Uptone Audio Regen

[Superdad]

For anyone who can't use the hard connector and is using the supplied short USB cable, try something else in its place immediately!

 

I have to agree. I'm sorry, but it was not easy finding a 6-inch USB in the first place, let alone something that was inexpensive enough to include as an "emergency cable" for those few who find they can not use the solid adapter but want to hook up their REGEN.

 

Belkin does have a 6" cable from their Pro Series (Amazon.com: Belkin Components 6in USB Ab Device Daisy Chain for USB Hub: Electronics) and its just $7 on Amazon. I actually used a Belkin Pro 30" inch cable for many years and it was not horrible. Until I heard some better ones, including the Supra.

 

Another choice might be the Audioquest 6" Dragontail--combined with the solid adaptor since the Dragontail is M>F and A>A.

 

We will continue to work on a longer term, more perfect solution. But until then, I have to agree that the white USB I toss into every REGEN box is rather nasty sounding.

 

BTW, HumanMedia, your JS-2 (along with 9 others) is all set to ship tomorrow. You are going to love it.

 

Best,

--Alex C.

[agentsmith]

Superdad, when will our Regen start shipping?

 

thx

[Superdad]

Superdad, when will our Regen start shipping?

 

Thanks for your patience everyone.

Orders promised for July shipment (order numbers up to 1640) have been shipping all month as more of the semi-scarce Mean Well 7.5V/2.93A/22W power supplies arrive.

 

Order numbers starting with 1641 have always been promised for mid-August shipment and we are still on track for that--maybe even a very few days sooner. By the third week of August I expect to be caught up and current, though after the heavy orders that came in this past week I need to look again as we are getting quite close to pre-selling out to the 350 units I had planned for August. But parts for another 500 will start to arrive late August so it all looks good.

 

Once we have gotten customer order lead times down to 1-2 weeks, I'll feel comfortable starting to take out a couple of advertisements and that's about when first magazine reviews will start to hit. But to think that we will have sold at least 1,200 REGENs by then is quite staggering--and humbling to me. Sounds cliche' and rather obvious, but we couldn't have done it without all of you!

 

Hopefully the surprise in the second act of this audio play will delight as well.

[sbgk]

anybody tried soldering the usb cable to the regen, imagine that would be a further upgrade to sq.

[warpeon]

Something very strange happened, I actually have a few minutes free so I can talk about this.

 

First off on REGEN clock jitter in general. The whole purpose of the REGEN is to improve the signal integrity so the USB PHY in the DAC generates less noise. Jitter is a PART of the signal integrity, but as far as I know not a very large part. Meaning going into ultra low jitter territory should not make much of a difference. I have designed a few USB PHYs and none of those would have much of any noise difference when the incoming jitter goes from really good to really really good. But that doesn't mean all PHYs behave the same way.

 

Note that the clock in the REGEN is not the same as the clock in the DAC that feeds the DAC chip(s). THAT clock is very important. The REGEN clock is not even the clock that is in charge of the timing of the I2S signals to the DAC chip, that is part of the DAC again. It is not even in charge of the USB processing in the DAC's USB receiver, that is controlled by the clock connected the USB chip in the DAC. About the only thing it can possibly affect is the PG noise from the PHY.

 

The Neutron Star looks like a well implemented external clock but I have not seen a phase noise plot for it so it is hard to tell how good it really is. If anyone has actually seen a phase noise plot I would like to see it.

 

The connection of the Neutron Star to the REGEN shown earlier in this thread shows an unterminated connection. The coax is just connected across the original clock pads. This is not necessarily the best way to connect a clock. The BEST way is to have a termination resistor at the destination side that matches the impedance of the cable, which I presume is 50 ohms. But in order for that to work the output impedance of the clock also needs to be 50 ohm. I did not see anything in the documentation which specifies the output impedance. There is an output transformer but no information on its characteristics or the circuit driving it. So given the unterminated connection and non-specified output impedance, there are likely to be reflections at the connection to the board. Given the fairly short length of the cable they may not have any impact on the hub chip, but who knows, I certainly have not done any analysis on the SI sensitivity of the hub chip clock input.

 

All my previous experimentation with DAC clocks has shown that the external clock REALLY has to be much better than the on board one it is replacing to make any significant difference, the connection from board to board almost always adds enough signal degradation to partially counteract the "goodness" of the external clock.

 

Because of all of the above I was surprised by the amount of improvement heard with the Neutron Star. I would have assumed some small improvement, but not doubling the improvement of the REGEN. The only thing I can think of is that if this was a system that was already highly optimized, so the SI was already very good, the SI improvement of the off the shelf REGEN would not be all that large, so maybe in that case lower jitter may have larger percentage of the total improvement.

 

I want to emphasize that I am NOT recommending that everybody go out and spend $600 upgrading the clock. There is not nearly enough information to know how effective this is going to be on most systems. If you REALLY want to spend the money trying this you are of course free to do so, (it does void the warrantee), but be prepared that it may not double the improvement in YOUR system.

 

John S.

 

John,

 

Very informative. this is probably off-topic a bit, but hope you could help explain the importance of clock. There are a number of products modding the clock in Computer Audio, starting from storage (SSD), Motherboard, USB output card, Renderer, DAC. Assuming the hi-fi products we are purchasing implies the on-board clock are of reasonable quality. Any clock is most worthwhile modding for an outboard clock?

 

Many thanks!!

 

Edwin

[jexby]

All,

 

anyone in the USA want to buy my original Regen green board? (board only. no power or cable/accessories)

send a PM with your offer.

 

decided against stacking Green with Amber, and not going the 3D printed case route.

Green board has been unused once Amber arrived.

[AndreasB]

Hi,

I am using 8-10 inch ( approx. 20 centimeters ) custom made USB cables overall.

 

A) 1 x Data, 1x GND & 5v (separated) from Mac Mini to Schiit Wyrd.

B) The same length from Schitt Wyrd to Uptone Amber and custom made " hard solid" USB adapter from Uptone Amber Regen into Schiit Loki DSD DAC. I can highly recommend this.

 

These vey short USB-cables improved overall sound-quality very well.. in terms of attack, liveliness.

Much better than the longer (same quality) USB-cables approx. 60 cm <-> 1.0 meter as used before.

Ps.I cannot underpin the technical ins and outs but you can trust your own ears and give it a try ...you can easily do it yourself!

 

Next stage might be to do direct soldering the Schiit Wyrd and direct soldering the Amber custom made connector into / on the Schiit DSD DAC LOKI.

 

Very best regards,

Andreas

 

anybody tried soldering the usb cable to the regen, imagine that would be a further upgrade to sq.

[audioexile]

Thanks for the delivery update Alex. Anxiously awaiting the arrival of my Regen.

 

Best Wishes

David

 

Thanks for your patience everyone.

Orders promised for July shipment (order numbers up to 1640) have been shipping all month as more of the semi-scarce Mean Well 7.5V/2.93A/22W power supplies arrive.

 

Order numbers starting with 1641 have always been promised for mid-August shipment and we are still on track for that--maybe even a very few days sooner. By the third week of August I expect to be caught up and current, though after the heavy orders that came in this past week I need to look again as we are getting quite close to pre-selling out to the 350 units I had planned for August. But parts for another 500 will start to arrive late August so it all looks good.

 

Once we have gotten customer order lead times down to 1-2 weeks, I'll feel comfortable starting to take out a couple of advertisements and that's about when first magazine reviews will start to hit. But to think that we will have sold at least 1,200 REGENs by then is quite staggering--and humbling to me. Sounds cliche' and rather obvious, but we couldn't have done it without all of you!

 

Hopefully the surprise in the second act of this audio play will delight as well.

[sbgk]

Hi,

I am using 8-10 inch ( approx. 20 centimeters ) custom made USB cables overall.

 

A) 1 x Data, 1x GND & 5v (separated) from Mac Mini to Schiit Wyrd.

B) The same length from Schitt Wyrd to Uptone Amber and custom made " hard solid" USB adapter from Uptone Amber Regen into Schiit Loki DSD DAC. I can highly recommend this.

 

These vey short USB-cables improved overall sound-quality very well.. in terms of attack, liveliness.

Much better than the longer (same quality) USB-cables approx. 60 cm <-> 1.0 meter as used before.

Ps.I cannot underpin the technical ins and outs but you can trust your own ears and give it a try ...you can easily do it yourself!

 

Next stage might be to do direct soldering the Schiit Wyrd and direct soldering the Amber custom made connector into / on the Schiit DSD DAC LOKI.

 

Very best regards,

Andreas

 

I've done it before with a sp/dif coax and thought it was worthwhile, same with speaker cables. usb a bit more fiddly.

[rdsu]

It's possible to use a USB Hub to connect two sources to USB Regen?

[rickca]

John, thanks for taking the time to give us your take on the clock upgrade.

[sandyk]

BTW, even the lowly USB memory stick which can be used to store good quality Audio has an internal 12MHZ (IIRC) Xtal Oscillator. It seems likely that this may be part of the reason they perform a little better with a higher quality internal/external +5V Linear power supply.

Alex

 

USB Flash Drives - USB stick, USB RAM, Memory Stick

[JohnSwenson]

It's possible to use a USB Hub to connect two sources to USB Regen?

 

No. There can only be one host on a USB bus. A hub is designed to connect a single host to multiple devices, it will not work the other way.

 

The only way to do this is with a USB switch, two or more computers plug into one side and one or more devices go on the other, you then push a button or rotate a knob to select which host connects to the devices.

 

I use one of these in my "lab", I have multiple computers and one keyboard and mouse, I use the switch to select which computer is connected to the keyboard and mouse. (the display has multiple inputs, so I use that to select which computer is displayed)

 

John S.

[toast]

Any chance UpTone Audio will come out with their own DAC+Regen one box combo, in the not too distance future?

[jtwrace]

Any chance UpTone Audio will come out with their own DAC+Regen one box combo, in the not too distance future?

 

That's a pretty massive undertaking. Unless it's something they've been working on I'd say Hella no.

[toast]

Why no? Mr. Swenson has been building and playing around with own DACs for sometime now.

[jtwrace]

Why no? Mr. Swenson has been building and playing around with own DACs for sometime now.

 

I didn't say "no". It would have to be something he has been working on for years to do something that hasn't been done before. Not saying it can't be done or isn't being done but I think their model is a bit different. I think. At that point why not bring back Hovland or some sort of it?

[zilch0md]

^ Yeah, a finer grade of sugar has a much larger market than just another candy.

[toast]

Actually I'm saving money to buy the 2Qute next year. If UpTone were to put out a modest but killer DAC+Regen combo in the $1,000 range, there is a demand there. I can dream.

[Freann]

Yesterday I made two short A to B cables to use with my Green and Amber.

 

The top cable was made from a parts of a Firewire 800 cable. Firewire use two data pairs – the other screened pair can be seen above.

The other cable is actually a shortened Supra.

 

[fmak]

Yesterday I made two short A to B cables to use with my Green and Amber.

 

The top cable was made from a parts of a Firewire 800 cable. Firewire use two data pairs – the other screened pair can be seen above.

The other cable is actually a shortened Supra.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]19870[/ATTACH]

 

Have a look here:

 

Length of usb cable affects SQ - fmak - Computer Audio Asylum

 

I now have 6cm Wireworld Starlight!

[dtb300]

All my previous experimentation with DAC clocks has shown that the external clock REALLY has to be much better than the on board one it is replacing to make any significant difference, the connection from board to board almost always adds enough signal degradation to partially counteract the "goodness" of the external clock.

 

Because of all of the above I was surprised by the amount of improvement heard with the Neutron Star. I would have assumed some small improvement, but not doubling the improvement of the REGEN. The only thing I can think of is that if this was a system that was already highly optimized, so the SI was already very good, the SI improvement of the off the shelf REGEN would not be all that large, so maybe in that case lower jitter may have larger percentage of the total improvement.

 

I want to emphasize that I am NOT recommending that everybody go out and spend $600 upgrading the clock. There is not nearly enough information to know how effective this is going to be on most systems. If you REALLY want to spend the money trying this you are of course free to do so, (it does void the warrantee), but be prepared that it may not double the improvement in YOUR system.

This is where the late (great) Allen Wright did his improvements to CD/SACD Players. Internal (Terra Firma Lite) or External (Terra Firma Uber) Clocks. I had all sorts of mods done to players, output stages, OpAmps, resistors, etc. etc. Nothing equaled the improvements of the new clocks. So I can see/agree with John's statement about the improvements gained with a new BETTER clock.

 

Joe Rasmussen who worked with Allen (before his passing) continues the work:

What is Terra Firma?

[YashN]

Yesterday I made two short A to B cables to use with my Green and Amber.

 

The top cable was made from a parts of a Firewire 800 cable. Firewire use two data pairs – the other screened pair can be seen above.

The other cable is actually a shortened Supra.

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]19870[/ATTACH]

 

Quite cool, Freann.

[YashN]

Have a look here:

 

Length of usb cable affects SQ - fmak - Computer Audio Asylum

 

I now have 6cm Wireworld Starlight!

 

 

I was asking the question of using very short cables vs hard USB Connectors recently.

 

The thing is: if very short cable are better, couldn't a hard connector be considered the shortest cable possible?

 

Second thing: With a short cable, I'd still be able to use my DIY USB cable geometry, which isn't possible in a hard connector (assuming a hard connector is really hard material but someone did respond saying their connector uses wires inside).

 

Third thing: If you had to choose between [A: Shorter USB cable + longer interconnects] and [b: Longer USB cable + shorter interconnects], which would you choose and why?

 

(possibly replying in the other thread is more useful so as not to make this one veer off into OT, but I'll still find any reply in this thread if need be).

[fmak]

The thing is: if very short cable are better, couldn't a hard connector be considered the shortest cable possible?

 

Second thing: With a short cable, I'd still be able to use my DIY USB cable geometry, which isn't possible in a hard connector (assuming a hard connector is really hard material but someone did respond saying their connector uses wires inside).

 

Third thing: If you had to choose between [A: Shorter USB cable + longer interconnects] and [b: Longer USB cable + shorter interconnects], which would you choose and why?

 

(possibly replying in the other thread is more useful so as not to make this one veer off into OT, but I'll still find any reply in this thread if need be).

 

and maintain strict 90R impedance. It's the type of connector that is the problem.

 

An B to B arrangement would be more desirable. Or better for soldering A to A.