fast they fixed that problem found with connection with some of the older XMOS chips.. I thought that was a pretty impressive response...   

I have ordered the regular version with the "no flash" mod. I don't have a fancy usb card, so it should help my setup. Plus it really provides galvanic isolation, according to a poster in another forum who created a ground loop on purpose and fixed it with the intona.

 

[bimmer100]

I have ordered the regular version with the "no flash" mod. I don't have a fancy usb card, so it should help my setup. Plus it really provides galvanic isolation, according to a poster in another forum who created a ground loop on purpose and fixed it with the intona.

ahh ok, I was going to sell you mine but thats cool. Either way i'm sure my industrial version will sell pretty quickly. This thing does work for systems that need it. I just have a rediculously low noise system. 

 

[bimmer100]

 
Interesting initial review - may need some burn in time.  I think with your PPA V3 fed by the Hynes - this may not be needed.  But like the Regen it might help other systems.  But for the $300 someone could get a PPA V2 and a LPS -maybe a bigger bang for the buck.

 
Well, i'm going to put the Intona up for sale, the teddy pardo, and 3 of the 4 ddc's( will know in 2weeks).
 
And the PPAV2 isn't really nearly as good at the V3, but I suppose it's not too shabby either. But if you're in that price range, i'd go with the volent usb card.
http://www.volent.com.hk/?page_id=632