I know Bruno Putzeys is a big fan of SMPS and is on record as saying the bad old days of all of them being awful are well and truly behind us. Yes, you can still buy cheap noisy ones, but excellent ones are now available that make them equal-to-but-different to equally high quality LPS.
He thinks good SMPS are better than a lot of LPS on the market and are cheaper into the bargain. This makes them a better option for high end designers and they often present easier to solve problems than LPS.
He knows what he’s talking about, but I’m sure it’s one of half a dozen possibilities that will sound incredible. The point here being that he thinks we need to stop assuming a quality LPS will automatically be better.
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As Garth Powell said, all of this isolation helps, but you can’t get it all. Some mouse invariably sneaks through, or the receiver chips adds its own noise, or…
I’m happy to defer to his expert knowledge and experience.
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Hello everyone. Just watched Paul’s video on the Airlens. Will this be a Roon endpoint? When will this be available and of course how much? All things Airlens…
There’s a whole thread that covers this topic.
The simple answer is yes it will be a roon endpoint.
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Paul commented $2,000 and early November
Did he specify a year? 
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Reading the last 3 months or so of this thread, my understanding is that Airlens aims to be a high-end Internet (LAN / Wi-Fi) to I2S converter (with re-clocking), and with Roon endpoint (tested or certified?) functionality.
A couple questions:
- Seems like Airlens does not address any issues associated with jitter introduced in the digital signal path from many serving / rendering devices upstream?
- What is the rationale for not including SPDIF (coax and AES3) output?
Unless I am missing something, this has fairly narrow applicability?
If you really believe AL will be released in November, you’d also have to believe that DS m2 will first be realeased within those remaining 7 weeks, and then AL subsequently would as well. Not making a prediction, just keepin it real……
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- The DSD MKII will deal with jitter.
- PS Audio STRONGLY favors I2S and as such they have ZERO INTEREST in other signal paths.
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I doubt that this is a valid statement. If AirLens is to compete in the 2K segment, it must deal with ethernet noise/jitter.
That’s not really a thing though. Well, at least jitter isn’t. Noise yes, it does deal with that as that’s the whole point of “Air” in the name.
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Aangen, Thank you for your thoughts.
On 1, I assume as you do that the jitter between the Airlens and the DSD MKII will be minimized between / within the two, especially with the I2S interface eliminating any digital signal conversion to and from SPDIF.
My original question however pertained to jitter introduced upstream from the Airlens and/or the DSD MKII, which does not seem to be addressed with the solution here (according to my current limited understanding of what Airlens does).
If that is the case, the Airlens, is “just” and Ethernet to I2S conversion box, for ~$2K (if that is indeed the pricing at of the product).
Why not integrate such Ethernet to I2S conversion and re-clocking into the DSD MKII instead if PS Audio is so keen on using that I2S interface?
On 2, I understand that PS Audio has been pushing the I2S interface with greater emphasis relative to other OEMs, however, I do not understand its benefits relative to current state of the art SPDIF implementation, and also given the added cost of going I2S, which implementation is not fully standardized across OEMs, and relative SQ benefits not established?
On a related note, I believe that the Lumin U2 mini, for example, offers proven and greater streaming, rendering, connectivity and software (but no I2S interface), at a comparable price. I assume other competing products also.
balldog,
I would hope also that Airlens is dealing with ethernet noice / jitter, but I believe it would “only” between / within the Airlens and the DSD MKII.
My point was: I did not understand how Airlens helps with jitter / noise introduced upstream in the digital path, e.g. jitter / noise from the music server for example.
I like to keep it simple so as an Innuos Zenith owner I am assuming the Air Lens will be competing with the Phoenix USB and a Matrix SPDIF w/ LPS since the end goal is the cleanest signal into a DAC, at least that’s the way I see it. Hopefully we get more clarification upon release.
You can’t get to the bitstream inside of an ethernet packet without a lot of software and there is no “standard”, or I should really say, there are an endless number of “standards” for how to pack those bits. For this reason, it makes a lot of sense to get a dedicated box, a streamer (or digital transport) to handle this part of the digital playback chain.
Very few manufacturers have been able to embed the streamer without compromising sound quality.
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Nope. Those are media convertors. AirLens is a streamer / digital transport. It does ethernet in from a server (source) and outputs SPDIF or I2S.
I can see that but Innous outputs the stream via ethernet LAN or USB so the Air Lens would accept that right? In lieu of a USB into Matrix?
My streamer journey in order of sound quality (in my system, with my music, according to my ears):
Signature Rendu > Auralic G1 > Lumin U1 Mini + sBooster > ultraRendu > Bridge II
The Airlens will get a chance to be the new king of the hill, but it’s going to have to be a lot better than improving on the sound of Bridge II. 
I am eager to hear it in my system.
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I think you’re confusing two different Innous products:
PhoenixNET - This is an Ethernet switch. You can decide if the marketing makes it better than your Amazon Basics, Netgear, etc. basic switch.
PhoenixUSB - This is a USB “cleaner”. It takes USB in and sends USB out. Schiit called theirs a “decrapifier”. I can’t comment on the “value” here other than to say its going to be significantly dependent on the USB input of your DAC. Of, which, AirLens doesn’t even support USB so I also assume anyone using USB isn’t a potential AirLens customer.
The decision to use an “audiophile grade” ethernet switch isn’t really dependent on your use of the AirLens. Does the AirLens remove or diminish the value of an “audiophile grade” ethernet switch? Well, that would depend on what value you saw in these things to begin with.
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Actually I’m not, the Innuos sends out the signal via LAN into another streamer like the the Air Lens. You can also send the signal out via USB but the Zenith gives you both options. I’m not talking about the incoming internet connection via an ethernet cable.