UpTone Audio EtherREGEN Listening Impressions

[MartinT]

2 hours ago, Meridimac said:

Question: Does reversing the ER to serve two endpoints from the "A" side compromise SQ?

 

The most obvious thing that comes to mind is that you'll have no moat separating one endpoint from the other, so they could influence or interact with each other, share ground noise etc.

[PYP]

Was minding my own business when Roon radio came up with an interesting selection.  What I heard was a Telecaster being played by someone who loves acoustic guitar and could play with a tone and fluidity that was breathtaking.  Yes, Julian Lage -- Atlantic Limited on Modern Lore.  I've been astounded by his playing on other musician's jazz albums.  He seems to reflect music from around the globe, while still sounding like jazz and keeping within the melody of the song!  It sounds like someone who can play whatever they imagine and they have a big imagination based upon loving music from many different cultures and styles.  Good stuff!  

[tarquineous]

On 1/24/2020 at 10:33 AM, Superdad said:

Wonderful, thanks!

 

 

I will comment cautiously () as follows:

The EtherREGEN's Active Differential Isolation Moat and reclocking is very effective, and rather few people have indicated hearing much if any difference between feeding the 'A'-side of the EtherREGEN via optical or copper.  But in the case of using an EtherREGEN with an opticalRendu you would turn it around and feed copper into the 'B'-side and then fiber out the 'A'-side SFP cage to the opticalRendu. In which case it would be better to avoid use of the other 'A'-side copper ports so as to keep the optical feed "pure." Using just one-in-one-out reduces the EtherREGEN to a very elaborate--and highly effective--FMC.

 

As for your other question regards the ultraRendu versus opticalRendu:

They are both VERY fine products. And while it is not my place to reveal technical details about Sonore components, I can tell you that yes, the opticalRendu incorporates a few refinements over the ultraRendu--beyond just having an optical input. And what it takes to create that optical input also results in benefits to the unit. That is really all I am allowed to say.

That said, per John Swenson's personal listening tests, pairing an EtherREGEN with an ultraRendu does get you quite near the performance of the opticalRendu (with or without the EtherREGEN).

 

I hope that helps--and I hope not to see us divert too far down this path. 

Cheers,

--Alex C.

What is an "FMC" ?

[Superdad]

1 minute ago, tarquineous said:

What is an "FMC" ?

 

Fiber Media Converter.  Just as Ethernet is bi-directional signaling, these convert copper to optical or optical to copper.

[mrkoven]

I want to try SFP, would something like this cheap TP Link be fine?

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Ethernet-Converter-Supporting-MC220L/dp/B003CFATL0

Any recommendation on SFP cable?

Thanks.

[Superdad]

7 hours ago, mrkoven said:

I want to try SFP, would something like this cheap TP Link be fine?

https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-Ethernet-Converter-Supporting-MC220L/dp/B003CFATL0

Any recommendation on SFP cable?

That will work, though you could get this one, which includes one SFP transceiver module already, and if you scroll down to Amazon’s “frequently bought together” section you will see + and + for a matching second SFP module and fiber cable.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0716XT1QT

[mrkoven]

10 minutes ago, Superdad said:

That will work, though you could get this one, which includes one SFP transceiver module already, and if you scroll down to Amazon’s “frequently bought together” section you will see + and + for a matching second SFP module and fiber cable.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0716XT1QT

 

Thank you!

[dcas71]

I've ordered for the July batch. Really looking forward to see whether I hear audible improvement against a standard HP switch in my system:

Lumin U1 mini, RME ADI-2 DAC

both powered by HDPlex 200w PS

Feeding Mackie HR 624mk2 and Rythmik F12 sub

 

I use the EQ on the ADI 2 to fix some measured room modes and add a curve for my preference for a bit of warmth. Really liking the sound of this downsized system already so I'm hoping this will be some icing on the cake..

[MB]

On 6/7/2020 at 9:00 PM, dcas71 said:

I've ordered for the July batch. Really looking forward to see whether I hear audible improvement against a standard HP switch in my system:

Lumin U1 mini, RME ADI-2 DAC

both powered by HDPlex 200w PS

Feeding Mackie HR 624mk2 and Rythmik F12 sub

 

I use the EQ on the ADI 2 to fix some measured room modes and add a curve for my preference for a bit of warmth. Really liking the sound of this downsized system already so I'm hoping this will be some icing on the cake..

I'm also in line for July delivery of the ER.  I'll be connecting an opticalRendu and my OPPO 205 to the B side, and then experiment with a LPS if so desired.  Really looking forward to it. 

[Superdad]

13 hours ago, MB said:

I'm also in line for July delivery of the ER.

 

That's great, thanks!  

We are on track and on schedule, though I wish the aluminum cases would arrive sooner than the very end of June.  We already received this run's 250 boards. And have already flash programmed and tested each board and affixed the three heat sinks to most of them (it's all a multi-day process).

 

Below are some pics I just took.  You can see--at the other end of the table--that we are also starting on another (sold-out!) batch of JS-2s:

 

The "warehouse" is getting full again:

 

Beyond the grey door (behind my orange Kona road bike) above is the 220 sq.ft. hardwood deck I finally finished design and construction of. I know it is rather too fancy for an entrance deck for a shop space, but I meant it as a prototype for materials/labor cost estimating for when we finally tear off and replace the decrepit 1,100 sq.ft. main house deck. Going to have to sell more EtherREGENs before pulling out the cash for THAT project! 

 

Maybe I'll get in trouble for posting this, but here is my lovely wife of 32 years with her other beloved.

 

[MB]

Very cool Alex.  So glad to see you're busy, esp. in these crazy times we live in.  Nice deck as well.  Looks like you live in a pretty place.  Wanna say I have the utmost respect for John Swenson and his design and creativity ability.  I remember him from the squeezebox forum years ago.  Always loved to read his posts.  I had a Touch and John was mentioning he was designing a network player that would be better than the Touch, if I remember correctly.  I suspect that player turned out to be the microRendu, or so I am surmising.  And that's what I have now, but will be getting the opticalRendu to go with the ER.  Upgradeitis   What a great time to be a music and audio freak.

[esmit]

6 hours ago, Superdad said:

here is my lovely wife of 32 years

Superdad, I do  not believe you, she must be 40-42ish I would estimate.

[JohnSwenson]

 

On 6/11/2020 at 3:01 PM, MB said:

Wanna say I have the utmost respect for John Swenson and his design and creativity ability.  I remember him from the squeezebox forum years ago.  Always loved to read his posts.  I had a Touch and John was mentioning he was designing a network player that would be better than the Touch, if I remember correctly.  I suspect that player turned out to be the microRendu, or so I am surmising.

I spent a LOT of time and money on that project. I have several prototypes that actually work. It turned out the hardest part was laying out the back panel, there were 16 jacks on the fairly small back panel!!

 

There were two XLR and two RCA, each pin fed by its own DAC channel, so it was actually a 6 channel DAC. Yep, you could have done a 5.1 system with it. This took some custom drivers to make it work.

 

I even had a connector on the front of the board so you could take off the front panel and screw in a 7" LCD touch screen. I never built that but I did have the connector for it.

 

We had someone ready to build and sell it for a reasonable price, but then the whole project was derailed by legal issues that I cannot discuss. I was so bummed by the whole thing I just dropped out of the forums.Every now and then I pick up the test boards and look at them and hold them in my hands and wonder how it would have gone otherwise. I probably would have spent the rest of my life supporting it!

 

The microRendu was a completely separate design. 

 

John S.

[Superdad]

24 minutes ago, JohnSwenson said:

I probably would have spent the rest of my life supporting it!

 

(Yeah, just ask Jesus at Sonore...)

[MB]

13 hours ago, JohnSwenson said:

 

I spent a LOT of time and money on that project. I have several prototypes that actually work. It turned out the hardest part was laying out the back panel, there were 16 jacks on the fairly small back panel!!

 

There were two XLR and two RCA, each pin fed by its own DAC channel, so it was actually a 6 channel DAC. Yep, you could have done a 5.1 system with it. This took some custom drivers to make it work.

 

I even had a connector on the front of the board so you could take off the front panel and screw in a 7" LCD touch screen. I never built that but I did have the connector for it.

 

We had someone ready to build and sell it for a reasonable price, but then the whole project was derailed by legal issues that I cannot discuss. I was so bummed by the whole thing I just dropped out of the forums.Every now and then I pick up the test boards and look at them and hold them in my hands and wonder how it would have gone otherwise. I probably would have spent the rest of my life supporting it!

 

The microRendu was a completely separate design. 

 

John S.

Wow, thanks for that explanation.  Well, at least we can all still benefit from your creative prowess.👍🙏

[Ponkbutler]

I had a Melco S100 on demo here for around 10 days, putting in around 150 hrs to burn it in, and listening both with its own power supply and then with an upgraded Sean Jacobs/Custom Hifi Cables DC3, which improved things quite a bit. Having heard that the S100 could at least equal an EtherRegen with external LPSU (Paul Hynes SR7) AND Mutec Ref 10 clock connected I thought it could be a good way of keeping my box count down. 

 

Anyway it was a considerable disappointment. A quite seductive, very warm lush sound with artificial pop-out details and an equally artificial expanded soundstage that actually "exploded" instruments, scattering, piano, drumkit and even guitar across the soundstage. Moreover, the very low noise floor seemed to be at the expense of instrumental tone and texture compared with the EtherRegen and indeed no switch. Microdetail also suffered, with certain clear sounds of singers' pronunciation being lost for example. So although very smooth and calm, the sound was both less realistic and much less dynamic than the EtherRegen, which was considerably fresher and more vital, more propulsive and impactful with better pace, rhythm, timing and decay as well as instrumental placement. And that's alongside everything above in reverse: better instrumental, tone, texture and microdetail. Much more lifelike. Piano didn't sound like piano on the S100, just a dull and syrupy relative. There was really no contest. I was extremely relieved to get back to my EtherRegens. Just thought I'd let you folks know.

[stevebythebay]

By any chance did you experiment yet with using the Mutec with the EtherREGEN?  If so, any noticeable benefit at all?

[Pokey77]

@Ponkbutler

 

Nice review. Thanks for sharing.

[LowMidHigh]

5 hours ago, Ponkbutler said:

I had a Melco S100 on demo here for around 10 days, putting in around 150 hrs to burn it in, and listening both with its own power supply and then with an upgraded Sean Jacobs/Custom Hifi Cables DC3, which improved things quite a bit. Having heard that the S100 could at least equal an EtherRegen with external LPSU (Paul Hynes SR7) AND Mutec Ref 10 clock connected I thought it could be a good way of keeping my box count down. 

 

Anyway it was a considerable disappointment. A quite seductive, very warm lush sound with artificial pop-out details and an equally artificial expanded soundstage that actually "exploded" instruments, scattering, piano, drumkit and even guitar across the soundstage. Moreover, the very low noise floor seemed to be at the expense of instrumental tone and texture compared with the EtherRegen and indeed no switch. Microdetail also suffered, with certain clear sounds of singers' pronunciation being lost for example. So although very smooth and calm, the sound was both less realistic and much less dynamic than the EtherRegen, which was considerably fresher and more vital, more propulsive and impactful with better pace, rhythm, timing and decay as well as instrumental placement. And that's alongside everything above in reverse: better instrumental, tone, texture and microdetail. Much more lifelike. Piano didn't sound like piano on the S100, just a dull and syrupy relative. There was really no contest. I was extremely relieved to get back to my EtherRegens. Just thought I'd let you folks know.

Thank you for sharing. 

 

Your impressions are a one person's opinion, of course, but I'd like to offer my praises for breaking away from the old and so prevailing dogma of "The more expensive, the better it sounds." Pleasantly refreshing. 

[PYP]

On 3/17/2020 at 12:12 PM, mourip said:

I am certain that my Mutec REF10 makes a nice difference clocking the ER.

 

What brand of clock cables are folks using to connect to the eR?  Thanks. 

[XCop5089]

37 minutes ago, PYP said:

 

What brand of clock cables are folks using to connect to the eR?  Thanks. 

 

I am using a Sablon Audio 75 Ohm BNC clock cable to connect an output from my Mutec Ref 10 SE-120 to the EtherREGEN, which is powered from one 12v rail of a Coherent Systems QP-1 LPSU.

 

The Sablon Audio clock cable is superb value at around the $500 mark.

 

I also use Sablon Audio Panatela Reserva ethernet cables from router to EtherREGEN 'A' side and from 'B' side to dCS Vivaldi full stack!

 

Sablon Audio's entire range of cables are hugely impressive and great value for money (I also use the 2020 USB cable in my system)!

[MartinT]

5 hours ago, PYP said:

 

What brand of clock cables are folks using to connect to the eR?  Thanks. 

 

Short 0.5m Canare LV-61S 75 ohm cable, tested and found to be very decent.

[PYP]

41 minutes ago, MartinT said:

 

Short 0.5m Canare LV-61S 75 ohm cable, tested and found to be very decent.

 

I'm assuming this was DIY.  If not, could you provide a link?  Haven't seen any terminated 0.5m Canare.  Thanks.  

[Superdad]

Gentlemen:

Please remember that all discussion of cables, power supplies, and other tweaking are requested to take place in the thread for such.

 

And @MartinT has a nice thread going on clocking at:

 

Thanks very much!

--Alex C.

[MartinT]

10 hours ago, PYP said:

 

I'm assuming this was DIY.  If not, could you provide a link?  Haven't seen any terminated 0.5m Canare.  Thanks.  

 

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32840161272.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.2c574c4dA25TM8