ISO REGEN Listening Impressions (kicked off with some measurements)

[jimtranr]

Ditto, Inigo, on Alex's customer service. Where he finds the hours to deliver it mystifies me.

 

I'd add that after a few hundred hours' operation, the output I hear with the ISO REGEN/LPS 1 in place* exhibits the ease and flow I associate with well-recorded analog, while maintaining the dynamic reach and punch of digital. I'm surprised at how liquid and venue-spacious ripped CDs (mostly large-ensemble classical and jazz) I'd considered marginal pre-IR/LPS 1 sound. And well-made high-resolution downloads? I spent part of last night shaking my head at the lifelike "they're in the room, and they've made it huuuuge" presence of the ensemble in the  24/176 iteration of Eiji Oue's reading of Rachmaninoff's "Symphonic Dances" with the Minnesota Orchestra (a Keith Johnson Reference Recordings production). And not just the presence, but the unmasking of previously-buried low-level details of inner voicing that enrich the sense of rhythmic and melodic flow. It's all there.

 

Now I'm saving my pennies for an LPS 1.2 to complete the system.

 

* Yeah, I'm the guy Alex graciously misidentified as a "gentleman" a few posts back (he doesn't know me very well).

 

Jim

 

 

   

[jimtranr]

34 minutes ago, RamDawg said:

I also have the galvanic iso off at the IR. This never has never worked in my system for any longer than 30 minutes before losing signal. 

 

Paul, I don't know if this will help, but initially I had issues with my DAC randomly losing the input signal via the IR (with galvanic isolation enabled) after several minutes. At the time, the IR was unsupported from below, its chassis bottom suspended a little over an inch above the shelf top. I cut a wood block to fit and put it under the IR. I also moved the LPS-1 powering the IR from its right-next-to-the-DAC location to a different shelf (the stock power cord was long to enable the move). Bottom line: No more dropouts with GI enabled. YMMV.

 

Jim

[jimtranr]

On 7/25/2018 at 5:52 AM, bmnathe said:

update - grounding the IR's USB output did not help - any other ideas?

 

Offered as a very long shot since our systems are different. After having tried a number of IR grounding configurations that didn't solve the problem with galvanic isolation enabled, I determined that strain on the laptop-to-IR USB cable was causing the connector at either the laptop output or IR input end of the cable to disengage just enough to result in a signal dropout, prompting a flashing "USB Disconnected" message on my TEAC DAC's display. Moving the laptop and DAC/IR closer together so the USB cable has more slack has eliminated the dropouts.