UpTone Audio USB Regen Listening Impressions

[satfrat]

I find your "shouting" to be both aggravating and unnecessary.

 

What I have found aggravating about this Mark Whatever fellow is how he is so full of it, that is himself. This is evident in the way he writes, what he dismisses/endorses, how he aggrandises himself. To me, MW represents the worst of academia and audiophilia, worlds he straddles: innate entitlement, a priori privilege, and uncritical hierarchy. Consider this: "I ... remain highly skeptical of the whole premise behind the device and will continue to focus on making the best recordings ..." The audiophile oracle has spoken, and his making the best recordings triumphs the Regen and all that does not correspond to his truth, which is the only verity, anyway. Is there anything left to discuss? I have seen so much of this stuff in academia and audiophilia, particularly from those who have little to show and loads to hide -- degrees are displayed, the low-ranking of institutions occluded -- that let me just say, Mark Whatever is simply not worth it. It is the way he writes and argues, the presumption and the posy-ness.

[Tony Lauck]

The response I hear most often is that considering the descriptions of degrees of difference from subjectivists, the impression of a difference ought to be able to survive quite a lot of "play" in test procedures.

 

A couple of comments about John's post with respect to this:

 

- As John mentioned, what you'll find is a lot of commentary saying that nulls down to (x) dB leave no room for the degree of difference mentioned by subjective reports.

 

- Something else John mentioned that I think should be highlighted with regard to such null testing is the difficulty of actually lining up the two responses correctly in time. This has to be done using judgment, i.e., *subjectively*. Every report I've seen that has mentioned the need to line up responses has said it was done to maximize the null. QED!

 

Thus the experiments find what the experimenters expected to find, so not terribly surprising neither the results nor the methods used to obtain them are subject to a great deal of doubt or questioning.

 

There's a lot of slop available for how you measure the depth of a null and this can make it impossible to get apples to apples correspondence. There are a number of reports where people hear differences due to 24 bit dither noise, which is -136 dBfs RMS. If you are looking at spectrograms there could be 30 dB or more of FFT gain, meaning that the bins need to be below -170 dBfs to reach this level. If the problem is related to distortion on transients, then using any averaging is likely to bury the short term error in heavy periods of low error.

 

It is perfectly legitimate to iterate over gain and offset to minimize the null, since both of these in the quantities involved (fraction of .1 dB and fraction of 1 sample) don't have any effect on the sound unless the differences happen to provoke some kind of an artifact in the DAC.

 

These problems go away when doing file to file software converson tests if the software is in proper calibration.

 

One thing that some subjectivists don't consider is that the sound when a digital file is played twice under "identical" conditions will be subtly different at the listener's ears for a variety of reasons, and what he hears will differ much more, among other things because one's hearing is affected by one's attention.

[r_w]

I would never assume 'music biz' people to have golden ears, rather the contrary. The majority have no interest in audiophilia. I've met 'record producers' who have declared pursuit of SQ pointless folley.

 

It's makes sense to me, given the Westlake scope, that a multi-channel USB interface (Antelope Orion 32, et al) ought to benefit from noise floor reduction. I'm still on firewire in my studio, but if I did move to USB, a regen would be a consideration, given the low cost.

 

 

I wanna get this straight: John Westlake's scope pictures show clear differences, Mark Waldrep says he doesn't hear anything in his fabulous studio, and *who* is supposed to be the "objectivist"?

[zilch0md]

For me, the greatest evidence of the genuine effectiveness of the USB Regen is the almost unanimous approval of nearly 2000 customers. And before anyone can accuse every last one of these customers of expectation bias, they should try to list some other $100 to $200 audio products that have garnered such overwhelming acclaim. Most audio products in this price range suffer a mixed bag of opinions, with little consensus.

 

In other words, not only does the USB Regen garner almost universal approval, it costs so little that only the least wealthy among us could feel spurred to falsely defend the purchase. When someone lays out even $1000 for a piece of gear, never mind $2000 or more, they're far more likely to justify their purchase than they are something that sells for $175.

 

On the contrary, something that costs $175 takes enough of a hit on most people's wallets we will squeal like stuck pigs if it doesn't deliver on its promises, unlike something that sells for $20.

 

The USB Regen sits in that sensitive price range, where I contend people will speak their piece most honestly, having an incentive to squeal, if they feel squealing is warranted, but little need to defend their purchases, and yet...

 

...something in excess of 95% (?) of USB Regen are happy customers.

 

Who needs tests? The results are already in.

[mmerrill99]

There's a lot of slop available for how you measure the depth of a null and this can make it impossible to get apples to apples correspondence. There are a number of reports where people hear differences due to 24 bit dither noise, which is -136 dBfs RMS.

I've seen you state this before can you give a link please?

If you are looking at spectrograms there could be 30 dB or more of FFT gain, meaning that the bins need to be below -170 dBfs to reach this level. If the problem is related to distortion on transients, then using any averaging is likely to bury the short term error in heavy periods of low error.

Agreed

[sdube]

Aggravating? My apologies. Unnecessary? After a hard day in academia, exhausted after exercise, as I happily, contentedly sank into music, Regen contributing, the words of Mr RW (PhD, Esq) struck me as pure pretence. I responded from the heart.

I find your "shouting" to be both aggravating and unnecessary.

[mmerrill99]

Who needs tests? The results are already in.

Yes, the results, as always, are what you personally hear irrespective of measurements but the measurements are interesting for some as it is an investigation into just what it is that might be providing the benefits in SQ. Who knows what we may learn along the way?

[YashN]

his two buddies heard a difference and he didn't - the Mighty Mark Waldrep - maybe his ears aren't as good as he thinks they are.

 

Maybe he should stop making and selling recordings altogether if he can't hear any difference?

[zilch0md]

Yes, the results, as always, are what you personally hear irrespective of measurements but the measurements are interesting for some as it is an investigation into just what it is that might be providing the benefits in SQ. Who knows what we may learn along the way?

 

I can agree, wholeheartedly, even though it contradicts my somewhat rhetorical comment. Bring on the tests.

[sdube]

As for the "shouting", after I copied and pasted a statement from RW's "review", my post appeared in three different styles, this font was the only one I could standardise it. Apologise again, if the size annoyed you, too.

I find your "shouting" to be both aggravating and unnecessary.

[NickB]

Maybe he should stop making and selling recordings altogether if he can't hear any difference?

 

And the two others with him who heard a negligible difference - should they give up as well?

[NickB]

Contrast that mess with how Barry Diament monitors his recordings using high quality speakers of the type that many C.A. members would love to own ! (Magnepan’s 3.7s)

 

 

Yes no clutter in that room is there !!!

[YashN]

And the two others with him who heard a negligible difference - should they give up as well?

 

Add up several 'negligible' differences and it makes a world of difference between a good sounding system and a great one, same for recordings.

[JoeWhip]

Some of the venom in this thread is ridiculous. Geez, it is audio not life and death. Mark isn't some kid in his PJs in his mom's basement commenting on the internet. Give him some credit for what he has accomplished in the industry. You find the Regen makes a big improvement in your system. Great. By all means yell from the mountaintops. But there is no need to denigrate someone who doesn't or doesn't think that the improvement is as great as you do. As for the Regen, I have yet to hear it so can't comment on it. I do have the Wyrd which I bought, not to improve the sound, but to eliminate drop outs I was having. It did this beautifully BTW. My experience with the Wyrd vis a vis SQ improvement sounds a bit what Mark's friends were describing with the Regen. Very subtle. Was I hearing things? Maybe, but since the dropouts were almost totally gone, I didn't really care. The AQ Jitterbug, that is a different story. The SQ improvements were noticeable and better yet, verifiable, just by pulling the thing out of the unused USB port on my Mac. maybe mark will run a test on the Jitterbug.

[jtwrace]

Some of the venom in this thread is ridiculous. Geez, it is audio not life and death. Mark isn't some kid in his PJs in his mom's basement commenting on the internet. Give him some credit for what he has accomplished in the industry. You find the Regen makes a big improvement in your system. Great. By all means yell from the mountaintops. But there is no need to denigrate someone who doesn't or doesn't think that the improvement is as great as you do. As for the Regen, I have yet to hear it so can't comment on it. I do have the Wyrd which I bought, not to improve the sound, but to eliminate drop outs I was having. It did this beautifully BTW. My experience with the Wyrd vis a vis SQ improvement sounds a bit what Mark's friends were describing with the Regen. Very subtle. Was I hearing things? Maybe, but since the dropouts were almost totally gone, I didn't really care. The AQ Jitterbug, that is a different story. The SQ improvements were noticeable and better yet, verifiable, just by pulling the thing out of the unused USB port on my Mac. maybe mark will run a test on the Jitterbug.

I guess we hear differently...if the Wyrd solved the dropouts I'm certain that would sound better to me.

[rocky]

maybe mark will run a test on the Jitterbug.

 

You should already know what the article will be.

Just reread the one on the regen but substitute regen with jitterbug and you will have it. :-)

[Daudio]

Well, after Alex's retort to Waldrep, I now feel like my $2000 Benchmark DAC2 HGC is "low-end." Not sure that's fair ...

 

 

Ah, but life is not fair and neither is SQ

 

 

P.S. I have a HGC too, so I 'feel your pain', but I'm used to it now

[JoeWhip]

I guess we hear differently...if the Wyrd solved the dropouts I'm certain that would sound better to me.

 

 

Yes, but the underlying SQ didn't really change much more than a smidge

[Jud]

There's a lot of slop available for how you measure the depth of a null and this can make it impossible to get apples to apples correspondence.

 

It is perfectly legitimate to iterate over gain and offset to minimize the null, since both of these in the quantities involved (fraction of .1 dB and fraction of 1 sample) don't have any effect on the sound unless the differences happen to provoke some kind of an artifact in the DAC.

 

 

Something I've wondered with regard to time shifts between iterations has to do with whether the time shift is an artifact of the "slop" or real, e.g., time domain effects of different filters, and how one would try to obtain time correspondence between two iterations in such a case.

[Jud]

Some of the venom in this thread is ridiculous. Geez, it is audio not life and death. Mark isn't some kid in his PJs in his mom's basement commenting on the internet. Give him some credit for what he has accomplished in the industry. You find the Regen makes a big improvement in your system. Great. By all means yell from the mountaintops. But there is no need to denigrate someone who doesn't or doesn't think that the improvement is as great as you do.

 

I think the "venom" was a rare exception that will hopefully not be repeated.

 

I do think it can legitimately be said the testing was somewhat sloppy in both conception and execution, which is not completely fair either to the manufacturer or, perhaps more importantly, to a consumer wondering whether the Regen will benefit his/her listening experience.

 

Going to the trouble of quoting a customer who is so unrepresentative of the vast majority of those who have Regens also seemed a little strange to me.

[jtwrace]

Yes, but the underlying SQ didn't really change much more than a smidge

 

If there were dropouts then it was unlistenable (to me).

[YashN]

maybe mark will run a test on the Jitterbug.

 

His 'tests' are useless.

[mmerrill99]

His 'tests' are useless.

So far, yes!

Let's see his measurements - I bet they will confirm his personal "listening" experience i.e no difference - so the other two were "wrong"

[NickB]

His 'tests' are useless.

 

He did ask if there was any way they could be improved - I am sure your expertise would be appreciated.

[pl_svn]

anyway... just got, this morning, my new sub-standard DAC (Metrum Hex)

still needs a lot of burn-in (the Octave kept changing for the first full month)

 

been running it the whole day via the Audiophilleo and Regen and only tried, a few minutes ago, pulling the Regen from the chain

to my surprise, I still was liking pretty much what I was hearing

 

then I put the Regen back and... OMG!!!

can't believe someone doesn't hear a difference :0

but I'm talking about sub-standard gear, as we all know

 

 

still have to try direct USB, instead of S/PDIF, with/without the Regen

must, first, figure out how to plug the Regen as there's not enough space back there (unless I move the rack)