Pink Faun 2.16 Ultra Server/Streamer

The 2.16 ultra digital playback system is the acumination of years of experience with digital and analogue combined with Pink Faun’s groundbreaking OCXO clock technology. Pink Faun has teamed up with the best companies in the world to bring you a musical experience not seen before in the landscape we call hi-fidelity. The flexible and modular architecture system guarantees a long-term investment that will easily adapt and grow with any changes in the evolution of your musical system.

Based upon the great success and the award-winning 2.16 and 2.16x music servers, the decision was made to investigate the possibilities to take digital even further which resulted in more than 15 months of redesigning every aspect of 2.16 ultra playback. This ultimately led to the uncompromising 2.16 ultra music server. The sole aim during the development process of the 2.16 ultra was to create a digital/music source with the most realistic and emotional musical experience based on our philosophy.

The internal- and external chassis is an integral part of the design of the 2.16 ultra. The CNC machined chassis incorporates shielded compartments, heat management solutions and vibration control. Using a dedicated internal and external chassis for the 2.16 ultra allows us to mount all parts of the power supply, passive cooling system and hardware in optimal locations without changing the outside design. Our high-performance chassis allows us to make radical choices for ultimate changes. It is literally the backbone of the Pink Faun 2.16 ultra.

A unique part of the chassis design is the honeycomb motherboard platter. This platter is extremely stiff and this design handles various vibrations will eliminate resonance frequencies without over damping them in order to preserve and maintain energy. During the development processes of the 2.16 ultra we experienced vibration on the motherboard that had a significant negative impact on the sonic performance. Instead of damping the vibration we made the decision to eliminate all possible vibrations by making a special platter inside the 2.16 ultra. We then mounted the critical components on the new platter to eliminate all possible vibration. Another important new design to the 2.16 ultra is that the internal chassis has a dedicated shielding compartment for the Pink Faun Ultra OCXO clock. The clock and clock output circuitry are fully shielded and decoupled from the 2.16 ultra internal chassis.

The power supply is designed following Pink Fauns unique star-power and star-grounding principle called “Star-Light”. Painstakingly refined the Star-Light design was taken to a new level of performance with the new 2.16 ultra. Over 30 years of combined experience of power supply design and development accumulated into a fully linear passive cooled ULN-FT (ultra-low noise, fast transient) ATX power supply. Using smaller, separated and regulated supplies, current loops are now minimal and foremost local which also will reduce the spread of EMC inside the 2.16 ultra. Extreme care has been taken by adding these power supplies altogether in one-star ground. In addition, the ongoing voltage is sourced from star outputs in the power supply resulting in minimal interference and minimal HF noise and harmonics.

Inside the 2.16 ultra one has to deal with low voltages and high current peaks. To keep the power supply stable, ripple free and low noise the 2.16 ultra uses three custom wound transformers. Fast Schottky diodes, a large capacitor bank of over 800.000uF of low ESR capacitors and nanocrystalline chokes are combined resulting in a very stable but clean, battery like power input for the low-noise regulator circuitries. In addition, we also use a 5.000.000uF supercapacitor supply which provides the Pink Faun Ultra OCXO clock module excellent performance levels.