Objective proof the UpTone Regen ISO can improve a DAC's output(*)

[Digital Assassin]

22 minutes ago, Sal1950 said:

Even among Amir's detractors, you don't think anybody believes the plainly invented vomit you puke up, do you?

Another one of your rants that prove you have even less education than common sense.

Yet another lame adventure DA

 

I will be posting Microsoft's internal emails, and ask him directly if his business failed. The record will speak for itself...drone.

[pkane2001]

11 minutes ago, Superdad said:

 

Remnd me again what measuments you wanted us to publish?

 

And please tell me why Amir's "discovery" of leakage currents from the $10 optional SMPS we offer is supposed to be some big revelation, resulting in condemnation of a product whose function is galvanic isolation and USB signal regeneration?  

Lots of audio products come with an SMPS--including DACs and other USB devices (see the iFi iPower that comes with many of their products and which produces quite similar leakage--we have measured it and others)--and the users have a choice to use something else.

 

This thread has become weirisom and at this point I'd rather not toss fuel on the fire by citing the obviously biased phrases and judgements that Amir lead with in his "expose" at ASR.

 

 

 

I wanted to see FFT measurements at the output of the DAC. As a prospective customer, it is important for me to know that SMPS that is sold with ISOR potentially introduces AC noise into the output of my DAC. Had Amir not published his measurements, I would've purchased a product that, instead of cleaning up the signal at the output, possibly introduced unwanted AC distortions.

 

 

[Digital Assassin]

1 hour ago, Siltech817 said:

 

Well maybe the takeaway (for me) is that Microsoft is not typically associated with great prowess in designing audio products, does anyone actually use WMP?

For that matter, the Microsoft track record in general is littered with various product failures including Vista, Windows 8, Zune player, and the original XBOX overheating issue which resulted in a $ 1 billion + write off. So not too impressive if Amir was a top exec during that time period?  I'll read his testing articles but take with a grain of salt if there is apparently an axe to grind with UpTone. 

Amir the Great of Mount Microsoft viciously, and purposely tried to drive UpTone out of business. Period.

[Siltech817]

23 minutes ago, Sal1950 said:

Even among Amir's detractors, you don't think anybody believes the plainly invented vomit you puke up, do you?

Another one of your rants that prove you have even less education than common sense.

 

So very classy and respectful of another forum member, now I know I've stumbled into the wrong thread.

[Digital Assassin]

58 minutes ago, tmtomh said:

 

I remain quite struck by folks' insistence on this kind of irrelevant deflection. His business history at Microsoft is irrelevant, and this notion that he has an axe to grind with UpTone seems like a self-perpetuating rumor. If there's any evidence Amir is developing a competing product to the ISO Regen, or that he has an economic interest in the Regen's failure, or that he has some kind of personal or professional issue with UpTone other than the measurements he's published, please someone show us that evidence. I'd be all ears, seriously. But this ad hominem BS is just ridiculous. (And for the record, any ad hominem accusations about Alex at UpTone are similarly pointless.)

Amir has massive personality disorders. He also has a unmanageable burning jealousy and vindictiveness against successful, smart entrepreneurs, who bring excellent products to market at very fair prices. Because as an "engineer" he has never been able to ever produce a commercially viable audio product.

 

No wonder, he knows nothing about audio. He did not even have a music collection until 2 years ago, if that.

[plissken]

7 hours ago, Albrecht said:

No,

Amir is accused of pseudo science & bad science by only conducting tests that will achieve the desired conclusion.

 

Then your option is to take someone that is wrong and prove them wrong. 

 

Jeez how can't people not get this simple concept?

[Siltech817]

5 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

As a prospective customer, it is important for me to know that SMPS that is sold with ISOR potentially introduces AC noise into the output of my DAC.

 

Fair enough, not a consideration for me as I avoid using cheap SMPS in my HiFi room like the plague. I would use the IsoREGEN with a proper LPS, a battery, or maybe the UpTone UltraCap LPS-1 which looks quite interesting.

[rickca]

Lots of rather expensive equipment comes with a very ordinary power cord.  Why is the Mean Well SMPS headline news?  This reminds me of a news site I was just reading this weekend that lead with Taylor Swift's ass grabbing lawsuit.  North Korea came second.

[Digital Assassin]

Just now, rickca said:

Lots of rather expensive equipment comes with a very ordinary power cord.  Why is the Mean Well SMPS headline news?  This reminds me of a news site I was just reading this weekend that lead with Taylor Swift's ass grabbing lawsuit.  North Korea came second.

Yes. Audio Research and numerous and numerous other very high brands shipped gear with $5 power cords. End of story.

[plissken]

4 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

What great things? 

WASAPI (bringing MS's audio stack to standards) forcing audio standards on vendors that wanted to sport the MS certification logo. Too bad he couldn't get UAC 2.0 pushed through.  He's a degreed EE and has written UNIX college texts. 

 

I think his specialties are in high performance audio codecs. 

 

 

 

 

[Digital Assassin]

6 minutes ago, plissken said:

WASAPI (bringing MS's audio stack to standards) forcing audio standards on vendors that wanted to sport the MS certification logo. Too bad he couldn't get UAC 2.0 pushed through.  He's a degreed EE and has written UNIX college texts. 

 

I think his specialties are in high performance audio codecs. 

 

 

 

 

LOL!! Thanks for the laugh!!!! High performance audio codes! What a hoot!!!

[plissken]

3 hours ago, Digital Assassin said:

Who did great things? Certainly not Amir. He was among the most miserable, failed executives ever work in any corporation. All you have to do is read the internal emails that are part of the public record in the DOJ Anti Trust Case against Microsoft.

 

He was an utter failure. Could not build a competing store to iTunes. Could not design a competing device to the iPod. And the list goes on. Probably the only thing he was successful at was walking away with a big pay package funded by shareholders.

 

Several failed vanity business after that. And utterly devoid of any knowledge about audio. Probably owns 50 albums.

 

Quite a lot of great things, yep.

 

MS's real problems were always with Ballmer and his 'not invented here' mentality. I'm surprised at some of the things Amir was able to accomplish. 

 

No one back then was able to run against Apple. MS's phone business is a failure and Amir hasn't been there for quite awhile. So still his fault? 

 

MS isn't a 'media' company. I think the X-Box is really their only commercially successful consumer electronics product. MS put in over a billion before they had a semi successful Surface line up and they are exiting even that market I think. But look at the roots they've gotten back to and they've done really well: Azure and Office 365 for starters. 

[plissken]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

@Superdad said: "The majority of the people in this thread deny that USB cables, computer source variation, or USB signal integrity and clocking can make an audible difference"

 

however, those same people will rail against MQA leaky filters, even though they may not be audible. They haven't bothered to listen for audibility. It's only used when it supports their point of view. 

 

Remember I'm perfectly willing to show up at a venue of Alex's choosing with two Emotiva DC-1's, using stereo mix to drive both a ISOR setup and straight USB cable setup. There's even a guy on the Emotiva forums that indicates the DC-1 falls short in it's USB implementation. 

 

For that matter if Alex will ship you an ISOR I'll come out to you. 

[plissken]

29 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Too bad not everyone else did. If you don't follow all the comments on several pages, you don't get all the info. 

I've followed all the comments Chris. What info would I be missing?

 

I still haven't seen, in this particular instance, anything he's done that anyone can tear down. Alex actually agreed and posited a $40 medical grade SMPS with 1/10th the leakage. 

[Superdad]

13 minutes ago, Digital Assassin said:

Did you get your knee-pads autographed?

 

Is that you Dave A? Or John K?

 

I'm not Amir's friend, but really, could you please tone it down a bit?

 

Our counrty (and the world) is divided enough--thanks in part to a president who won't even condemn racism.  Let's not turn CA into an ugly battleground.

 

The reputation John and I have built with UpTone can easily survive its small number of vocal detractors.  But no need to throw chum in the water to attract the sharks...

 

Thanks,

--Alex C.

 

 

[plissken]

5 minutes ago, Superdad said:

 

The reputation John and I have built with UpTone can easily survive its small number of vocal detractors.  But no need to throw chum in the water to attract the sharks...

 

Thanks,

--Alex C.

 

 

 

I want to know if it could survive a published, bias controlled listening session with you and two identical competent DAC's that don't show any measured improvement with the ISOR but relying on all he unmeasurable stuff? 

[Digital Assassin]

56 minutes ago, Superdad said:

 

Is that you Dave A? Or John K?

 

I'm not Amir's friend, but really, could you please tone it down a bit?

 

Our counrty (and the world) is divided enough--thanks in part to a president who won't even condemn racism.  Let's not turn CA into an ugly battleground.

 

The reputation John and I have built with UpTone can easily survive its small number of vocal detractors.  But no need to throw chum in the water to attract the sharks...

 

Thanks,

--Alex C.

 

 

With all respect good sir...I am here to destroy any, and all False Gods.

 

 

 

 

[Thomas savage]

Well this is hilarious  

 

i think one of amirs greatest accomplishments has been rewiring his camper van but looking at some of the pictures recently that seems to of gone wrong

 

the data speaks for itself for those who can understand it, objective measurements have no agenda or personality bias.. that's why they are useful, because they as best as possible remove the human condition from the equation. 

 

A quick point on the fuss about the SMPS, it was only a fuss because the measured issue raised was continually denied by Alex and some others and proved the base of a great deal of scorn and ridicule aimed at amirs competence to measure these devices. 

 

Amir was right, his measurements were valid but he made no huge song and dance about this vindication. No big victory lap or ridicule aimed at his detractors.  That alone should inform one or two of you people. 

 

Cheers  

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 hours ago, plissken said:

I've followed all the comments Chris. What info would I be missing?

 

I still haven't seen, in this particular instance, anything he's done that anyone can tear down. Alex actually agreed and posited a $40 medical grade SMPS with 1/10th the leakage. 

I should have been clearer. You certainly didn't miss anything, but everyone who doesn't keep up on all the comments misses quite a few corrections or info that makes the title/headline incorrect. 

[Dicky]

5 hours ago, Superdad said:

Our counrty (and the world) is divided enough--thanks in part to a president who won't even condemn racism.

Congrats... you just lost a sale. 

[Thomas savage]

1 hour ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I should have been clearer. You certainly didn't miss anything, but everyone who doesn't keep up on all the comments misses quite a few corrections or info that makes the title/headline incorrect. 

That's actually the point Chris, to show the workings and be open to challenge. It would be easy and tbh in amirs intrest to of deleted a bit of the microrendu thread and reposted without the errors ( there was no such errors in the latest ISO regen thread) but that would of not been transparent. ( though I'm not sure these corrections rendered the thread title obsolete) .

 

You can argue he shots himself in the foot but by doing so showed he is genuinely open and transparent. ( I'd suggest that shows integrity not any kind of false as you seen to allude to).

 

the threads are a process , that process of review is designed to show errors and reinforce the objective of accurate results. Going back and rewitting history is not part of the process though it may provide some advantage as you suggest plus tbh make amir himself look better.  

 

Hes not intrested in that, he's just interested in the data being reviewed, more importantly being seen to be reviewed. 

 

But yes, the result of that is you have to follow the threads. Being wrong is not a crime nor is it something that should hurt ones ego or a basis for deception. Personally I don't see what's wrong with that. 

 

There were mistakes made on the microrendu thread, but they have not been repeated on the ISO regen thread.  In fact the further investigation carried out in the ISO regen thread serves to validate the microrendu threads conclusions on those psu issues. 

 

Its all open, transparent and there to be seen for all. For better or for worse that's the process we believe to be right. The peer review process. 

 

It might however be wise, given a amount of time to open a new thread that reflects the findings of the review process. A kind of ' what be learnt ' or ' conclusion' thread that clearly supersedes the original review process.  

That does however happen organically in the review threads themselves so I'm not sure just how useful or practical that would be tbh. 

[pkane2001]

3 hours ago, Thomas savage said:

That's actually the point Chris, to show the workings and be open to challenge. It would be easy and tbh in amirs intrest to of deleted a bit of the microrendu thread and reposted without the errors ( there was no such errors in the latest ISO regen thread) but that would of not been transparent. ( though I'm not sure these corrections rendered the thread title obsolete) .

 

You can argue he shots himself in the foot but by doing so showed he is genuinely open and transparent. ( I'd suggest that shows integrity not any kind of false as you seen to allude to).

 

the threads are a process , that process of review is designed to show errors and reinforce the objective of accurate results. Going back and rewitting history is not part of the process though it may provide some advantage as you suggest plus tbh make amir himself look better.  

 

Hes not intrested in that, he's just interested in the data being reviewed, more importantly being seen to be reviewed. 

 

But yes, the result of that is you have to follow the threads. Being wrong is not a crime nor is it something that should hurt ones ego or a basis for deception. Personally I don't see what's wrong with that. 

 

There were mistakes made on the microrendu thread, but they have not been repeated on the ISO regen thread.  In fact the further investigation carried out in the ISO regen thread serves to validate the microrendu threads conclusions on those psu issues. 

 

Its all open, transparent and there to be seen for all. For better or for worse that's the process we believe to be right. The peer review process. 

 

It might however be wise, given a amount of time to open a new thread that reflects the findings of the review process. A kind of ' what be learnt ' or ' conclusion' thread that clearly supersedes the original review process.  

That does however happen organically in the review threads themselves so I'm not sure just how useful or practical that would be tbh. 

 

The measurement process is designed to allow for errors, error detection, and error correction. That's why it's a better process than, for example, sighted listening or blind faith. Neither one of these allow for error detection or correction by others. Nobody can prove or even question that you hear a 'veil lifted' or 'sound stage increased' if you find this in an uncontrolled test. In the absence of error detection and correction, errors, biases, placebos, and agendas are rampant. 

 

While measurements can be proven right or wrong by others, uncontrolled tests are simply reports of someone else's (often biased) opinions. As such, these cannot be proven right or wrong, as opinions vary. That's why it's almost a necessity to question someone's personal agenda, accomplishments, or personality traits when discussing subjective tests -- there's nothing else to debate or to question. But these discussions are irrelevant to published measurements. Published measurements are subject to peer review, validation, or repudiation without the need to get personal. Biased opinions or not, measurements stand on their own.

 

That's why it's laughable when the subjectivist crowd tries to accuse Amir of bias. Not that he's not biased -- everyone is. It's just that this is irrelevant to the measurements he published and to the review process that ensued.

[esldude]

10 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

Dennis (esldude) has not, but hundreds of others have.  You might find more useful information in the thread where people actually listen to the product--with many different computers, streamers, and DACs--and report their findings in great detail.

 

 

Also, our products are sold with a 30-day, money-back satisfaction guarantee (no restocking fee, just the modest cost of the original postage to get it to you).

 

The majority of the people in this thread deny that USB cables, computer source variation, or USB signal integrity and clocking can make any audible difference.  They are very much in the minority.

 

It is true that most attempts to see variations in the analog output of a DAC--that correlate to what large groups of people hear--have not yielded much.  In face there are $79 DACs that, with present measurements, perform on the bench identically to $10,000 DACs.

But in the listening room they sure don't sound the same...

 

 

 

Have you listened to the $79 DAC?

[Thomas savage]

3 minutes ago, pkane2001 said:

 

The measurement process is designed to allow for errors, error detection, and error correction. That's why it's a better process than, for example, sighted listening or blind faith. Neither one of these allow for error detection or correction by others. Nobody can prove or even question that you hear a 'veil lifted' or 'sound stage increased' if you find this in an uncontrolled test. In the absence of error detection and a method for error correction, errors, biases, placebos, and agendas are rampant. 

 

While measurements can be proven right or wrong by others, uncontrolled tests are simply reports of someone else's (often biased) opinions. As such, these cannot be proven right or wrong by others, as opinions vary. That's why it's almost a necessity to question someone's personal agenda, accomplishments, or personality traits when discussing subjective tests -- there's nothing else to debate or to question. But these discussions are irrelevant to published measurements. Published measurements are subject to peer review, validation, or repudiation without the need to get personal. Biased opinions or not, measurements stand on their own.

 

That's why it's laughable when the subjectivist crowd tries to accuse Amir of bias. Not that he's not biased -- everyone is. It's just that this is irrelevant to the measurements he published and to the review process that ensued.

Entirely agree. You did a better job articulating that than me , thanks  

 

 

 

 

[esldude]

11 hours ago, Siltech817 said:

 

Yes my Marantz disc player sounds better, and so do various different DACs when connected via Toslink to an Apple Airport Express, as opposed to the same dac connected to the Macbook via USB.

Now of course the Marantz disc player comparison is only marginally valid, in that it has a different power supply, DAC, and analog output stage than a USB DAC connected to the Macbook. Unfortunately the disc player does not have digital inputs. Still, it sounds better, as do several different outboard DACs running Toslink to the AEx, however that is limited to 16/48 by the Apple firmware so not a solution for the long haul, I've already kept it too long.

I find the Macbook's USB connection to be lacking in soundstage size and focus especially, but also not as transparent or revealing, it sounds veiled.

Maybe the IsoREGEN, or W4S Recovery will boost the quality of the Macbook's USB connection allowing the DAC to perform better.

Have you tried the IsoREGEN with a Macbook and found no improvement?

 

 

I have not.  I have measured several DACs from USB and other inputs.  There doesn't appear to be degradation from the USB inputs.  You do sometimes see disc players with more jitter though I doubt it by itself is at an audible level.  I have listened to several DACs being fed from a Macbook or a Mac Mini.  They sounded quite good. 

 

So what is the DAC which sounds poor with the Macbook USB?