EtherREGEN: The long development thread. [Some Gen2 dev. pics and update starting on page 92.]

[Confused]

7 hours ago, JohnSwenson said:

All oscillators have their own phase noise. The issue here is that the phase noise of the clocks that generate a data stream can wind up increasing the phase noise of a local clock, this is true for all digital devices. Each pass through a device attenuates this influence, so say you have a router, then two switches before the audio system, the phase noise from the clock in the router will significantly less affect on the DAC clock than the clock in the last switch.

 

This happens all the time, even in normal LAN gear, the noise from the upstream device gets attenuated by say an order of magnitude (exactly how much this is I have to determine), then overlayed on the noise from the next device, but since they are all pretty much the same level, you'll never see the very small increase. But in a DAC the clock has so much less noise than what is in common LAN gear this overlaying becomes significant.

 

As an example using completely arbitrary numbers, lets say you have a switch with a clock of 1000units, and a DAC with a clock of 10 units. If you put one of the switches after the other, the phase noise of the second switch will be 1000+(1000/10) = 1100, you'll never notice the difference. But if you feed the data from the switch into the DAC you get the 10+(1000/10) = 100, the local clock has become MUCH worse because of the contamination from the clock in the switch. Even if the attenuation is 1/100 the the local clock noise still doubles.

 

John S.

This almost makes sense to me.  The key point that I do not understand is that the device after the switch will most likely be buffering whatever is fed to it.  How can phase noise in a switch survive buffering in a network end point, for example?  With my own system I can remove the Ethernet feed to the switch, and music plays for one or two seconds, so there is clearly lots of buffering after the switch.

[Confused]

Are you going to have the 50 ohm versus 75 ohm poll?  I note that you have mentioned that 50 ohm is likely to be favoured, but I actually suspect that 75 ohm would come out on top.  As I run a REF10, I could live with either, but I think it would be interesting to see if there is a consensus.

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I see Hans Beekhuyzen has suffered a similar problem in his recent jitter video.....

 

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For those of us in the UK, and maybe Europe, are there any plans in place for some of the early(ish) batches to find their way to Audiostore Vortexbox? 

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5 minutes ago, Superdad said:

 

Absolutely!  Martin at Audiostore/Vortexbox (our main dealer for Europe) already has a reservation for a nice number of EtherREGENs.

He will receive them via FedEx the same week we begin shipping to all direct orders. https://www.vortexbox.co.uk

 

And in Hong Kong, AfterDark. will be receiving a large number of units (he has been taking reservations for a while--but a month ago I invited that he stop taking deposits since that is not how UpTone rolls):

https://www.adark.co/collections/uptone-audio

 

Good news!  I have had a few dealings in the past with Martin, always top class service.

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12 hours ago, Pinkfaunrookie said:

Mmmm so no mainland european dealer? Germany? The netherlands?  I ask this as UK will be doing their brexit and then i expect hell brakes loose concerning extra taxes etc for ordering stuff in UK from mainland Europe

If a "no deal" Brexit does occur and the UK moves to WTO rules, then the UK government is currently planning to reduce tariffs to zero for the vast majority of goods, including electronics.  The exceptions are agricultural and "finished" automobiles.  (rather than parts)  Also, despite all the scaremongering in the press at the moment, a "no deal" Brexit in the very short term remains relatively unlikely.  So don't panic!

 

As things stand, the EU ramping up tariffs on US imports is far more likely as US / EU negotiations are currently a little strained.

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1 hour ago, Superdad said:

 

That's good, but I am not convinced of the accuracy of that counter.  I recall Martin telling me he already had about 10 reservations--and that was weeks ago.  He is on vacation--traveling here in the USA--until mid-October, so no chance of answers until his return.

Unfortunately, the dealer allotments from the first production run are fixed at the numbers I gave: 20 for AudioStore/Vortebox UK, 60 for AfterDark. in Hong Kong.

They can both take reservations beyond those, but delivery would be from the second run--which we are going to work hard towards being shippable by early-December. (There is quite a lot of work and coordination that must occur to pull this all off, but I am very optimistic.) 

I checked on Saturday morning and the AudioStore counter was at zero, I checked again, it was at 25.  So it looks like it runs to zero then recounts from 25.  This begs a question, how many units will be in the second batch sent to AudioStore?  They might have more preorders than you think!

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1 minute ago, Superdad said:

Yikes!  That’s sort of funny and a bit funky. But as indicated, we will crank into the second run as quickly as possible.  You have all waited this long, a few extra weeks should not be a big deal.  

 

We promise it will be worth it!

If it’s under my Christmas tree this year I’ll be more than happy! 😊 

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Just checking in, have I missed anything today?

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30 minutes ago, Cable Monkey said:

It seems to me that crowd are in some of your heads. More so than they are in Alex and John's heads. Relax, this has been properly conceived and will be of benefit in many people's homes.

I tend to agree with this.  To put it another way, I can think of no audio device, or set-up technique, no matter how well regarded or generally accepted, that does not somewhere have it's detractors claiming it is too expensive, foo, does not work, sounds terrible, or whatever.  It is true of the big brand kit, niche products, every kind of accessory, you name it.  So chill out, enjoy, and if you happen to stumble across someone who disagrees with your view, worry not, it's inevitable.

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1 hour ago, Superdad said:

 

We ship in bulk to our dealers—who in turn ship to their customers (mostly in their local regions). If we drop-shipped, then what would be the point of having dealers? 

AfterDark in Hong Kong will be receiving 90 EhterREGENs from the December batch. But due to tight production timeline (less than half of our 250 circuit boards arrived just yesterday, with the rest not arriving until next week ), we told AfterDark we would ship 45 units on about the 10th, and the other 45 by the 19th. We ship via fast FedEx—arrival to them takes 4 days at most. So getting your order from Hong Kong by the 22nd really depends upon where you are in that dealers queue. (And I do not know if they have fully pre-sold their 90 December unit’s.)

 

Just to be clear for others: If you have a direct order with us for a December-batch EtherREGEN, it will ship on time by December 12th, exactly as promised.  And those of you who are overseas and chose the $34 FedEx Express option (same price as slower Priority Mail Intl.), we use the faster FedEx Priority (not Economy) service which, to most of Europe and Asia is just 2-4 days.

 

Interesting.  Can you advise if there will be a similar split for the UK AudioStore / VortexBox "Batch 2" supply?

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On 8/25/2020 at 10:40 PM, soares said:

This is the Sonore ‘end point’ isn’t it? If yes it’s already available.

And you’re right the upgrade to 1G is also a strong possibility as Alex ( if I am not wrong)  confirmed that the chips are already available. Looking forward to the end of the year. 🙂

No, the current Sonore range is ethernet to USB.  They do also offer a USB to S/PDIF converter, but that is another box with USB still in the chain.

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15 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

You’re wrong. Please look at sonore website. And their tread here. And we shouldn’t discuss Sonore products here. Especially rebranded ones. (Meaning not John Swenson design). 

I stand corrected and vow never to use the S word in an UpTone area again.

 

I have to admit that the thing I cannot mention was completely off my radar, so thanks for the pointer.  Although, it’s not quite what I had in mind in my slightly erroneous post.....

 

My apologies for the distraction.