Resonessence INVICTA User manual

Resonessence INVICTA
User Guide
Front Panel Controls,
Remote Control,
Upgrading Firmware, and
Warranty escription
Resonessence Labs,
Kelowna, BC Canada.
www.resonessence.com
Operating
System
Revision 3.0

Overview
There are six basic operating
modes of the INVICTA AC
corresponding to the six selectable
sources. Stereo digital audio data from
the currently selected source is played
back via the headphone, XLR, and RCA
analog outputs simultaneously. ata from
the S Card or USB is simultaneously
output on the TOSLINK optical output
port in S/P IF digital format.
The volume control setting is
applied to all analog outputs. Preset trim
levels are available in the A and B
headphone channels to compensate for
variable headphone sensitivity.
USB mode supports Play/Pause,
Previous and Next track from the front
panel buttons or remote. S Card mode
supports Play/Pause, Fast Forward, Next,
Rewind and Previous from the front panel
buttons or remote control.
The S Card source provides a
scroll-through list of song titles found on
the card. WAV, AIFF and FLAC data
formats of up to 192ks/s, 24 bit word
width are supported. The S Card may
contain directories and a browse feature
displays files of the supported types. S ,
S HC and S XC cards are supported.
The USB source supports
selectable, asynchronous USB Audio 2.0
and USB Audio 1.0 communication
protocols. Resonessence provides a
driver that you may install on your PC to
enable all the features of USB Audio 2.0
in the Windows OS.
User options such as default
source, headphone trim levels, display
brightness, etc may be set in a user
configurations menu. Legacy digital data
suffering from a known signal inversion
problem may be corrected by a setting in
the user options menu.
All features may be accessed via
the included infra-red remote control.
The S Card may have a directory
structure: facilities to browse the
directory tree are provided. The selection
of data sources (USB, S/P IF etc) is in a
Illustration 1: INVICTA showing SD Directory on HDMI Monitor

'top level directory' in a similar format to
operations with the S Card.
Seven different up-sampling filters
may be selected, five are Resonessence
designed audiophile audited advanced
filters. Each filter may be selected during
playback (it can be switched on-the-fly
and is glitch-free. To activate press the
“Filter Setting” button on the remote
while playing, or configure in “User
Settings” as explained later in this
document).
A track may be played repeatedly
by pressing the “Mode” button on the
front panel while paying.
The H MI output displays the S
Card directory structure and shows the
current track playing. In S Card mode,
H MI output shows Album Art in PNG,
BMP and JPG format. H MI output is
720p 60Hz and as such operates with any
compatible TV or Computer Monitor.
The user may set the available
modes such that at power up Headphone,
XLR/RCA and H MI are enabled or not.
This allows the INVICTA to power up in
your preferred mode.
System upgrade from S Card
allows the user to conveniently update the
internal software from the S Card. No
PC or MAC needed for software updates.
Operating System Rev. 3.0 adds
the following features:
FLAC files are supported on the
S Card, the INVICTA digital processing
core performs real-time bit-perfect FLAC
decompression.
The S XC card format is now
supported for up to 2TB of data on the
S Card.
Illustration 2: INVICTA showing Album Art an Track Status on HDMI Monitor

ata Sources
1. BNC1 (S/P IF): ata in consumer
or professional mode single-ended
Sony/Philips igital Interface
Format from the BNC1 terminal.
2. BNC2 (S/P IF): ata in consumer
or professional mode single-ended
Sony/Philips igital Interface
Format from the BNC2 terminal.
3. TOSLINK (S/P IF): Optical data
from the TOSLINK input is used as
the data source.
4. AES/EBU (S/P IF): ata in
consumer or professional mode
differential S/P IF is accepted
from the AES/EBU XLR connector
on the back panel.
5. USB Audio Streaming river: data
delivered by USB Audio 2.0 (Mac,
or PC with Resonessence driver) or
USB Audio 1.0 (Microsoft
Windows native driver) is accepted
from the USB port.
6. S Card: files in WAV, AIFF or
FLAC format present in the
directory structure of the data card
inserted into the front panel slot are
used as the data source.
The default data source at power up may
be set in the user options menu.
Front Panel Controls

Remote Control Keys
Press briefly on the “Pop / Back”
button of the remote to return to the top
level menu. Press the “Up” or “ own”
button to select the ata Source.
Press briefly on the “Power On /
Standby” button of the remote to blank the
OLE display, press and hold to enter or
leave the standby state.
Press and hold the Volume and
Function/Select Knob to enter or leave the
power down state from the front panel.
uring playback, press the “Filter
Setting” button to choose any of the seven
audiophile quality up-sampling filters.
†Fast Forward, Play/Pause and Rewind
operate in S Card and USB mode.
Rear Panel Connectors

Using Headphones
Connect the Headphone into the
“A” or “B” headphone port on the front
panel. To activate the headphone output,
press the button above the socket to
illuminate the LE . Each headphone
output has a “trim level” - used to reduce
the output to a sensitive headphone so
that the perceived level is similar when
both headphone outputs are used at the
same time. To adjust the trim level, press
and hold the A or B button to activate the
trim control feature and turn the volume
knob. (A default trim level may be stored
in the User Settings menu.) Significant
power can be output to the headphones,
take care to ensure that the volume level
is set to a reasonable level before
activating the headphone output.
Amplifier with Loudspeakers
Connect the power amplifier input
to either the balanced XLR outputs or to
the single-ended RCA output terminals.
The INVICTA output amplitudes are
designed to drive the power amplifier
input section of commercial and
professional amplifiers. If the input must
be provided to the preamplifier input
terminals, ensure the volume level is set
to -30dB initially, after which you may
increase the level if needed. (Refer to
resonessencelabs.com/?page_id=314 for
more details. An appropriate default start-
up level may then be stored in the User
Settings menu).
Selection of ata Sources
To select the igital ata source,
press the “Pop / Back” button on the
front panel or remote to return to the top
most menu. That menu contains BNC1,
BNC2, TOSLINK, AES, USB, S Card
and Options. Rotate the knob or press Up
and own on the remote to select the
desired data source and either press the
knob or the Next button on the remote.
That data source is now active and if the
choice was to use USB, the INVICTA
will initiate the enumeration sequence to
connect to the host computer in the USB
Audio 1.0 or USB Audio 2.0 mode.
Please read the notes below on the
use of USB Audio 2.0 on a Windows PC.
USB igital ata
If you plan to use the Resonessence
USB Au io 2.0 river on your Win ows
PC, please refer to Appen ix A for
installation instructions. Without this
river, Win ows only has USB Au io 1.0
capability.
Begin by ensuring that the
INVICTA USB is set to use the audio
specification that you wish to use. USB
Audio 1.0 or 2.0 is selected in the “User
Settings”, see the section below for
instructions on how to change settings.
The Mac computer can use USB
Audio 2.0 without any further
configuration, and the best performance
will result when USB 2.0 is selected in
the user settings.
The Windows OS natively only
supports USB Audio 1.0, and
consequently, third-party drivers are
needed to support USB Audio 2.0 on
Windows. (Resonessence supplies such a
driver, see Appendix A for installation
instructions.) Use of Windows without
any special driver requires the INVICTA
be configured for USB Audio 1.0.
Connect the INVICTA to the host
computer USB port. The INVICTA uses

the high speed USB ports of the host. So
called “Full-Speed” USB ports are slower
than the “High-Speed” ports, ensure the
INVICTA is connected to a High-Speed
port. Once connected and with USB
selected as the data source, the host
computer will recognize the INVICTA as
a potential audio output device. Select the
INVICTA as the default output in the host
computer's audio control panel.
Any music now played on the host
(via Windows Media Player or similar)
will be routed to the INVICTA. The
Pause, Next and Previous buttons (on the
front panel and remote) will operate with
the host's music playing application.
USB data will be sent out via the
TOSLINK output port to any additional
external devices.
S Card ata Source
When the S Card is selected as
the data source, any card inserted into the
front panel slot will be read and the
directory structure will be visible on the
front display and on any H MI
connected monitor. Please note that the
S Card must be formatted for the FAT32
file system format.
Files in WAV, AIFF and FLAC
format will be presented as playable
items. Navigate to the desired track using
the knob (push to enter directory) and the
left most button (push to exit directory),
or the “Up”, “ own”, “Into” and “Out”
of irectory buttons on the remote. The
files and directories are presented
vertically, and moving right selects the
item.
When a WAV, AIFF, or FLAC file
is selected the track will begin to play.
Any album art will be displayed on an
attached H MI monitor, and the
playback status will also be shown.
S Card data will be sent out via
the TOSLINK output port to any
additional external devices while the
track plays.
Other ata Sources
When valid S/P IF data is detected
on the selected source the INVICTA will
start to decode and present the audio
output to all analog outputs. Use this
method to connect to C / V /B
players via the TOSLINK input port, or to
professional audio equipment via the
BNC and AES ports. Note that the
INVICTA decodes stereo (i.e.
uncompressed) data sources.
User Settings
Various configuration settings can
be set as default in the user setting menu.
Press and release the “Pop / Back” on the
front panel or remote until the top menu
is reached. Navigate down to the last item
which is “INVICTA Options”. Move right
to select this item.
The following items are provided
for user settings, each is non-volatile and
preserved between power on cycles.
Generally, to change an item push
the “Up / Pause” button on the remote or
press in the knob on the front panel.
To move to another user setting,
rotate the knob or press the “Previous” /
“Next” button the remote. Continuous
parameters (ones that are not just simply
on or off) are changed by pressing the
knob, rotating and then pressing the knob
again, or, on the remote, by pressing the
“Up/Pause”, “Next” and “Previous” to
adjust, then “Up/Pause” again.

User Setting Description
Left Channel Phase Each may be set to In-Phase or Inverted. Allows correction of
certain legacy digital recordings that are known to have a phase
difference in each channel.
Right Channel Phase
Startup Source Allows start-up in customers typical configuration.
Startup Volume Level (XLR) This feature exists to prevent a high volume level at switch on.
Startup Headphone A Offset These trim levels allow differing sensitivity headphones to have
the same perceived level, or to reduce the volume on one pair
relative to another.
Startup Headphone B Offset
Maximum Volume Level An adjustable parameter that limits the maximum volume level.
OLE Screen Brightness 0 (off) to 10 (Bright) allows the INVICTA to match the brightness
level of other audio equipment in the customer configuration.
“LE Brightness” refers to the Blue LE , “Standby LE
Brightness” refers to the Red LE behind the Resonessence logo.
LE Brightness
Standby LE Brightness
USB Speed Setting If using a Windows PC without the Resonessence USB Audio 2.0
driver, set the default to USB Audio 1.0.
Oversampling Filter Type Choose one of the seven filters to optimize the audio experience.
See Appendix B below.
Mute XLR When Using HPs Turn off the XLR and RCA outputs when Headphones in use.
HPA Powerup Setting These options allow the user to set headphone outputs (A and B
independently) to be available at power up (rather than having to
hit the front panel button to enable them).
HPB Powerup Setting
The Serial Number and the
Software Version are visible in the last of
the user settings in the Options Menu.
Upgrading INVICTA Software
Resonessence recommen s removal
of any amplifier or hea phone
connection uring the upgra e process.
All internal software is upgraded
by the same unified process. To upgrade,
insert an S Card containing the upgrade
file into the S Card slot. Cycle through
the data sources until S Card is selected.
Navigate to the “track” on the S
Card that is actually the data file. It
appears on the computer file system as
“Upgrade.bin”, but in the INVICTA
display (and on any connected H MI
monitor) as “INVICTA Upgrade”
followed by the version number.
Initiate the 'playing' of this track
(by pressing the knob on the unit or the
“Into ir” button on the remote). The
operating system will then verify the
upgrade code and ask you to choose
whether to upgrade or not. Select “Yes”
(with the knob on the unit or the “Next”
button on the remote) and click to accept
(by pressing the knob on the unit or the
“Up / Pause” button on the remote). After
a few seconds of erasing the old operating
system the new system will be installed.
The message “Writing Firmware”
(or similar) will appear and after a short

time you will be asked to cycle the power.
Turn off the power at the rear of the
unit for a brief time (about 10 seconds is
sufficient).
After removing any connected
devices, turn the power on again. The
new software is now installed.
Note that the latest software powers
up in “power down” mode (with the red
light illuminated on the logo). Press the
knob or press “Power On” on the remote
to start playing music.
Visit http://resonessencelabs.com/downloads
from time to time to check for any
upgraded software.
Returning the INVICTA for
Repair under Warranty
If you find any problems, faults or
unexpected performance in the INVICTA
unit in the first three years of operation, it
may well be covered by our warranty
policy. The first step in returning a unit to
Resonessence is to contact your local
dealer, or directly by phone to us at our
Canadian headquarters [phone].
We are in the North America Pacific
Coast time zone and the country code for
international calls is (1).
You may also email to
[email protected]. Please be
prepared to provide the unit serial number
when requesting support and be sure to
include it in any Email.
Resonessence is pleased to provide
a three year warranty under the terms
described below, but reserves the right to
determine whether the warranty applies in
each specific case. We will attempt to
determine if the warranty is applicable in
the initial contact you make with us or
our dealers, but it may be necessary to
return the unit for inspection to make the
determination.
All returned items require a Return
Materials Authorization (RMA) number
which you will receive from us along
with the shipping address to which the
unit should be returned. Please mark the
shipping box with the RMA clearly
visible on the outside. We can only accept
units for return or repair with the RMA
attached.
By shipping a unit to us you agree
to the terms and conditions of our repair
and return policy, outlined below.
LIMITE WARRANTY
Subject to the conditions set forth
below, for three years after the original
purchase date of the unit (unless
otherwise specified), Resonessence will
repair, or if necessary replace, the unit at
no additional cost, in the event of a defect
in materials or workmanship of the
hardware elements of the unit. This
warranty is extended only to an original
purchaser of the unit from an authorized
reseller or directly from Resonessence.
We do not provide a warranty of any kind
if the unit has been purchased from an
unrecognized or unauthorized reseller. We
may request proof of purchase prior to
providing any warranty service. We may,
at our discretion, not extend the warranty
to units used as rental units by a third
party business if not approved by
Resonessence or our authorized dealers.
This warranty only covers failures

due to defects in materials or
workmanship in the hardware elements of
the system. amages incurred while in
shipping, or due to accident,
inappropriate use of the unit, or power
surges of any kind, are not covered.
Alterations to the unit undertaken by
unauthorized individuals or organizations
are not covered. amage incurred during
attempted reverse engineering, design
data extraction, or attempted internal
measurements of any kind, are
specifically excluded from any warranty.
Installation of any unapproved
software, or external algorithms of any
kind designed to expose or debug the
operation of the unit, or to circumvent or
otherwise interfere with the unit's unique
identity code, causing damage or thereby
erasing the unit's operating system or
similar, are not covered by any warranty.
THIS LIMITE WARRANTY GIVES
YOU SPECIFIC LEGAL RIGHTS. YOU
MAY HAVE OTHERS WHICH VARY
FROM STATE/JURIS ICTION TO
STATE/JURIS ICTION.
REPAIRS MA E UN ER WARRANTY
Resonessence will be responsible
for all parts and labour necessary to fix
defects in materials or workmanship of
the hardware elements of the unit.
NON-WARRANTY REPAIRS ETC.
Resonessence will charge for a
minimum two hours of work at the
prevailing hourly rate, plus all shipping
costs, for any unit returned that does not
qualify for the warranty service, or is
returned for upgrade, technical audit or
software re-initialization. Upon receipt of
the unit, we will inform you of the
estimated cost of the work and await your
approval to proceed. Note that in all
cases, even if you do not agree to the
additional work, you will be responsible
for the minimum two hours and shipping
costs.
Parts and labour costs incurred to
complete non-warranty work, even in the
case where they exceed our estimate, will
be your responsibility.
REPLACE , REPAIRE OR
UPGRA E PARTS
Any parts repaired or replaced
either under warranty or as a paid service,
are themselves warranted against defects
in materials or workmanship for three
years after the service date. Parts not
replaced or repaired remain on the initial
warranty schedule.
SHIPPING
If a unit covered by warranty needs
servicing during the first 30 days after the
original purchase date, Resonessence will
cover the cost of shipping the unit back,
as well as the return shipping to you.
After this initial 30 day period, and for
three years after the original purchase
date, Resonessence will only cover the
cost of shipping the unit back to you, and
you are responsible for the cost of
shipping the unit to Resonessence. You
are responsible for all shipping costs both
to and from Resonessence for non-
warranty work. You are responsible for
paying all taxes, import duties, or similar
fees imposed by foreign countries or
other jurisdictions.

LIMITS AN EXCLUSIONS
RESONESSENCE OES NOT, BY VIRTUE OF THIS OCUMENT, OR BY ANY
COURSE OF PERFORMANCE, COURSE OF EALING, OR USAGE OF TRA E,
MAKE ANY OTHER WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIE , INCLU ING,
WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE OR NONINFRINGEMENT, AN ALL
SUCH WARRANTIES ARE HEREBY EXPRESSLY ISCLAIME .
RESONESSENCE EXPRESSLY ISCLAIMS ANY IMPLIE IN EMNITIES.
RESONESSENCE SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY IN IRECT, INCI ENTAL,
CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE, SPECIAL OR EXEMPLARY LOSSES OR
AMAGES, INCLU ING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, AMAGES TO
RECOR INGS, ATA STORAGE EVICES, TAPES, ISKS, AMAGES FOR
LOSS OF BUSINESS PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, LOSS OF BUSINESS
INFORMATION, LOSS OF GOO WILL, COVER, OR OTHER PECUNIARY LOSS,
ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE USE OF ANY PRO UCT, OR ARISING
FROM BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE, OR ANY
OTHER LEGAL THEORY, EVEN IF RESONESSENCE HAS BEEN A VISE OF
THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH LOSSES OR AMAGES. ANY AMAGES THAT
RESONESSENCE IS REQUIRE TO PAY FOR ANY PURPOSE WHATSOEVER
SHALL NOT EXCEE THE ORIGINAL COST PAI TO RESONESSENCE FOR
THE APPLICABLE UNIT. BECAUSE SOME STATES/JURIS ICTIONS O NOT
ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR
CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCI ENTAL AMAGES, THE FOREGOING
LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.
Appendix A
Installing the Thesycon USB
Audio 2.0 river
Resonessence provides a driver
from Thesycon (a company based in
Germany and a well-known provider of
Windows driver products) specifically
configured for the INVICTA. The driver
is provided in a ZIP file called
“INVICTA_pc_driver.zip” and is
available on the S Card delivered with
the INVICTA system.
To install this USB Audio 2.0
driver on your Windows PC, begin by
copying the file from the S Card to your
PC internal drive and unzipping the
contents to a temporary directory.
Resonessence recommends the use
of a Windows 7 computer.
Follow these steps to complete the
installation:
1. Configure the INVICTA for USB
Audio 2.0 operation as described in
the User Settings section of this
document.
2. Plug the INVICTA into a High
Speed (USB 2.0) port of your
Windows 7 PC. (Windows will not
search for the driver since it

recognizes that INVICTA is an
Audio 2.0 device.)
3. Run the “setup.exe” file in the
unzipped directory.
4. Follow the instructions to ensure
that the INVICTA is plugged in and
choose “Next”:
5. Install the driver software:
6. On two occasions you will be
asked to allow the installation to
continue. Choose “Install this
driver software anyway”:
7. Continue to choose “Next” when
appropriate, and the installation
will complete after a short while:
8. At this point the driver software is
in place, ready to be found by
Windows. The next time Windows
sees the INVICTA USB Audio 2.0
connected it will install the
Thesycon specific INVICTA driver.
To use the newly installed driver,
select the Resonessence INVICTA in the
Sounds “Manage evices” control panel.
Windows thereafter will direct digital
audio over the USB Audio 2.0 connection
with all the advanced 2.0 features (such
as 192ks/s data rate) available.

Appendix B
Up-sampling Filters in the
INVICTA rev 3.0 Software
•The internal ast Roll-off filter pre-installed
in the Sabre DAC.
On the OLED isplay panel this appears as
“Sabre Fast Roll-Off”
This is a ‘classic’ FIR filter with symmetrical
coefficients, hence it is linear phase and non-
dispersive. It achieves excellent suppression of
-115db, and so has to have a relatively large
group delay of 35 samples. That means, that for
a C at 44.1Khz the group delay is about 800uS.
(less for higher sample rates). This filter exhibits
pre-ringing, but achieves perfection in rejection:
no sample rate artifacts above 22.05Khz are
present in the output.
•The internal Slow Roll-off filter pre-installed
in the Sabre DAC.
On the OLED isplay panel this appears as
“Sabre Slow Roll-Off”
This filter is designed to reduce the group delay
present in the Fast Roll-off filter. It is a
symmetrical impulse response (i.e. it has
symmetrical coefficients), it is linear phase and
non-dispersive. It achieves good rejection but
the rejection begins slowly, 24Khz or so is
present in the output if the music content has
signals near 20khz, but signals higher than that
are suppressed. The group delay however is
much less, being only 6.25 samples or 140uS at
44.1Khz. This filter also exhibits pre-ringing.
•Resonessence designed, Minimum Phase, IIR
ilter
On the OLED isplay panel this appears as
“Minimum Phase IIR”
This filter is designed from an analog filter
prototype and exhibits no pre-ringing at all. To
achieve this, it has to compromise the steepness
of the filter; it corresponds to a fourth order
analog filter. This is a dispersive non-linear
phase filter, but the dispersion has been
optimized to the absolute minimum consistent
with no pre-ringing.
•Resonessence designed, Minimum Phase Slow
Roll-off.
On the OLED isplay panel this appears as
“Minimum Phase Slow Roll-Off”
This is a FIR filter that exceeds the specification
of the above IIR filter achieving -100db stop
band. It is not a linear phase filter because it has
non-symmetric coefficients but has been
designed to exhibit virtually no pre-ringing (but
it does have some) with the minimum of
dispersion.
•Resonessence designed, Linear Phase
Apodizing ilter.
On the OLED isplay panel this appears as
“Linear Phase Apo izing”
Perfectly symmetrical impulse response, hence
linear phase and non-dispersive, this filter
achieves a high -96db rejection at fs/2 and
exhibits the minimum of pre-ringing possible
while achieving this excellent rejection. This is
the preferred filter of many of our beta-testers.
•Resonessence designed, Linear Phase ast
Roll-off
On the OLED isplay panel this appears as
“Linear Phase Fast Roll-Off”
The ultimate FIR filter in the ‘classic’ linear
phase category. This filter delivers ultra-high
suppression of -120db and extreme flatness in
the band. It exceeds the performance of the
Sabre AC pre-installed Fast Roll-off filter.
•Resonessence designed, Linear Phase Slow
Roll-off
On the OLED isplay panel this appears as
“Linear Phase Slow Roll-Off”
esigned as an enhanced version of the pre-
installed Sabre AC Slow-roll off filter, this is a
linear phase, hence non-dispersive, low group
delay filter that has less ripple in band and
higher rejection that the Sabre Slow Roll-off
filter