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

[Summit]

3 hours ago, JohnSwenson said:

The power supply for the EtherREGEN goes into the A side, there is an isolating DC/DC converter between the A side and the B side. This converter has extremely small capacitance across the moat. There are a bunch of 3045 and 3042 regulators that take isolated output from the isolating converter and drive all the circuitry on the B side. You have a VERY high degree of isolation between the A side and B side for both data and power.

 

So you have an audio PS system and a non-audio PS system. If you power the EtherREGEN from the audio PS side and use RJ45 connection  to the A side, B side to DAC, you MIGHT get some leakage current through an electrical A side connection and the power supply on the audio PS side. IF the A side is connected with optical, that cannot happen.

 

IF the EtherREGEN is powered from the non-audio PS any leakage coming in through the PS or A side input will be blocked from the getting to the B side RJ45.

 

So it seems to me powering the EtherREGEN from the non-audio PS side is the safest no matter how you hook up the A side. There is no path for any leakage in the non-audio PS domain to get into the audio PS domain. With EtherREGEN power from the audio PS domain there is a small possibility of getting leakage from the non-audio PS domain, through an A side RJ45 through the EtherREGEN power supply and into the audio PS domain. If the A side connection is optical that cannot happen either.

 

I hope that makes sense.

 

John S.

 

 

 

It depends on many things there its best to place a device, I believe. To get as little leakage as possible is of course great, but other things is of importance to. The switch itself will operate better if it is feed clean power with no DC offset. A switch with all its circuits and clocks will benefit from clean power just like a renderer and a server. Placing a device there the mains power is cleanest (on a dedicated power line and behind an isolation transformer or a power conditioner) could trump the advantages you have described in many urban homes with a lot of EMI/RFI on the mains power.   

 

IMO, best is to try and hear which position sounds best with your gear and external conditions.  

[Summit]

10 hours ago, JohnSwenson said:

The "two switch" approach espoused by other companies exists because they do not have leakage and clock isolation technology in the EtherREGEN. There is NO NEED for the double switch approach with the EtherREGEN.

 

John S.

 

You got me curious. What clock isolation technology have you implemented in the EtherREGEN that the other audiophile switches don’t have?

[Summit]

On 7/30/2019 at 8:12 AM, Superdad said:

 I’m in bed with a couple of cracked ribs—from a stupid biking accident on Sunday—very painful, so I’ll be brief:

We’ve been talking about the key differentiating and unique features of our EtherREGEN since the beginning. Here is post that covers a good deal of them—and in relation to competing products as well.

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/38968-etherregen-we-are-getting-much-closer/?do=findComment&comment=965263

The key point in answer to your question is that no other Ethernet switches have ANY clock isolation. 

We format the data so that it can go back and forth over a “moat” via a high-speed, low-jitter, differential isolator—followed by fantastically low-jitter flip-flops on both sides.

 

Now the Ethernet chips (and the flip-flops) on both sides of the moat need clocks—which have to be synchronous—so we dedicate a second of the same advanced active isolator chip to pass the clocks into the two domains. 

 

Of course for the above data and clock isolation to be in effect, all the power planes must be galvanically isolated into two domains as well. And they are.  

 

Study the photo of the board that we posted and you will see all of the above.  This dual, isolated domain data/power/clocking topology is completely unique to the EtherREGEN. And we believe it will result in the elimination of the effects of upstream jitter/phase-noise (which may be heard not because of jitter in the data—Ethernet does not mind that—but because of the effect on power planes; John is testing this and his hypothesis is deeper than what I am saying here).

 

That’s all I can type on my phone for now. Time to change the ice pack on my rib cage. 

 

Sorry to hear about the accident, @Superdad.

 

I am, like many others here, looking forward to the EtherREGEN and believe that it can be a hit. Am no expert on switches and may be wrong, but from my understanding Up Tone Audio have some nice new ground breaking isolations solutions related to letting the signal go back and forth over a moat. To say that no other Ethernet switches have ANY clock isolation is probably not correct though. SOtM use a low phase noise oscillation circuit and have isolated differential clock signal distribution along with LAN filtering, LAN isolation and LAN insulation. I believe SOtM besides the GI from LAN rely more on passive filtering and insulation than you do. Maybe active is better, I don’t know.   

 

I sincerely hope you feel better soon and I am eagerly looking forward to get my hands on an EtherREGEN.

[Summit]

Maybe a bit OT, but somehow still relevant IMO if the ability of using a device is asked for.  

 

What SQ can be gained in reality by playing those extremely big files (and on ram) compared to more normal sized hi-res? The extra storage, transference, re-clocking, buffering, conversion, more clocking, more transfer and calculation of merely more zeros. This extra transfer, clocking and processing of zeros takes place multiple times in a digital streaming audio chain before the final Digital -> Analogue conversion.

 

The amount of small details that can be recorded and proceeded in a recording studio or live concert is reached and exceeded with 96 KHz 24 bit recordings. Left is the digital filtering that can be done in higher frequency if we make the files bigger by adding more zeros. If filtering in higher MHz would be better will say.