Mk3 & Next-Gen: what's the difference?

As the new NG products do not now include a drive for ripping disks is there a list of compatible USB drives that Innuos recommends? I had a Quick Look online and some drives say Windows only, some Windows (7-11) and Mac Laptop Desktop…..
So far we are not aware of any limitations at all, but i generally would advise the 'dumber' the drive the better - this is also true of external USB storage drives as well. The more features and software they claim to have (like automatic backing up etc) only get in the way or interfere.
 
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I’d find it helpful if you could go into more detail on the apparent change in design philosophy: you historically argued that higher powered CPU’s were inherently noisier and you therefore chose a purist approach in minimising processing power of Sense.

You now turn that on its head by arguing that the new power supply design resolves the noisy CPU issue. It franlky feels like you are bowing to Roon and their requirements more than anything else or plan to annouce future DSP plug-ins. Using Sense, can you pls elaborate further on sonic benefits over the previous generation?

Specifically my concern is that in similar vein to the Mac Mini developments, earlier versions actually had better audiophile characteristics.
 
I’d find it helpful if you could go into more detail on the apparent change in design philosophy: you historically argued that higher powered CPU’s were inherently noisier and you therefore chose a purist approach in minimising processing power of Sense.

You now turn that on its head by arguing that the new power supply design resolves the noisy CPU issue. It franlky feels like you are bowing to Roon and their requirements more than anything else or plan to annouce future DSP plug-ins. Using Sense, can you pls elaborate further on sonic benefits over the previous generation?

Specifically my concern is that in similar vein to the Mac Mini developments, earlier versions actually had better audiophile characteristics.
The historic choice of CPUs was not based on speed, it was based on power consumption. The situation simply now is that there are generations of i3 and i7 that consume similarly very small amounts of power, but offer better speeds so is therefore simply more efficient. This is the underlying rule of many electronics and constantly improving efficiencies in terms of relative speed/power.
On the point of Sense, are you referring to the current Sense 3 platform versus the previous 2.x generation?
 
Thanks Stephen,

I was referring to comparing both on SQ with the latest Sense application. As to the efficiency discussion: is Sense 3 more computationally intense than Sense 2x? Historically the leaner code structure was promotes as an advantage over Room and I have generally found the difference to be significant
 
As the new NG products do not now include a drive for ripping disks is there a list of compatible USB drives that Innuos recommends? I had a Quick Look online and some drives say Windows only, some Windows (7-11) and Mac Laptop Desktop…..
We use accuraterip.com as a list of offset values for drives that should work:
We do not have an approved list just yet, but I would perhaps avoid drives that claim to work with only specific operating systems. If anything, ones that work with Mac should be fine since Mac is essentially Linux-based...
 
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Thanks Stephen,

I was referring to comparing both on SQ with the latest Sense application. As to the efficiency discussion: is Sense 3 more computationally intense than Sense 2x? Historically the leaner code structure was promotes as an advantage over Room and I have generally found the difference to be significant
There is not huge difference in terms of computational demands (some parts were actually more efficient), but keep in mind that is all relative to the speed of the CPU etc. So, if we can keep the power consumption as low as before whilst increasing processing speeds, its win-win in terms of low noise floor and system latency/efficiency and overall smoothness/speed of the system for users.
 
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What does this mean for the future of Mk3?

Mk3 is still going strong after nearly 6 years and will still be further improved upon for years to come thanks to the new Sense 3 generation of software.

Will Mk3 be replaced? At some point yes, most likely, but the Next-Gen devices are not that replacement.
Looking at this and other info I infer that a possible entry level Zen (Mk4?) will be same/sililar price bracket as now, no internal ripping capability. So looks like Zen NG Light :) What approx time scale are we thinking about here - Bristol/Munich 2025 or still later?
 
However, we can leverage our very good ripping engine within Sense when adding an external USB optical drive - just enter the offset value for head alignment, and the external ripper will behave EXACTLY as if it was internal to the Innuos itself.
Never used an external optical devise so far. Found one which is OK from the linked list. Though not certain how this works - “(…) just enter the offset value for head alignment” - can you explain where/how these values are entered? Can’t see how it is done by hooking an external USB optical drive to a Zen NG with storage?
 
Never used an external optical devise so far. Found one which is OK from the linked list. Though not certain how this works - “(…) just enter the offset value for head alignment” - can you explain where/how these values are entered? Can’t see how it is done by hooking an external USB optical drive to a Zen NG with storage?
Once you connect the USB disc ripper, when you go into the Sense app Disc Ripper interface it should ask you to enter the offset value of the drive, and also provide you with a link to a database where you can check your model of USB ripper to see what its stated offset value is