I also asked about one thing that can be of interest. It’s about the phase noise that is characteristic of basically every analogue signal. The thing here is that the digital signal is actually represented by an analogue wave, so it can also exhibit phase noise that is actually really detrimental to all the transport quality of the signal. So I wanted to have a clear explanation on this from the Silent Power, and this is what came up:
“Phase noise is generally a characteristic of analogue audio signals, although it can sometimes be caused by Jitter, which occurs in the digital domain. The iPurifier Pro reduces jitter, so yes this can help alleviate phase noise.”
Then we have those two LEDs, their operation being really, really obvious. One informs about the external power connection and the other about the unit actually working.
Silent Power USB iPurifier Pro – in practice
As I mentioned earlier, there are two sides – or angles – that we should look from when evaluating this particular thing. One is the objective one. By that I mean whether does it remove all the things that you can actually hear as not being the part of an audio signal. This includes all the hum and all those cracking noises that are very often there when the USB source is a personal computer. I mean PC here because most of the better audio streamers (but still not all of them) will have this side of things actually somehow sorted out. So, here the situation is actually really, and I mean really simple: it works precisely as advertised. Whether you use it with a separate (external) power supply or without it, it does remove all the noise-related “additions” to the actual audio signal completely.
What you hear with the USB iPurifier Pro in the signal chain is a complete background silence. There’s nothing here to disturb you, not a sound, nada. That means that we really can assume here that this objective part the USB iPurifier PRO has covered for you. It just does its thing – removes all the hum and all similar noises. The more interesting part is the sound improvement that it provides. Let me start that part with an interesting side-note: I actually was expecting this thing to alleviate problems on the objective side of the USB audio signal transmission. But at the same time, I did not expect it to have that much of an impact on the actual sound quality.
Obviously, there will be some improvement by the virtue of the lower background noise alone. But what needs a longer explanation is how it improves everything from the musical perspective. The first thing that I immediately noticed on my desktop system was the fact that not one nor two of sound reproductions qualities were improved. But rather the Silent Power USB iPurifier Pro made the sound better as a whole. It wasn’t like there was one or more areas that got lifted – it was the entire sonic presentation that got lifted. Yet if I had to discern some obvious areas that there was indeed a possible to quantify improvement that would be the general clarity and cleanliness of the sound.
What’s even more interesting, I noticed that actually prior to noticing that the USB iPurifier Pro was helping in all those objective areas that I mentioned above. I connected it to my EarMen Tradutto and CH-AMP combo (that I reviewed some time ago) and noticed that everything changed in an instant. It was like some kind of a distortion mechanism was removed and just simply another veil between me and the music was lifted. EarMen combo has an innate tendency to sound clean and neutral but sometimes it may also be too lean with some headphone pairings. In that particular case the USB iPurifier Pro made its sound much more civilized and musical at the same time.
Especially with vocal music like Rebecca Pidgeon “Spanish Harlem” or Ben Bohmer “Breathing”. There was much better vocal projection on that last track mentioned together with improved sense of control and clarity in the entire spectrum. Yet really interesting things began to happen when I connected new Silent Power’s contraption to my more distinguished headphone combo consisting of Schiit’s Multibit DAC and Divaldi AMP-05 SE Class A headphone amplifier. Just withing the first notes of music played it became obvious that there was better resolution, less invasive yet better defined and more sophisticated treble and better definition altogether.
There was also much better legibility of both voice and all those small things that happen somewhere in the background. Also, it was the bass that was also better defined, clearer and firmer that was also quite discernible when listening to Trance Atlantic Air Waves “Twelve After Midnight”. What was also interesting there was the fact that that better grunt was also married to better sense of providing a more coherent and stable sonic perspective in relation to the soundstage projection that was just more realistic. All that happened together with providing both better overall definition of sound and better fluidity of it as well.
Silent Power USB iPurifier PRO – some interesting conclusions
The thing that it would work in the area of removing all the noises and all the PC-generated hum was actually pretty obvious to me prior to its introduction in my system. Yet the thing that actually surprised me the most was the actual improvement that it made from strictly musical perspective. It’s not like there was one area of improvement. But it rather made the whole musical picture better. And by that I also mean providing more musicality, which in turn also translated to making some discernible areas of sonic reproduction clearly better. Especially it did remove some of the harshiness in my higher-resolution setup without adding any kind of blur – it gave much better yet at the same time totally unforced definition instead. Your mileage may obviously vary depending on your particular setup. But from what I do know, the company behind the Silent Power, which is iFi Audio – has a long story of successful devices that are actually working. And the USB iPurifier PRO is another worthy addition to all those small things that when properly used can give big improvements. Highly recommended.
Adam Kiryszewski
Manufacturer: SilentPower
Price: 249 GBP / 249 Euro