Firstly, installation is simple, just connect in the USB line from source to DAC, since the isolator is transparent to host and device (and connects with USB A and B plugs), ultra-quiet, and powered by the USB bus, so a separate power supply is not needed. So why add this unit to your home audio system? I tried to answer this by paraphrasing and summarising some answers from the FAQ section of the website. In it’s somewhat sombre yet tidy smooth ABS plastic IP54 case with gold-plated USB sockets, the isolator will look quite out of place on the audiophile’s exotic timber rack, especially with front as well as rear cable connection, so what would motivate placing one in your system? Indeed, is this even a hifi product at all? A look at the sparse functional website reveals that “audiophile” is listed sixth among several applications, and yet drilling down through a few links shows that the product is indeed intended for home digital audio system I would guess that the internal parts of this unit are ‘military’ standard quality and assembly, built to do the job correctly, reliably, and even indefinitely. This is no esoteric artistic expression - there are no pretensions of a beautiful case concealing cheap and simple circuitry. It’s appearance is a quaint-Iooking anachronistic throwback to diy/technician projects. I received the Industrial version, and industrial it looks - a scientific instrument ready for the lab or workshop. The Intona USB Hi-Speed Isolator is the antithesis of glitzy packaging. The two most common reasons for creating isolation are safety from fault conditions in industrial grade products and where wired communication between devices is needed but each device regulates its own power. Generally referred to as “isolation”, galvanic isolation is the convention used whereby individual parts of the electrical system may possess different ground potentials. Energy or information can still be exchanged between the sections by other means, such as capacitance, induction or electromagnetic waves, or by optical, acoustic, or mechanical means. Galvanic isolation is a principle of isolating functional sections of electrical systems to prevent current flow, so that there are no direct conduction paths. Signals can pass between galvanically isolated circuits, but stray currents, such as differences in ground potential or currents induced by AC power, are blocked. Galvanic isolation is a design technique that separates electrical circuits to eliminate stray currents. Its insertion in a data line will break ground loops, avoid noise coupling, and protect ports from power surges and voltage spikes, in applications which require high speed USB signal transfers. Their new product - claimed to be a world first - is designed to galvanically isolate the USB 2.0 Hi-Speed bus. Intona Technology is a German team specialising in signal processing devices for professional applications. Reviewer: Richard Varey - TNT New Zealand Price: Standard US$ 229 plus shipping Industrial US$ 319 plus shipping Manufacturer: Intona Technology - Senden, Germany
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