INNUOS PULSE

Being in tech’ for almost all my career and having enjoyed streaming for some years now I’ve employed many evolving solutions across multiple systems and houses from the most basic like Sonos (still handy for parties), through home built Raspberry Pi’s running Volumio, via Pioneer N50’s (very underrated for its time I felt) and to current solutions like Auralic and Roon. All have merits and the evolution in streaming has been incredible. One brand has stood out along the way – somewhat ubiquitous even – more than most, particularly at HiFi shows - and that is Innuos. When you see how many manufacturers and distributors rely on them to deliver music for their offerings at these shows you must think, maybe I better check them out for myself – and with a new range of products from Innuos launched this year, that’s just what I did.

Build And Features Of Innuos Pulse

The product I chose for my own system and budget, after spending a lot of time checking various solutions out at Audio Show Deluxe in March, was the Innuos Pulse, sitting in the middle of their new range of streamers which comprises the Pulse Mini, Pulse and just released Pulsar. Unlike previous Innuos offerings these do not have the CD ripper component and so are likely aimed at those who don’t worry about physical media or have already ripped all their CD’s (or have a.n.other solution for that). Unpacking the shipping carton, you get an inner box with nice Innuos branding, the Pulse itself in a cloth bag, a standard IEC cable and a pretty non-descript black ethernet cable. Finally, there is a brief “getting started” guide.

The Pulse is a relatively compact silver box (also available in black) made from high-grade aluminium with a very cool, anodised angular faceted front and with a small soft push power button hidden just underneath which helpfully casts light down onto your rack shelf to tell you it’s on. On top there is a simple Innuos and Pulse logo, to the rear we have a hard power switch and IEC power inlet next to a wired network connection via 2 bridged Gigabit Ethernet ports. This bridge

Reviewed by Alan McIntosh