On April 2020, when I reviewed8 the original version of the top-of-the-line, two-box Innuos Statement Music Server / Streamer (then $13,750, now $16,700+), it was able to do all of the things you would hope a server could do: play back music from its internal SSD or an external NAS; stream music from several music-streaming services; and easily play and rip music from CDs inserted into a built-in disc drive (a feature some other servers lack). I liked that it allowed me to use either Roon or—for those who do not wish to subscribe to Roon or who don’t need that program’s rich feature set—InnuOS.
I also had some concerns. I thought the Statement offered negligible sonic improvements over playback through my considerably smaller and less expensive Roon Nucleus+ music server / streamer. The InnuOS software was best described as a frustrating work in progress; Innuos Founder Nuno Vitorino told me then that it was about to be “rebuilt from the ground up.” Innuos’s preference for a carefully engineered, reclocked asynchronous USB output was also a cause for concern because, in my experience, USB often sounds inferior to Ethernet, AES3, or
