The PhoenixNet is very good at revealing reverb of both natural and artificial varieties, on The Weather Station’s beautiful ‘Thirty’ [The Weather Station, Paradise of Bachelors] there is a sense of real space around the singer and her guitar in the quiet intro, it’s like sunlight but not bright in the acoustic sense, just crystalline. It also allows the energy of live recordings like Keith Jarrett’s Carnegie Hall Concert [ECM] to pervade the room, the occasional sounds from the audience mapping out the scale of the venue and the player’s foot making the stage reverberate, all of which adds to the transcendent experience that a good recording can create.

You need a good system to do this of course but if you have one adding a switch that minimises the noise floating around the network is more than the icing on the audio cake, it feels like a critical element, the missing link between the recording and the listening experience. The PhoenixNet is an expensive switch with the minimum of ports but it’s extremely good at the job thanks to its dedicated nature, if you want to know what your streaming system is really capable of I recommend you have a listen.
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
- Type: Streaming audio network switch
- LAN Ethernet ports: 4 (via RJ45)
- Fibre optic ports: none
- Clock: OCXO
- Packet data buffer: not specified
- Features: Isolation transformers, linear PSUs
- Finish: Siver/black
- Dimensions (H×W×D): 87 × 215 × 342mm
- Weight: 5kg
- Price: £2,599
Manufacturer: Innuos
Tel: +351 308 800 826
URL: innuos.com
Distributor: Innuos UK
Tel: +44(0) 2475 200 210
URL: innuos.com
By Jason Kennedy
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