ISO Recovery

Improvement is there but subtle

I purchased the ISO recovery because I've seen so much positive feedback for the original. I have it in a headphone setup in-between my laptop and Mytek liberty DAC which is connected to an auralic taurus mk2 which drives several headphones (Ultrasone Edition 5 & 10, Audeze LCD-XC, Hifiman HE-R10P stealth). Keep in mind I haven't done any substantial burn in so maybe overtime it will improve. At first I noticed it sounded slightly smoothed over and lacking refinement but replacing the stock USB cable helped me get a better idea of what this does. I also tested it with different USB ports on my laptop since they all sound different and the ISO recovery makes the differences of each port more noticeable, which is strange to me since I thought the whole point of using a USB reclocker was to fix what goes into your dac. Anyway the sound this imparts on my system is a touch of warmth/fullness and an overall smoother tone. There's a bit more depth in the stage as well. Transients are however a bit softer. It may improve imaging slightly but it's not a significant amount. The improvement is similar to using DSD upsampling in Audirvana but more subtle. It's a nice effect considering the liberty DAC can sound a bit lean sometimes. I think it's a neat product but the difference isn't substantial enough for me to consider this a no brainer. I have experienced more substantial improvements from power cables and xlr cables at lower prices than this. For that reason, unless the USB implementation of your DAC is really bad, I would upgrade other parts of your system before getting one of these. It's not that this doesn't improve the sound, but other choices are more economical and provide bigger benefits. I'm hoping with time it will improve since I know burn in matters a lot on some products, but telling someone it's only worth buying if you give it 250 hours isn't helpful, especially when I can get more substantial instant improvements from upgrading cables. I've also read it's best with an upgraded power supply or pairing it with the DC recovery. I already invested more in this than I'd like given the sonic improvement so I'm going to stick with the stock PSU and hope it improves to a satisfactory amount.

Noticeable Sonic Improvement

I added the ISO Recovery with DC Recovery between the MS Essential and DAC 2V2SE for streaming Tidal Music. The music became noticeably clearer and punchier. Highly recommended!

Colour me surprised!

Of all the things you could purchase for an audiophile upgrade, and there’s a ton of snake oil out there, this device has made a remarkable difference. Reading the reviews you might seem skeptical, and if your setup is basic to slightly modest or budget minded then I’d say save this one for later. But if like me your pc audio setup is somewhat late game, over 10k in cost, then the gamble on this device is well worth the try! I am blown away at how much these little devices made a difference to the audio! And at their price point it’s mere penny’s on the dollar compared to multi thousand dollar dac or amp or headphones. The primary noticeable difference for me is the subtle changes to the soundstage and how much more clarity the details end up being perceived. It’s a hard thing to quantify in text, but magically the ears have a way of noticing the difference. It was nearly immediate and the nuanced changes still catch me off guard as I listen to more and more of my library. I did the iso and the dc recovery in tandem for my usb connection from pc to dac. No I didn’t try one with or without, their cost was so little to me that either it was gonna make a difference or not. I’m exceedingly happy with my gamble. This wasn’t my first piece of W4S gear, and I’m not surprised that it made my system sound infinitely better! Regards, Mike.