ISO REGEN Listening Impressions (kicked off with some measurements)

[watercourse]

Back to the thread topic:

 

I've had my IR in the system for just over two weeks now. The difference with moving to the IR from the Regen is subtle and incremental, but has increased my enjoyment of my computer source that much more.

 

Prior to the ISO Regen, I had the Regen powered by the LPS-1. You can search my posts for my contemporaneous opinions, but the bottom line it is that the LPS-1 brought significant improvements to bass and soundstaging.

 

Immediately upon inserting the ISO Regen in place of the Regen, a difference in the midrange was apparent: it was slightly easier to perceive than previously. An analogy would be that the midrange was slightly recessed without the ISO Regen, or that the ISO Regen was slightly more forward in its presentation. These were all good, albeit slight changes. Listening more closely, the more voluminous bass from the Regen/LPS-1 combo seemed to be slightly better controlled and composed than previously, but good and punchy. Over two weeks (which is my recommendation before making any decisions about the IR), the initial impressions only changed in that the sound became more seamless and more coherent, taking on a more relaxed character that reproduces sonic textures better than before.

 

With every system change in the past, I have had to go back and adjust iZotope SRC settings to move things back into my sweet spot of texture, dynamics, frequency extension, imaging and soundstaging; this is also true after putting the IR in the system. The difference with the IR in place is that textures are easier to discern, so that very minor changes in the filter settings are easily apparent. Also, treble control has increased to the point that I'm not finding the need to reduce steepness settings to tame harshness as I did before. The sense is that the sounds are more "true" and less affected by artifacts in the source components and associated power supplies.

 

The next test that I will attempt is to match as closely as possible the sound of my Bel Canto PL1 (which was actually designed by Mike Moffatt when Theta Digital was still around), to really push my understanding of the iZotope filters, and see if this is achievable. If I can do this, I may have gotten to the point that I can move on from physical sources altogether...

Excellent work Alex and John!

[sdube]

On 9/6/2017 at 3:22 AM, Ciukas said:

+1 also but I suppose every DAC will vary of course. Also I have the LPS-1 powering the IR so I dont know how the IR would sound w a standard power supply. Tbh I couldnt really tell any difference w the galvanic isolation turned off w the Hugo 2. All the benefits the ISO Regen brings to my tracks, greater dynamics, more presence, etc are still there... but that could also be bc Rob Watts made sure the lack of galvanic iso wouldnt be an issue w the H2.

 

Grounding the ISO R -- to defeat the Berkeley Alpha floating USB ground -- and turning on the Galvanic Isolation has given me an incredible boost in sound- and music-quality.

[kalinka]

Well, I have the ISO regen for about 10 days now, so I can give you my impressions.

 

It is actually my second unit, since the first one had the now infamous pops & clicks issue. It is ironic that I was among the very first ones to buy the iso regen, back in april, and it took more than 4 months to finally have it. Well, shit happens, what can we do.

 

So, to the ISO regen. I wasn't expecting a big improvement. I was thinking if the difference in comparison to the original Regen (which I had) would be even audible at all. Well, I was surprised. The quality improvement was definitibly noticeable from the start.

 

The biggest improvement in my system was in the bottom end department. At first I thought the bass was louder, but it wasn't quite the case. It was actually much more defined, round, heavy, lively, it is hard to define, but it was like going from an record with poor bass, let's say Metallica's "And Justice for All", to one with decent bass. Like I said, it's not that the bass was louder. It is now more defined, more easy to percieve, it don't get lost of muffled in the mix. The difference was so big that got me surprised, I got myself thinking "wow, I didn't know my speakers were capable of producing that kind of bass".

 

The other improvements were less impressive, but noticeable all the same. I now have the impression that music in more clear, the instruments are better separated, the soundstage is much more focused, the sound is more realistic, more natural, the dynamics are stronger; I mean, this little black box produced improvements in everything. I am now listening for longers periods of time, with less fatigue. I think the improvement from the original regen to the ISO is better than what I had when going from nothing to the original regen.

 

I've had dropouts when the galvanic isolation was on, so all my impressions refer to the ISO regen with the GI defeated. However, I think it doesn't make that much of a difference on my system: the differences with the GI on or off were very subtle, if any at all. I was considering groundind my DAC so I could have the GI on, but, like I said, the differences were hard to notice, I am not even sure there were any difference at all, so I gave up on that.

 

So, the ISO Regen is a must buy? Well, it would if wasn't for one detail: the price. This product is quite expensive, it costs more than lots of DACs and even more than various budget speakers. If the price would be in the 200USD area, it would be a no brainer. I am happy with it, but does my system sounds 300 dollars better? Well, it is quite hard to answer to such question. It sounds quite better, that's for sure, but I think only the aficionados - like us- would spend that kind of money on an ISO regen.

 

Anyway, the iso regen is great, and if you can manage the price tag, go for it. It's funny, we hear all the time that "bits are bits", but Uptone is telling us a very different story.

[sbenyo]

I just got my ISO REGEN. Until now I was using PUC2 lite which significantly makes the sound better.
With the PUC2 I get a very clear and detailed sound on one hand and relax and not fatiguing on the other hand.

 

Now I added the ISO REGEN before the PUC2 to improve the USB feed to it. I was surprised to find that the sound with the REGEN was not any better and even more veiled than without it. The difference is not big but it definitely it sounds better without.

This is very strange to me as I don't see any reason it will not improve or at least stay the same. I use Teradak LPS which may not be as good as the recommended Uptone one but I still think it should not be like this. I will try to use the ISO REGEN alone and see how it performs to eliminate the effect of the PUC2. I hope this will work so at least I will be able to use it for the USB path.

It will be interesting to hear if anyone had a similar experience (either with PUC2 or any other DDC) and if there is a chance it needs longer burn-in time to improve.

[Kritpoon]

Hi All,

 

Just got my ISO-Regen about a week ago. It was a replacement unit since my 1st unit was having some problem with the ticking sound. I sent it back to Alex and got it back very quickly. With that, I would like to thanks and credit Alex with above and beyond excellent customer service, the issue was resolved very quickly. Thank you and I would not hesitate to purchase another Uptone product, since I know if I have problem it will get solve!

 

Back to the topic of ISO-Regen, in my system I have added the ISO-Regen after the Ultra Rendu (please see my sig. for my system layout) Despite various reports on this forum, I really like my ISO-Regen with the Ultra Rendu! Its like technicality vs musicality. With just Ultra-Rendu, the sound is wonderful, tonality, crispness of notes and voices, sound stage and image, hence I explain this sound be a correct technical presentation. With the addition of the ISO-Regen, it adds what I call musicality. Edginess/preciseness are tone down, sounds are more organic, natural and has a relaxing flow. The mid-range also gain some nice slight addtional oopmh and smoothness, to me the ISO-Regen make things less digital and more analog/organic/natural. Try this combo with some Jazzmusic with guitar/trumpet/Saxophone and you will know what I mean. I think If you love the sound of Vinyl Rig, adding to ISO-Ren to the Ultra Rendu will surprise you! Excellent product, thank you Alex and John.

 

 

[watercourse]

1 hour ago, sbenyo said:

It will be interesting to hear if anyone had a similar experience (either with PUC2 or any other DDC) and if there is a chance it needs longer burn-in time to improve.

 

I have a Bel Canto DDC, and both the Regen and ISO Regen provided noticeable improvements. IME, the ISO Regen needed some settling in - I do remember a period where sonics were more veiled before stabilizing. I had a signal going through the ISO Regen more or less continuously since I received it. If you haven't had it at least powered on continuously for a week, I'd give it at least 4 more days.

[sbenyo]

Thanks for the burn-in tip. I did try one thing that seems to make things better.

I removed the Jitterbug piece I had on the USB cable before the ISO REGEN. This made things better. Now it's less veiled but I do notice a bit more dominance on the lows. I still cannot say it's any better but the clarity and transparency are there which is good. I guess this either has to improve with time or I have to get used to it (or not).

 

It's probably the lows that currently make the difference. It seems warmer and more tube-like than before. I have to admit that I do like the sparkle of accurate and crisp highs so I hope it will get a bit better in the mids-highs.

Bottom line, with Jitterbug out, I think it's currently more or less in the same level as without but different. I guess some may say it sounds better some may say it's not but nothing dramatic either way. As suggested, I will give it much more time and hope it will either get better or I'll get used to it 

[kalinka]

2 hours ago, sbenyo said:

Thanks for the burn-in tip. I did try one thing that seems to make things better.

I removed the Jitterbug piece I had on the USB cable before the ISO REGEN. This made things better. Now it's less veiled but I do notice a bit more dominance on the lows. I still cannot say it's any better but the clarity and transparency are there which is good. I guess this either has to improve with time or I have to get used to it (or not).

 

It's probably the lows that currently make the difference. It seems warmer and more tube-like than before. I have to admit that I do like the sparkle of accurate and crisp highs so I hope it will get a bit better in the mids-highs.

Bottom line, with Jitterbug out, I think it's currently more or less in the same level as without but different. I guess some may say it sounds better some may say it's not but nothing dramatic either way. As suggested, I will give it much more time and hope it will either get better or I'll get used to it 

My experience with jitterbug was really bad, with or without the regen.

 

It may be my system, but I don't recommend this product to anyone, based on my personal experience.

[Cornan]

15 hours ago, kalinka said:

My experience with jitterbug was really bad, with or without the regen.

 

It may be my system, but I don't recommend this product to anyone, based on my personal experience.

 

Well, here is something I recommend that you try on your network switch or main router if you want to do something fun with your Jitterbug!

It actually makes a slight difference for the better plugged into port 6 on my Aqvox switch-8, if not my ears/bias are fooling me completely!

 

 

[PeteGardner]

On 4 September 2017 at 6:01 PM, flummoxe said:

 

Hi Pete,

 

I have a TT and have no issues like yours. Have you spoken to Chord as they are very helpful.

 

 

 

 

I seem to have got to the source of the issue. The lps-1. After taking it out of the chain I have had zero input switching. Issue returns putting it back in.

Any suggestions as to why it causes the issue and, better still, any suggestions on solving the issue so that I can have the lps-1 back in the chain?

i have only had lps-1 set on 7v.

[Doak]

16 hours ago, kalinka said:

My experience with jitterbug was really bad, with or without the regen.

 

It may be my system, but I don't recommend this product to anyone, based on my personal experience.

+1 

[Cornan]

6 minutes ago, PeteGardner said:

I seem to have got to the source of the issue. The lps-1. After taking it out of the chain I have had zero input switching. Issue returns putting it back in.

Any suggestions as to why it causes the issue and, better still, any suggestions on solving the issue so that I can have the lps-1 back in the chain?

i have only had lps-1 set on 7v.

 

The first obvious questions is what feeder supply you are using? Try with another feeder supply if you have any available and see if that helps. Next thing is to move the feeder supply to another socket. Maybe it is disturbed by another device next to it? If you can track down exactly when the inut switching occurs you might find the cause as well.

[Guidof]

20 hours ago, kalinka said:

My experience with jitterbug was really bad, with or without the regen.

 

It may be my system, but I don't recommend this product to anyone, based on my personal experience.

 

+2

[RickyV]

Hi all,

 

What to do with our old regen's or in my case w4s recovery? Well i am still playing via a win 7 laptop with my music on a external ssd. So i thought lets connect the ssd via the recovery and a uspcb ( vbus off) adapter  to my laptop. So reclocking and clean power on the ssd. It works and sounds great, sound fuller and more relaxed. Try it.

I am very happy with my iso regen, lps-1 combo great improvement. No hiccups, drop outs or ticks at all. 

[Doak]

2 hours ago, RickyV said:

Hi all,

 

What to do with our old regen's or in my case w4s recovery? Well i am still playing via a win 7 laptop with my music on a external ssd. So i thought lets connect the ssd via the recovery and a uspcb ( vbus off) adapter  to my laptop. So reclocking and clean power on the ssd. It works and sounds great, sound fuller and more relaxed. Try it.

I am very happy with my iso regen, lps-1 combo great improvement. No hiccups, drop outs or ticks at all. 

I've wondered if that may be beneficial ... but sold Recovery & Regen before finding out. 

[jiminlogansquare]

I am going to try chaining together my old USB REGEN and ISO REGEN, as I have tried twice with no success to sell the older model. If I think it affects the sound, whether for good or ill, I will report back here in a few days.

[lmitche]

Green and Amber REGENs make great 7 to 5 volt DC to DC power supplies. They will regulate power without any signal.

[simorag]

New ISO REGEN / LPS-1 combo owner here.

 

My rig is: audio-optimized PC (W2016 Core, Audiophile Optimizer, Fidelizer Pro, Process Lasso, JPLAY / JPLAYstreamer) > Forza AudioWorks USB cable > ISO REGEN(LPS-1) with GI on > USPCB >  Audio GD NOS11 V2 DAC/Amp > Sennheiser HD800S headphones (balanced).

 

Less than 10 hours of burn in, and an improvement on the blackness of the background and on the fullness and depth of the lower bass response was apparent since the very first tracks . Transparency, soundstage size, instrument separation, focus were already great and I am hearing no much has changed in these regards.

 

I am noticing an increase of the energy on the upper treble, which make sometimes the listening experience more fatiguing and less natural than with no ISO REGEN.

Anybody else had a similar experience? I am hoping some burn in (of the equipment or of my brain) will improve even on this and I will be 100% happy.

 

In the meantime, I made some experiments by placing back my old iPurifier2 (which the Uptone combo was meant to replace) between the USB cable and the ISO Regen, and it seems to me that the overall presentation is a tad warmer and the trebles are smoother. Really don't know if there is a physical explanation of this (perhaps just some added coloration I seem to like, or just my brain playing tricks on me) 

 

With this configuration all aspects of my system are better than before the ISO REGEN addition, and the treble issues are mitigated.

 

Will report further if something changes as listening time increase.

 

[jamesg11]

18 hours ago, lmitche said:

Green and Amber REGENs make great 7 to 5 volt DC to DC power supplies. They will regulate power without any signal.

Give us some 'for instance's ... I got one of each needing useage somewheres.

[sbenyo]

In my system with PUC2 lite->T+A DAC8 DSD (AES), the addition of ISO REGEN does not improve the sound, at least up to now. I gave it a few more hours to run as was suggested but it's still sounds more pronounced on lows and with less crispness in the mids-highs. I will still give it more time to burn-in and I can only hope it will get better. I also tried it a bit without PUC2 on USB connection. It sounds good but not as good as the PUC2 alone. Currently the PUC2 alone wins in my system.

 

I hope this is not related to the TeraDak LPS. I really don't want to buy any expensive LPS that costs more then the ISO REGEN itself. I do hope there will be improvement soon and that ISO REGEN will do the difference many people say it should do.

 

[ElviaCaprice]

On ‎9‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 10:12 AM, sbenyo said:

Now I added the ISO REGEN before the PUC2 to improve the USB feed to it. I was surprised to find that the sound with the REGEN was not any better and even more veiled than without it. The difference is not big but it definitely it sounds better without.
This is very strange to me as I don't see any reason it will not improve or at least stay the same. I use Teradak LPS which may not be as good as the recommended Uptone one but I still think it should not be like this. I will try to use the ISO REGEN alone and see how it performs to eliminate the effect of the PUC2. I hope this will work so at least I will be able to use it for the USB path.
 

 

Power supplies play a huge role in SQ, especially the closer you get downstream to the DAC.  In fact, it's so important that a bad power supply can render a component upgrade/addition as a detriment to SQ.  You have to take into account the need for good power supplies cost as part of the component upgrade process.  Clean power is the single biggest culprit.  This has been my experience.

[sbenyo]

If power supply plays such a big role in SQ (and I believe it is), we may be wasting time and money in the wrong direction. It will be good to hear experiences of people using BPS or anything like it. If this has much more effect than all USB devices it may be the right way to go instead of spending so much on different components that may or may not affect USB SQ. For now I am very pleased with the PUC2 SQ but it has it's limitations in playing hi-res formats and DSD.

 

I wish there will be more concensus on what is the right solution or direction for significantly improving SQ as for sure it can be improved.

 

For now I am not sure where to go from here. I can wait more to see if ISO REGEN will improve or try to investigate power supply directions. Unfortunately all these experiments are not cheap. I hope we'll to see some more BPS or other power supply solutions experiences/suggestesions, to better understand what is the right direction to go.

[watercourse]

1 hour ago, sbenyo said:

If power supply plays such a big role in SQ (and I believe it is), we may be wasting time and money in the wrong direction. It will be good to hear experiences of people using BPS or anything like it. If this has much more effect than all USB devices it may be the right way to go instead of spending so much on different components that may or may not affect USB SQ. For now I am very pleased with the PUC2 SQ but it has it's limitations in playing hi-res formats and DSD.

 

I wish there will be more concensus on what is the right solution or direction for significantly improving SQ as for sure it can be improved.

 

For now I am not sure where to go from here. I can wait more to see if ISO REGEN will improve or try to investigate power supply directions. Unfortunately all these experiments are not cheap. I hope we'll to see some more BPS or other power supply solutions experiences/suggestesions, to better understand what is the right direction to go.

 

I understand from Alex and John S. that the LPS-1 shouldn't care about what is providing it power. I have both a Meanwell and an iFi power supply. I tested both, and the Meanwell sounds markedly better. The iFi and LPS-1 sound brittle in the higher frequencies, while the Meanwell has none of these qualities. In fact, the Meanwell sounds great. And again, I've found burn in with the ISO Regen to matter - it keeps getting better, as a matter of fact.

 

All the above said, I have an isolation transformer, and switching the power cord between the Topaz and my audio equipment also makes a difference. So it's not just the IR in my system that benefits from what is feeding it, it's pretty much everything.

[jiminlogansquare]

On 9/12/2017 at 6:38 PM, jiminlogansquare said:

I am going to try chaining together my old USB REGEN and ISO REGEN, as I have tried twice with no success to sell the older model. If I think it affects the sound, whether for good or ill, I will report back here in a few days.

Preliminary notes are that chaining together the USB REGEN and ISO REGEN doesn't degrade functionality or SQ. Too early to say whether I think it is an improvement on just one or the other REGEN. Maybe one improvement I would be willing to affirm at this early point is that soundstage seems better, larger, and less connected to the speakers; more like sound coming from an actual source in space. That's a nice thing. But I am just getting started, so who knows. I certainly am hearing nothing here that would incite me to encourage folks who own one or the other type of REGEN to rush out and by the other version. But if you do happen already to own both versions, consider getting another USPCB to hook them together. And if you do, note that, on Superdad's advice, you will want to have the ISO REGEN attached to your DAC with the USB REGEN feeding it, and if you use an LPS-1, have it power the ISO REGEN. 

[Cornan]

As @lmitche posted on this thread the Regen Amber/Green can also be used as a great voltage regulator since it will do that job without a signal. For the fun of it I will actually try this with my floating USB injection into the ISO Regen (since I use 3-wire unshielded USB cables pre IR) the coming weekend. ?