Amir at ASR claims Uptone won't sell the ISO regen to him...

[Superdad]

26 minutes ago, Fitzcaraldo215 said:

 

I think it is clear that Alex and Swenson do not want measurements, period.

 

 

Hogwash Fitz.  This has zero to do with measurements (some of which I already posted).  I explained to Amir why I want nothing to do with him, his agenda, his nastiness, or his money.

(for those who want to know, my reply is here: http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?23015-Who-s-buying-the-UpTone-Audio-ISO-REGEN&p=453954&viewfull=1#post453954)

 

I don't care if he gets a ISO REGEN from someone else.  It just won't be from me.

 

By the way, I don't hear any drumbeats for measurements of products and devices from all sorts of other firms, either at WBF or at that ASR graveyard Amir presides over with his sycophants.

[Superdad]

27 minutes ago, Keith_W said:

Alex, I have faith that you and John Swenson know what you are doing. If you feel that Amir's methodology is flawed and would result in flawed measurements, why not post your own?

 

I did.  But measurements are not going to tell you much about the SQ improvement the ISO REGEN makes.  And to do them in a meaningful way (not Aimr's silly "let's look at noise at the output of the DAC") takes a lot of time (and an advanced phase noise test device).  John is in the middle of his house move, and I am working 70+ hours a week to keep up production, logistics, and customer service on all products.

Plus any "spare" time John or I might have is going into new product design.  Are all the other audio companies spending their days trying to satisfy graph-loving skeptics with measurements?  No.

 

Yet again, this is NOT about measurements!  If Hans Beekhuyzen asks for a sample of the ISO REGEN to measure I will gladly give him one.  Same for John Atkinson, or some of the English and German reviewers who like to measure.

 

No, as I said before, this is strictly about Amir.  This is personal.  I don't want his money, I don't seek his approval, I don't want anything to do with him.  I don't know any way to make myself more clear.  I am doing this on principle and out of self-respect.

 

 

[Superdad]

47 minutes ago, STC said:

What should he measure? 

 

Again this is not about measurements.  I am under zero obligation to sell our products to hostile people who seek only to defame us.

 

But as far as the most important and direct measure of a USB signal regenerating, an eye-pattern contains and reveals the all most important information: amplitude, jitter, noise, edge rates, timing error, etc.--those are the components of what is known as Signal Integrity.

Here is a short article about them: http://www.edn.com/design/test-and-measurement/4389368/Eye-Diagram-Basics-Reading-and-applying-eye-diagrams

 

Differences between USB cables are also revealed using with eye-pattern sweeps.  Here is the before and after with the ISO REGEN:

BEFORE:

 

AFTER:

 

As to the degree to which various DACs and their USB input are affected by variations in SI--and why that can have an effect on the DAC's overall ground plane and master clock--John has written extensively about that, and other (both DAC and external device) manufacturers have worked on the issue to improve their products.  Just because the lay person does not grasp or acknowledge certain deeper engineering issues doe not mean they don't matter or exist.  

If others wish do not wish to accept plainly heard differences until they see someone produce some measurement that means something to them at the output of their DAC, that is fine.  But staring at a few spikes on a jitter plot is not going to tell you if the music is going to sound more real or not.  So sad to see such a subset of the audiophile populous is still stuck in the rut of not using there own, evolution-tuned test gear affixed to their heads.  They are not hard to use and the process can be quite pleasant. 

 

 

[Superdad]

2 hours ago, plissken said:

 

If Alex doesn't trust his ears (he backed out of it like a scalded pig) why should I? And yes Alex is asking people to trust his ears before he or someone else says "I'm not asking you to trust my ears, I'm asking you to trust yours". If you weren't asking people to trust your ears you wouldn't be developing this product for sale. 

 

Wow that's some seriously sadistic torturing of logic there @plissken.  It is also riddled with falsehoods.  Arguing with you and the rest is pointless, so I won't bother to poke at your points.  (In the same way that arguing facts with someone of the opposite political perspective is mostly futile and exasperating.)

 

The one thing I would like to know is why UpTone Audio (and by extension me and John personally) are such an attractive target for "pseudo-objectivist" venom.  Is the marketplace not filled with audio companies offering rafts of afforable-to-pricey add-ons, cables, sources, DACs, etc. for which no measurements are offered and for which far more outrageous claims of SQ improvement are made? Where is your outrage over them?

I always avoid naming competitors, but in this context it is pretty obvious to bring up the more than half-dozen each related products by iFi Audio and SOtM. The former's web pages go over-the-top with marketing claims and graphics without offering any measurements, while the latter offers $700 clock boards for or in their USB and streamer devices.  Why aren't your collective heads exploding over those and the principals of those companies?

 

I have an idea as to why, and it has to do with the same business philosophy that has also made my firm successful and won us thousands of loyal and appreciative customers.  Openness, transparency, and honesty.  From top to bottom.  My background and John's background are both well known (and quite traceable in the industry, going back at least 15 years).  John is the rare engineer with both tremendous knowledge of analog and digital circuits (an EE with 33 years at LSI>Avago>Broadcom, designing the power networks at the heart of large custom chips) and the generosity and writing ability to share his knowledge with the audio community.

 

I don't pretend to be an engineer, and he does not pretend to have all the answers.  There are indeed mechanisms at play in digital audio and its interfaces which are both maddeningly convoluted (how does an upstream data clock phase-noise fingerprint survive and modulate the ground plane and circuits deep inside a DAC?) yet fairly easy to hear the impact of.

John is open with his theories about it, and honest about where he has yet to directly measure cause and effect.  The fact is, to actually probe and measure some of these effects requires expensive and specialized phase-noise measurment equipment we do not presently have (Symmetricon/Microsemi, $30K+). (John is designing, and after his move will start building, an advanced variation of the John Miles TimePod--the long ago affordable unit that Microsemi now sells at an outrageous price.)

He has plenty of other modern, heavyweight (literally) spectrum analyzers and scopes, but no, we don't have a $25K Audio Precision set up.  While an AP system would be handy for producing graphs to satisfy skeptics--and can certainly be useful in analog design--it quite frankly is not a terribly useful system for digital development work.  In medicine, the CT scan is not as useful to the researcher as the marketing microscope.  And like the CT scan, an AP analyzer will tell (those who know how to interprete it) some things, but it won't tell how the patient feels or what the music sounds like.

 

Anyway, back to how our very openness and no BS approach seems also to have made us an easy and attractive target for bullies.  I'm sure most of you have heard the old adage, "Familiarity breeds contempt."  Toss in a bit of envy regarding our success (yes, those units add up to $ and my 7-day workweek is paying off--mostly our college and medical bills), and guess bashing me and UpTone is simply too tempting.

 

Then again, all anybody need do to balance it out is to read a few of the hundreds of user raves about what our UltraCap LPS-1 and/or REGENs have done for their musical pleasure.  I know, our detractors think this is all some sort of Jedi mind trick causing mass delusion.  But I don't twist anybody's arm into buying/trying our products. Read our web site and you will see I had to force myself to come up with marketing fluff (I hate that s**t)--its mostly just dry facts about what we put into our designs and why we think it matters (and the web pages are heavily condensed).  And I offer a 30-day money-back guarantee (to whoever upthread who said they could not find that on out site, you need to adjust your reading glasses--it is in the second paragraph of the ISO REGEN page).

 

Anyway, maybe I am taking this whole thread a bit too personally.  The forums always seem to need a thread or two where the folks who don't trust their ears--or who have general frustrations with how hard it is to fathom that stuff we can't see, in digital transmission which is supposed to be perfect--can find an outlet to vent.  

So flame on!  

 

 

 

 

 

[Superdad]

10 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

Alex, I consider myself an objectivist and I have no interest in your products BUT I have a ton of respect for the way you do business and your work ethic. Keep up the good work! 

 

Thanks very much @kumakuma.  That means a lot in the face of the barrage that my act of cancelling Amir's order (for personal reasons) has caused.  

 

Also appreciated are the viewpoints of engineers @PeterSt and @jabbr.  They know first hand that measuring all--or even much--of what we hear is not a trivial matter.  Even Atkinson, who has had thousands of pieces of equipment across his AP bench has never found even near-complete correlation between his graphs and the music.  It is easier for some types of gear (speakers, amps), but with a lot of digital its like looking for cells in an x-ray.

 

I have to spend the weekend running 100+ ISO REGENs through screening on a protocol analyzer and testing/sorting firmware flash levels on another 80 UltraCap LPS-1 boards.  And I'll be doing that while sending out 150+ $50 rebates (to ISO REGEN buyers who previously purchased both the LPS-1 and the original USB REGEN).

While you called it "work ethic," I'll call this lost weekend something else...

 

Cheers,

--Alex C.

 

 

[Superdad]

19 minutes ago, mansr said:

You know, you could have spared yourself all that grief by simply selling Amir the damn thing.

 

When I was in grade school I knew I would get teased and beat up later on--but I still did not give the bully my lunch money.

 

(Besides, this thread seems to be great for sales! )

[Superdad]

22 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

As one person noted, there is nothing on the web site stating a return is allowed.

 

I am starting to think that the measurements this crowd needs is of their eyesight!  From the very first day the ISO REGEN product page went up, my 30-day, money-back-satisfaction guarantee has been right there in bold type in at the top of the page.  

We don't even charge any restock fee as others do, and mostly I look the other way when someone forgets to include all the items or scratches the case of the device.  (We hardly ever get returns so its not a big deal.)

 

22 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 That suggests a lack of confidence in the product.

 

Good grief.

 

[Superdad]

20 minutes ago, mansr said:

Alex made it personal. He can fix that by selling a device to Amir.

 

[Superdad]

30 minutes ago, skatbelt said:

@Superdad / Alex please opt out of this thread. A lot of people are making a fool out of themselves and if you keep reacting you will only add fuel to the fire. Save your energy for all the good stuff you and John have been doing. I am sure that 99% of this community is in your camp anyway!

 

Thank you.  You are quite right.  I already said my peace this morning and yesterday here.  So this thread can carry on in whatever direction it pleases.  

Good day everyone...