UpTone Audio EtherREGEN Listening Impressions

[sandervdp]

Hello everyone,

 

Here's another review from the December batch, the EtherRegen has been in the system now for a couple of weeks. 

I've waited a while to post to make sure that what I was hearing was consistent, and needed some time to do proper comparisons. 

 

In short, the EtherRegen is a must have for anyone seriously involved in digital audio, as has been stated here already. It's not night and day difference, as those only come from room or speaker changes. But the EtherRegen does make the difference between good vs great (or between great vs magical depending on where you are in your journey ;).

 

These differences can be picked up in short A/B comparisons. I find Agnes Obel's The Curse a good test track; starting from 1:00 or so, it's easy to hear if there's any digital noise riding along. And there was definitely less (if any?) with the EtherRegen in the chain. 

 

It's also noticeable over the long term. I like how @Jud and others keep posting tracks they (re)discover. That is definitely my experience of the EtherRegen as well, everything is just more musical (correct timing?) and therefor more enjoyable. Another side effect is that Tidal is now perfectly listenable. Before the EtherRegen, I could never finish an album on Tidal, if I liked it, I would download FLAC and play local files instead. Not anymore.

 

One thing I do want to point out is that the EtherRegen is sensitive to power. I've tried it in 3 different places. First as a drop-in replacement of a Netgear FS105, powered by an Uptone JS-2. That was a clear improvement. But there was a 10m cable to the streamer. So tried it with its SMPS in a non-dedicated circuit at 1m from streamer. That wasn't good and was actually worse sounding than the Netgear powered by the JS-2. The SMPS is now plugged into my dedicated circuit (with a Shunyata conditioner), with a 1m JSSG360 ethernet cable to the switch, and this is the best sounding option so far. But will definitely try what an LPS will bring over the SMPS here (will probably order the Farad LPS over the coming days)

 

Alex, John, thanks for a great product! And happy listening all!

 

 

[sandervdp]

10 hours ago, Audioclyde said:

The naysayers out there just need to give it a listen. 

 

Could not agree more. Years ago, I ordered an Aqvox audiphile switch and returned it after a couple of weeks of listening. It did not make a meaningful difference compared to a netgear with a proper power supply for example and I thought money was better spent elsewhere.

 

Then almost two years ago, the story broke about the EtherRegen. Based on all the thinking that went into it, and that was described in detail here, I decided to give the idea of a special switch one more try with the EtherRegen, and I'm happy I did.

 

I'm actually contemplating purchasing a second one, replacing the other switch in my setup (which is JS-2 mac mini  > JS-2 powered netgear FS105 > 10m JSSG cable > Farad-powered EtherRegen > .3m JSSG360 cable > Metrum Ambre streamer)

 

 

[sandervdp]

@sahmen happy to hear you're enjoying the ER so much! As a fellow Ambre owner, I can confirm that the EtherRegen has a very positive effect on it  It gets even better after burn-in.

 

The Ambre should be able to run from the B-side without problems. I have it running that way, without any trickery. Have you tried taking the power off of the etherregen? When Roon didn't see my Ambre/Adagio combo, just unplugging the DC cable from the etherregen and putting it back in solved it..

[sandervdp]

With regards to John's post above, I'm actually having the opportunity to try the Farad power supply at different voltages.

I originally ordered a 12v, based on John's recommendation because of the lower current.

 

Then there was a post here that the 7v was sounding better, after which Mattijs of Farad very generously offered to send a 7v and 9v to compare against the 12v. So currently having three Farad's lined up. 

 

First thoughts are that I do tend to agree that 7v seems to be slightly better sounding, a bit more micro-detail/texture. But that might be because of the Farad's design. And these are very small differences. Will do some more listening and will post in the other thread later.

 

The EtherRegen is a huge improvement. Feeding it with a high quality power supply brought a lot extra for me. But I think it's more about the quality of the power supply itself than the specific voltage. Hope that helps...