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

[LowMidHigh]

On 11/13/2018 at 4:26 AM, Superdad said:

 

I have to admit that in the last couple of weeks we seem to be seeing more requests for 75 ohm than 50 ohm, so 75 might turn out to be the default.  We really don't care either way--other than we would like to please as many as possible of the minority of people who will actually utilize the 10MHz reference clock input.  

So yes, we might take a poll as we get closer to releasing the board order into production.  But let's no relight the discussion of the choice here just yet.  I'd sooner create a separate thread that is a poll that people click on.  We'll get a much more accurate sense of it that way.

Count me down on 75. My RE10 will do either, but I prefer all my cables @ 75.

 

Good luck with bringing it home.  I'm on hold

 

[LowMidHigh]

8 minutes ago, HumanMedia said:

Excited for this product. I know quite a few people are using various software upstream to upsample audio to highest data rate that their DACs can handle, for example DSD512 and even 32bit 768khz PCM. And this is sent over the network to the player/renderer and DAC.

 

i know the raw data for doing this is quite large, like up to 60GB for an album.

 

So the question is, will a 10/100 Mbps switch easily handle streaming of substantially upsampled data? Thoretically probably Ok, but are there practical limits to steady streaming of this sort of data?

 

I believe the upsampling process is further downstream, so no bearing on the switch. Wiling to learn of an opposing scenario. 

 

[LowMidHigh]

10 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

The audio timing is stored in the PCM data and the DAC unpacks that and applies it there. Before that point there is zero audio clocking data.

 

I can transfer an entire 70 minutes of 16/44.1 audio in 6 seconds over GBe.

 

With JRiver you can transfer the entire album over the wire, unplug the ethernet cable, and listen to the entire thing.

 

I proved to someone that the Ethernet cable can't make a difference when we spun up Tidal, started the playback of an 11 minute song and they couldn't tell me when the cable was pulled out (I did that 30 seconds in). The entire song played back for 10:30 without a cable plugged in and they didn't know and couldn't tell.

 

If jitter is a variance in timing then unplugging the cable is the worst sort of jitter.

If I understand your argument correctly, re-clockering the signal before the DAC is useless. 

 

We'll, a cascade of 2 MC3+USB + REF10 did wonders for my system. And I'm not tinfoil-head. No audiophile cables in my system or questionable modes. If it's not in my face, off the door it goes. 

[LowMidHigh]

21 minutes ago, Ultrarunner said:

I really wish Chris would permanently ban him and several others who won’t trust their ears (or can’t hear), and make it their mission to mock audiophiles. I don’t post much, and avoid a number of threads because of these people. I’m sure there are plenty of others who would participate more without them. 

I don't care for the man, he conducts himself poorly. Still, we should always remember: "First they came for the communists...Then came for me." 

[LowMidHigh]

What will be the input voltage? 

 

Sorry the search on my phone is failing me... 

[LowMidHigh]

11 minutes ago, Ultrarunner said:

It’s not overkill from my point of view. Currently I use one of my JS-2’s to power my Roku Ultra and Cisco switch (to be replaced by the etherRegen). I have an aversion to SMPSs that exceeds that of John or Alex. 

Alex is adament the switch would reap no benefit from a power supply upgrade. 

[LowMidHigh]

30 minutes ago, jos said:

Any news?

Yes, the news is that many people ask if there's any news. 

[LowMidHigh]

56 minutes ago, Superdad said:

 

Everything is proceeding well, though a little behind schedule.  A semi-final round of test boards were just ordered, and last week we took a more serious look at the bill of materials and exact parts availability for production.  Will release more details when ready.  I'll say one thing though:

EtherREGEN is chock full of a lot of expensive parts! Without counting the case, the stock SMPS it will ship with, or the cost of the blank PCB or PCB assembly/soldering, I can see that our cost for the main chips, clocks, 15(!) LT3042/45 voltage regulators, jacks, etc. is already up over $200.  

Adding in those other elements will likely bring our cost to around $275, plus royalty for John and then our standard, very modest times 2 business model to arrive at direct sale price--I think we can set folks expectations that this is going to be a $600 switch.  Of course it is one with tech not available in ANY other Ethernet switch--and it is likely to outperform a certain 3x the price competitor. 

 

Earlier this week we went though a mental exercise of considering putting the EtherREGEN in a larger and fancier case--with all the jacks at the back.  (As opposed to the current plan of it going in the same case series/size as the UltraCap LPS-1.2.) The obvious choice for me would be a half-height version of the beautiful JS-2 case which we source customized from Japan.  But aside from that case costing us over $100, it adds assembly labor (they come unassembled), a lot of storage space requirements, and a serious amount of packaging and shipping cost.  We ship the JS-2 in a floating double-box system that measures 14" x 14" x 9".  Even if I came up with a smaller box and foam set-up, we would not be able to ship worldwide for the low freight $ we do with the UltraCap.  

So unless the final board puts off such a ridiculous amount of heat requiring a big case--which we doubt--people are just going to have to accept that we crammed SOTA tech into a modest case which will have cables going in front and rear.  It will be a crazy-great switch, it just won't be eye-candy! 

 

By the way, late last year I negotiated some fantastic small package international rates with my FedEx rep.  So now we offer fast FedEx Express to anywhere in the world for the same $34 that it costs us to ship insured Priority Mail--for an UltraCap or ISO REGEN size package.

 

That's all for now.  By the way, another dozen JS-2s just shipped out to clients yesterday--a day ahead of schedule.  My assistant rocks, so I gave her the day off today. And won't she be surprised to come into work tomorrow and see that I had the plumber here all day finally--after 2 years of occupying the space--finishing the bathroom of the shop.  I won't get into the complexities of why it got delayed, but she is going to be delighted to no long have to come into the house for her nature breaks. Okay, so maybe that's not the "news" you were asking about. Still, perhaps better than the news of the world...  

 

 

The LPS-1.2 case has the advantage of being wall-mountable.

It'd take a few L-shapes hooks, but easy enough.

 

What's the topology of the front panel? Which ports have you designated to that area?

 

(Well done on the toilet! A major work condition improvement). 

 

 

 

[LowMidHigh]

2 minutes ago, Bones13 said:

I will be getting one of these, sticking with a plain one for now. I would prefer the bigger case. It would fit on the PSU that I will be getting to power the etherRegen, and Roku player.

 

Perhaps offer 2 versions? The small one, which would be cheaper, and the large one, which would cost more, but work better for some people.

 

Stacking up units ain't too good...Reconsider

[LowMidHigh]

1 hour ago, BlueDL said:

As the switch will be tucked away behind my hifi stack, I’ll take it as it comes, but I agree that all inputs/outputs on one face would be tidiest.

 

If they spit them between the faces it's because of lack of room or internal topology, not to piss us off.

 

They've got 6 x RJ45 ports (maybe the "special' one is spaced out a bit) + BNC for ref clock +  a hook for earthing + DC input. That's quite a bit. 

[LowMidHigh]

Guys, just drop it.

The rabbit hole is deep enough.

[LowMidHigh]

Let me bring the discussion down to my neanderthal level:

 

After I hook up my streamer to the coming switch, is there any benefit in hooking my NAS to it too?

Or should I keep the NAS far off, connected to the router?

 

Thanks!

 

 

[LowMidHigh]

On 1/21/2019 at 12:28 AM, Superdad said:

 

Hard to say.  In theory having your NAS, etc. plugged into your normal router/switch and running one cable to the EtherREGEN—and one cable out to your DAC-connected endpoint—should be enough to take care of everything (leakage, phase-noise, etc.).

 

Thus it is a currently unanswerable question as to if also plugging you NAS into EtherREGEN will be of further sonic benefit.  I certainly don’t think it can hurt.

 

We’ve been talking quite a bit about the two ultra-low-jitter isolated clock domains. But I also want to point out that a lot of care has gone into the selection of the main Ethernet switch chip and the magnetics of the 4-port jack module (it’s possibly the most expensive one made due to its number of transformer cores per jack).  The particular way the PHYs of this switch chip are designed to be connected ensure exceptional port-to-port leakage isolation (of those 4 ports to each other).

 

Allow me to attack it from a different angle. Will the new switch eliminate, or at the very least minimize, the difference between various NASes? 

 

People report on varying sound quality among NASes, I suppose the result of more or less electrical noise being carried downstream. If I understand correctly, the new switch will wipe away all that. 

 

Can you please opine? 

[LowMidHigh]

13 hours ago, Em2016 said:

 

Only replying to your text of the GigaFOIL here, but if you don't want to discuss this product, that's fine of course.

 

But it needs 5Vdc external power to work and uses optical isolation?

 

Isn't that 'active' isolation? Isolation of the data, not incoming power of course.

 

https://www.djmelectronics.com/gigafoilv4-inline-ethernet-filter.html

 

From their website:

"However, these types of filters often eliminate the high frequencies that make up the sharp edges of high-speed digital square wave signals, thereby degrading the integrity of the signal."

 

Don't you  just love the smell of BS in the morning?

 

 

[LowMidHigh]

Back to the LPS-1.2 and the new switch. Is this is the sort of cable to use in order to ground the switch? 

 

Simply connect between the switch and a grounded spot (e.g., bolt on a grounded outlet)? 

[LowMidHigh]

14 minutes ago, k-man said:

If your trade-in from ultrarendu to opticalrendu (plus any further purchases of systemOptique and/or Optical module)  exceeds $600, then the etherREGEN makes more sense.

 

A valid point.

But there's also an issue of timing. No one knows when the etherREGN will be available. 

[LowMidHigh]

1 hour ago, ronfint said:

 Sorry for re-introducing an old issue, but will there be an option for replacing the 75 ohm BNC with a 50 ohm BNC?

I believe Alex will solder a 50 ohm BNC upon request. But that might have changed since. 

[LowMidHigh]

12 hours ago, greenleo said:

I can find at least two products in the AS forum.  Definitely not from Uptone.  Will not name them here but the two products are pretty infamous, MPOV, and you can see people losing patience rightly, again MPOV.

 

Infamous? Are you sure?

Infamous = known for bad quality....Did you you mean 'renown' or or 'well-known'?

[LowMidHigh]

"the M12 SWITCH GOLD conveys the full density of sound and a subtle feeling of the air. Its high-frequency range is transparent, and the mid and bass areas are clear with high S/N." 

 

Makes perfect sense. You always want to convey the full density of sound. The thicker the snake oil, the more delicious. Now, that's infamous! 

[LowMidHigh]

@SuperDad:

 

Will unshielded CAT6 cables, going in and out, suffice, or shielded is preferable? 

 

 

[LowMidHigh]

6 hours ago, R1200CL said:

@LowMidHigh

You may want to differ between cables that is using metal plugs, and hence are able to add a connection between devices through the shield. As you probably know the BJ has a shielded cable with plastic plugs. 

 

And there are available cables with JSSG360 with metal plugs that doesn’t connect the shield to the plug as well. 

 

Expensive cables like the Vodka is another option, not following the standard, where the cable is shielded, but the shield is not connected to the plug. 

 

Thanks for expanding the discussion and lying down multiple options in a clear fashion. 

Still, in that light, the question is what does UpTone recommend for said future device?

[LowMidHigh]

6 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

Sorry, but until EtherREGEN is done and shipping, we will not have time to experiment with Ethernet cables. 

 

We expect that the only cable that will matter will be the one coming out of the 'B' side lone port and going into the DAC-connected renderer.  The whole point of the EtherREGEN's sophisticated isolated, dual-clock domain design is to make most upstream variables not matter.

 

All that said, in general we prefer that Ethernet cables not have their shields tied at both ends.  Even though all Ethernet ports have transformers (of varying levels--see my post elsewhere about those), I just don't see much good coming from connecting grounds between Ethernet devices via shield connections. 

 

Thanks for the clarification. Very helpful.

My setup will be unshielded CAT6:  Cheap and easy to cut to size.

[LowMidHigh]

7 hours ago, Superdad said:

Okay gang:

After many days and nights of John's painstaking--and mind-numbing--labor, along with a few last critical surprise part changes based on availability (for the better), the final layout and routing of EtherREGEN is done!!  And the pre-production boards are on order.

 

Below is the board (remember this is a 6-layer board so not everything is visible); The wide grey line that cuts across is the moat between the 'A' side and the isolated 'B' side.

365 parts total (though 300 of them are tiny, but specially chosen capacitors and resistors).  That's a lot of parts for a board that is just 100mm x 106mm.

 

Now we wait a few weeks for the boards to be produced--and hope that they work perfect or need only a few tweaks.  I am paying in advance for procurement of all the PCB parts for the first 250 unit run.  About $60K up front.  Color me excited and nervous...

 

This is no ordinary Ethernet switch!

 

 

Next up: A dear friend and industrial designer/architect is doing the CAD work for the milling and silkscreening of the casework.  We'll be collaborating to get all the openings and labels just right so that I can get the enclosures on order shortly.

 

We'll done to you both! I'm sure many here are biting at the chomp. 

 

Should you sell out the first batch, how long before you restock? 

[LowMidHigh]

48 minutes ago, Ricardo007 said:

Can the use of a high end gaming router like this one Netgear Nighthawk Pro Gaming XR700 contribute to a better SQ when used in connection with ether regen?

I see 2 features in particular:

- 10 Gigabit LAN SFP+ Port

- Seven 1-Gigabit Ethernet Ports

(6 LAN + 1 WAN) Aggregate two ports when connecting to compatible switch* to get even more wired ports

I wonder quite the same. I installed a nighthawk after my ZET fiber optics modem/router, and the boost in SQ was out of this world. Truly, one of the most significant upgrades to my system ever, which I'm hard pressed to believe anything can improve one (one of my systems now is in a state of nirvana) . 

 

Can the EthernetGen make it sound even better? 

[LowMidHigh]

2 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

Well that is the point!  Though of course everyone will just have to wait to find out.   

 

I too have experienced the nice boost that a decent switch can make.  This particular Cisco Catalyst 2960 WS-C2960-8TC-S -- originally about $600, now $22 used on eBay was a lovely and surprising enhancement to my system (https://www.ebay.com/itm/Used-Cisco-WS-C2960-8TC-S-Catalyst-2960-Series-8-1T-SFP-Port-Switch-LAN-Lite/282887525803?). Biggest bang for the buck I ever got. (thanks for the tip @lmitche!)

 

But what we are attempting with the architecture of the EtherREGEN is completely different that what is in any other Ethernet switch anywhere on the planet!  

What we are doing with--

• active, high-speed, low-litter differential isolators,
• coupled with 10GHz-capable ultra-low jitter differential flip-flops on both sides of the moat,
• all fed by femto clocking (Crystek CCHD-575; with BNC jack for the total crazies who have a 10MHz reference clock to spare),
• and all surrounded by a dozen of the lowest noise, lowest impedance integrated voltage regulators available (LT3042 & LT3045),
• supporting both the voltage regulators and the data chips with 195 pieces of low-inductance, X7R and X5R capacitors sized and selected by their derating curves,
• plus specially chosen Ethernet port magnetics (with 12-cores per jack),

 

--will all result in dual isolated clock/data/power domains, blockage of all external leakage currents, vast reduction in upstream phase-noise fingerprint, and utmost siginal integrity.

 

Will the above sophisticated efforts matter? (I sure hope so because John worked very hard on the design for over a year--and all the parts to this are really expensive. )

Let's put it this way:

If any of you currently hear any differences with any aspect of your networking gear, then just on paper the EtherREGEN should prove to be orders of magnitude better.  

Is that multi-antenna gaming router designed with any focus on the things that we believe are relevant for a quiet Ethernet switch for audio? Nope.  

 

And presently all the Ethernet switches being offered by audio companies are not even "from-scratch" designs--they are mostly just clock and power supply mods to off-the-shelf $30 units.

SOtM's sNH-10G is the sole exception, but they have already shown that it is based on a combination of the passive Ethernet transfomer/filter network of their early iSO-CAT6 and their ubiquitous sCLK-EX clock board. (The irony being that their clock board has 4 available outputs but they use only one--because it not an active-isolation switch with dual domains as we have.)  We too use a Silicon Labs clock synthesizer chip--a much newer model--yet we place ours millimeters and centimeters from the parts as opposed to at the end of a 6-inch coax cable.  And we use all 4 outputs.

 

Please excuse if I seem prematurely immodest about the EtherREGEN--especially since it is not yet in users' systems and we do prefer to let UpTone products to simply prove themselves.  Posts like this are helpful exercise for me as I approach writing the web page for the product.  I have no interest in writing empty “marketing” pitches—I’d rather talk facts and tech.  Yet I have enthusiasm and focus when replying to user questions. So when staring at a blank page I may look back at posts like this for inspiration and bits of text to copy.  

Sorry, I am a big fan of Tom Hanks and of his stupid David S. Pumpkins SNL character. 

 

Thanks and good night,

--Alex C.

 

Awesome! No way I'm not kicking the tires on that baby.

 

You mentioned the BNC port. I'm one of those locos with a REF10.  Guilty as charged.

Have you settled on the default impedance?