UpTone Audio EtherREGEN Listening Impressions

[RickyV]

@Darryl R I think you’ll have an interesting and busy “tweakend” coming up. 😁

[Darryl R]

5 minutes ago, FredM said:

That’s very interesting! To understand you correctly, please elaborate on your finding:

a) is the EtherREGEN better than the JCAT Net? (A vs B comparison) or..

b) does the EtherREGEN make the JCAT Net redundant (no benefit from JCAT Net with the ER in the chain)

c) ..?

 

Case (b) would be a stunning result/achievement!

 

 

Fred, I'm reluctant to say one is better (and I've never enjoyed spending a lot of time doing A/B comparisons).  I can say that I am and will continue to use both, and that as of today, I only need one of the ports on the JCAT card.

[Darryl R]

3 minutes ago, RickyV said:

@Darryl R I think you’ll have an interesting and busy “tweakend” coming up. 😁

 

Yes, I keep thinking of the guy who posted in another forum that he spends more time tweaking his system than listening.  I really want to get away from all the tweaking (after I try headless Audio Linux and ramroot ;))

[RickyV]

1 hour ago, Superdad said:

 

Wow, we are getting into rarified territory here!  The MSB web page shows the Select DAC starting at about $84K, plus $20K+ of available power supplies and other upgrades, including the $2K Ethernet input module.  And our humble $640 EtherREGEN was immediately an improvement for you?  Nice!  

@Superdad it sound like the ER is a real winner have you considered sending an ER to Stereophile or/ and 6moons for review? Maybe after John finish his paper and measurements.

[Evo1668]

Ok 30 hours in and I’m still wowing at what the lower registers are doing, the peakiness is receding and the sound opening up further. Ambience to recordings, much more apparent, the felt on the dampers, the musician shifting on his seat, I’m playing “Ode” by Nils Frahm always gets my attention, but this was just getting into my soul - beautiful 

I already thought the following were really good tracks, they feature in my excellent playlist, stunning bass and dynamics they just stop you in your tracks  - articulation, soundstage, dynamics.....”Elephants On Ice Skates” - Brian Bromberg - this will sort out if you have bass problems. And  “Penguins” - Lyle Lovett, I think they put the drum kit in my room - turn them up! 

[soares]

18 hours ago, soares said:

Finally. Just the first 5 minutes. 
Literally jaw dropping...

cisco 2960 > (fiber) oM > (copper) uR

I am in heaven! 

Thank you Alex and John.

Will report after the weekend.

Cheers Jorge

Opps, it was very late in the evening and I forgot to include the main actor. 😱
So, again:

cisco 2960 > (fiber) > oM > (copper) > eR > (copper) > uR

Sorry guys!!!

[Superdad]

Looks like Amir is offering $10,000 to any of you who can tell the difference between an EtherREGEN and a $20 switch:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/uptone-etherregen.9260/page-5#post-266813

Who will be the first to step up?  Could buy a nice DAC or a lot of new music or some holiday gifts or just donate to charity. 

 

[By the way, the graph he is so up in arms about in that post is one he made with 23 feet(!) of three $4 Amazon USB cables chained together--with those he found a slight bit more "noise" picked up by an ISO REGEN. Of course he ignores what the device is about. Guess when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.]

[dminches]

I wanted to wait at least 2 days and after 4-5 listening sessions to post my initial feedback.

 

The biggest difference I am noticing is a big drop in the noise floor.  Whatever was there before is no longer masking some of the finer details in the music.  While one can play the music lower because of this, I am finding that I want to play the music louder because it is that more pleasing and there is zero fatigue.

 

It goes without saying that the “bang for the buck” with the EtherREGEN is extremely high.

 

[Puma Cat]

27 minutes ago, soares said:

Confirmed, at least in my system. The oM improves the SQ of eR. I am just using a Jameco and immediately you see a jump in what concerns SQ. So I will keep my oM. Will try as soon as possible a fiber connection between the two.

if you think the OM is good with the Jameco, ya gotta try it with the Uptone Audio LPS-1.2. The LPS-1.2 takes it to another level altogether. 

[PYP]

9 minutes ago, dminches said:

While one can play the music lower because of this, I am finding that I want to play the music louder because it is that more pleasing and there is zero fatigue.

 

I'm finding the same thing.  And my speakers like the extra volume, which provides greater resolution.  Overall, there is quite an increase in resolution.  Currently I'm keying in on wonderful tone and the spatial cues about the recording venue.  You can "see" the space.  

[cat6man]

34 minutes ago, Superdad said:

Looks like Amir is offering $10,000 to any of you who can tell the difference between an EtherREGEN and a $20 switch:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/uptone-etherregen.9260/page-5#post-266813

Who will be the first to step up?  Could buy a nice DAC or a lot of new music or some holiday gifts or just donate to charity. 

 

[By the way, the graph he is so up in arms about in that post is one he made with 23 feet(!) of three $4 Amazon USB cables chained together--with those he found a slight bit more "noise" picked up by an ISO REGEN. Of course he ignores what the device is about. Guess when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.]

 

with that money, i could buy BOTH of your spare units @ $5k/each

 

[thyname]

A few more listening impressions now, day three since the EtherRegen arrived:

 

I am 100% sure that EtherRegen has an impact on sound. In other words, it changes the sound. I am pretty sure even the hardcore Amir ABX types would be able to tell.

 

I have been listening to some of my favorite albums, stuff that I have probably heard dozens of times (not exaggerating), and I kept getting stunned how different something sounds. A drum beat for example, an acoustic guitar line, or (don’t laugh) banjo. I have found myself startled a few times. Is this really how this is supposed to sound. I do like the “new” sound however, and only wonder why I did not hear it this way before. For stuff that I am very familiar in live, not amplified music (I.e acoustic guitar), I am 100% sure what I am getting is closer to the real, natural sound.

 

I notice a not-so-subtle separation of instruments. Easier to identify what plays to the right, to the left, to the center, height, front, rear.... not making shit up. And all this without suffering on image. Phantom sound is untouched. I read some comments about sounding a bit harsh / elevated, and I get it, what they mean, but to me it’s simply that, the separation, that we may perceive as elevated, but it’s simply detail, more “information “ that was perhaps hidden before, or muddled in the “noise”.

 

Most importantly (for me), I love the subtle changes, improvements rather, that it brings to timbre and tonality. Nothing huge, just something I am happy I did not lose, but got better for me. I am a sucker and picky for MY timbre!

[soares]

1 hour ago, soares said:

I know from experience but no money. My ‘old’ LPS 1.2 is feeding my iR after the uR... 🙂

If I may add to my previous preliminary comments is that eR facilitates the evaluations of your tweets. What usually used to take hours or even days you feel immediately what sounds better. So what I can say now is that the SQ using a iR after the uR the later one fed by LPS 1.2 and the oM fed by a Jameco is better then the oM fed by a LPS 1.2 without the iR. I am using the same sbooster on the uR in both situations. So the iR is to keep. I tried also to connect by Ethernet to the oppo 205 with the eR but while I felt a SQ improvement, it is far better to use the usb input with oM, uR and iR.

[Superdad]

14 minutes ago, thyname said:

A drum beat for example, an acoustic guitar line, or (don’t laugh) banjo.

 

Darn it! I begged John to find a way to completely filter out banjo, but clearly he failed. Guess it's back to the drawing board. 

[EVOLVIST]

30 minutes ago, charlesphoto said:

 

Well he does live across the bridge from me.... but I would expect nothing but a Trumpian routine from that guy. It could be the most dramatic change one could ever hear and he would say there's no difference and give you some kind of song and dance why. Definitely not to be trusted. 

 

But, playing devil's advocate here, you can see where they are coming from, right? They want to use the scientific method to be able to replicate something in audio, again and again, only proving to be fact upon repeated replication. Well, I don't find anything wrong with that. It's how shit gets done. Things get discovered. But it's just one approach to things. There are people on his side - people in the business  - who cannot fathom anything other than bits being bits, packets are packets, etc. I understand that. 

 

I think issues occur when people don't want to understand the the people other side of the tracks. 

 

Now, I just found out about this guy a couple of days ago. I have no idea of the backstory, but it seems to go back aways. Moreover, I don't want to get into the science of things. That's not my bag. I simply want a return for my dollar. If I don't find it, I take action. 

 

I simply wonder if on that forum, they really care about the people who getting fleeced as rubes by the audio manufacturers, or if it's simply a matter of being "right". I mean, there are snake oil salesmen out there. That's a fact. They exist. But is the snake oil any more prevalent than the beer commercials that promise we won't get fat off of their product, or the illusion that if a woman wears a certain girdle she'll be more attractive, or fish oil will protect you from cancer? There's a lot of stuff out there floating around that people accept as facts.

 

Even more, the mind is very powerful, even to our own detriment. We can convince ourselves of almost anything. But, I guess if you think that you're Napoleon Bonaparte, yet you harm no one else in the process of you delusion, what's the harm in it? I say nothing. What's more, people are simply seeking comfort. It's a survival mechanism. Sometimes the money that buys peace of mind can go along way. 

 

I'm not saying that's the case with the EtherREGEN at all. I'm merely throwing out an alternative to this current battle, using a knife that can cut both ways. 

 

I don't believe I want too many things to be black and white, especially when the gray matter is much more fun.  

[firedog]

11 hours ago, Superdad said:

This thread is on its 7th page--with detailed and insightful first-hand reports from many people with extremely refined (and expensive systems (looking at you @stevebythebay). And there is also an active 7-page thread going on over at ASR where they can't figure out what this device could possibly do and are just bouncing around being dismissive and insulting.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/uptone-etherregen.9260/page-5#post-266563

Oh well. 

Superdad-

I actually think Amir's site provides a useful service - measurements. It's useful to see inexpensive products that measure really well, and expensive ones that don't. I'd personally stay away from any device with bad measurements and find a comparable product with better ones. Of course, I'd still want to listen to it.

 

They can be pretty nasty at that site, and they assume $300 DAC that measures better automatically sounds better than an expensive DAC which doesn't measure as well -  which I don't think is a "scientific"  assumption. 

 

However, I would say in the big picture they have a point: We've yet to see measurements showing improvement AT THE DAC OUTPUT for the  USB/network devices they denigrate. It's not so hard to show that a device itself is "quiet"; it's something else to show that the quiet actually improves the result at the DAC output. Archimago had a blog showing that a "noisy" server running full out directly connected to the DAC made no measureable difference to the output of the DAC compared to other devices. 
 

There are definitely people whose ears I trust; however sighted and subjective comparisons are not fully reliable. We all know that to be true. That's what the people at ASR  are all about. 

[Nenon]

Did anyone test if power supplies make a difference? 

[Avalfa]

3 minutes ago, Nenon said:

Did anyone test if power supplies make a difference? 

Not yet, I have none lying around to try.

It crossed my mind to try in the future, if anyone has already tested,  I'm  curious too.

[Superdad]

2 hours ago, EVOLVIST said:

But, playing devil's advocate here, you can see where they are coming from, right? They want to use the scientific method to be able to replicate something in audio, again and again, only proving to be fact upon repeated replication. Well, I don't find anything wrong with that. It's how shit gets done. Things get discovered. But it's just one approach to things. There are people on his side - people in the business  - who cannot fathom anything other than bits being bits, packets are packets, etc. I understand that. 

 

I think issues occur when people don't want to understand the the people other side of the tracks. 

 

1 hour ago, firedog said:

I actually think Amir's site provides a useful service - measurements. It's useful to see inexpensive products that measure really well, and expensive ones that don't. I'd personally stay away from any device with bad measurements and find a comparable product with better ones. Of course, I'd still want to listen to it.

 

They can be pretty nasty at that site, and they assume $300 DAC that measures better automatically sounds better than an expensive DAC which doesn't measure as well -  which I don't think is a "scientific"  assumption. 

 

However, I would say in the big picture they have a point: We've yet to see measurements showing improvement AT THE DAC OUTPUT for the  USB/network devices they denigrate. It's not so hard to show that a device itself is "quiet"; it's something else to show that the quiet actually improves the result at the DAC output. Archimago had a blog showing that a "noisy" server running full out directly connected to the DAC made no measureable difference to the output of the DAC compared to other devices. 
 

There are definitely people whose ears I trust; however sighted and subjective comparisons are not fully reliable. We all know that to be true. That's what the people at ASR  are all about. 

 

The real problem I have with ASR is not the measurements. Some of those can be useful even though they don't tell the whole story and don't correlate to all of what people hear.

The problem I have with them--aside from the snide remarks, defamation, and follow-the-leader sycophantry--is the general lack of intellectual curiosity.

 

Early in the thread over there I posted the same circuit board photo with annotated Technical Highlights that appears on our web site. Not one person asked about it; about the differential isolation and clocking and the idea behind it, or about anything.  They simply started in with pages of ridicule and judgement. We went to a lot of trouble and expense to do something new, yet their minds are so closed that they completely dismissed it out-of-hand.  Amir's own argument--which he showed tonight posting by switch error logs to prove there are no bit problems--makes it obvious he did not read a word of what we said about the issue and the mechanism of the EtherREGEN.

And another manufacturer just wrote this, which really sums up the whole thing regarding the stance over there:

 

"It's very simple. Anyone who has the slightest understanding of how ethernet works, how computers work, digital audio works, and is capable of just little bit of critical thought, will conclude there is no mechanism for this to make any improvement.
It's a con. We don't need to see or measure it to draw an accurate conclusion. It's about not believing in fairies, not blindly believing the marketing claims and using existing knowledge to inform yourself."

 

So while it is nice that Amir has an Audio Precision analyzer and likes to publish graphs of the gear people send him, in my view very little "science" actually goes on over at Audio Science Review.

=====

 

Now back to those enjoying their EtherREGEN and reporting about our shared mass-delusion. Enjoy your fairies! 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Superdad said:

 

 

The real problem I have with ASR is not the measurements. Some of those can be useful even though they don't tell the whole story and don't correlate to all of what people hear.

The problem I have with them--aside from the snide remarks, defamation, and follow-the-leader sycophantry--is the general lack of intellectual curiosity.

 

Early in the thread over there I posted the same circuit board photo with annotated Technical Highlights that appears on our web site. Not one person asked about it; about the differential isolation and clocking and the idea behind it, or about anything.  They simply started in with pages of ridicule and judgement. We went to a lot of trouble and expense to do something new, yet their minds are so closed that they completely dismissed it out-of-hand.  Amir's own argument--which he showed tonight posting by switch error logs to prove there are no bit problems--makes it obvious he did not read a word of what we said about the issue and the mechanism of the EtherREGEN.

And another manufacturer just wrote this, which really sums up the whole thing regarding the stance over there:

 

"It's very simple. Anyone who has the slightest understanding of how ethernet works, how computers work, digital audio works, and is capable of just little bit of critical thought, will conclude there is no mechanism for this to make any improvement.
It's a con. We don't need to see or measure it to draw an accurate conclusion. It's about not believing in fairies, not blindly believing the marketing claims and using existing knowledge to inform yourself."

 

So while it is nice that Amir has an Audio Precision analyzer and likes to publish graphs of the gear people send him, in my view very little "science" actually goes on over at Audio Science Review.

=====

 

Now back to those enjoying their EtherREGEN and reporting about our shared mass-delusion. Enjoy your fairies! 

 

The way to shut them up would be to post measurements that show your device improves the output at the DAC. They think it is impossible with network/USB devices and a well designed modern DAC.

[lmitche]

3 hours ago, Superdad said:

The problem I have with them--aside from the snide remarks, defamation, and follow-the-leader sycophantry--is the general lack of intellectual curiosity.

Gee Alex, perhaps we have seen this behavior somewhere else as well?

[Iving]

I was going to wait till I had trialled my ER right down the road before posting.

Arrived in the UK 30 mins ago. Amazing FedEx speed.

Worked in my system straight out of the box: PC > Cisco > ER > RedNet D16 AES > DAC.

Within next to no time I realised this is a serious audiophile device. There is no doubt about it. I promise you [Amir et al] I am one of the least suggestible people you may ever meet.

There is a slight hardness I will attribute to the ER being cold - literally and also in the sense of no cook time - plus I am using a couple of cheapo unused ethernet cables just to test / warm up instead of my preferred heavily shielded AQ Cinnamons which will require re-moulding before use.

I am going to say that I can hear improvements all round.

I can hear more - and the greater detail I can hear is pure - not artificial or rough - not attributable to noise artefacts.

Yes - I notice it in the tight and more transparent bass.

But also all around voices and instruments.

The music is clean and has edges. I mean edges in the positive sense. More definition.

I emphasise. This is an audiophile device punching above its weight. Many congratulations to Alex and John. You've done a great job.

I'm going to let the ER bake over the weekend. Next week I'll finish the cable etc engineering I want to do hoping for no hiccoughs. None immediately to my great relief.

Very impressed. This is atypical Hi-Fi progress. All this from a switch. Who'd have thought.

Thanks - I'm impressed as you may tell.

 

P.S. I don't play music streamed from the internet - local flac on PC/Optane only.

P.P.S. I forgot to mention foot-tapping is enhanced.

P.P.P.S. Less volume required on pre-amp.

 

Ok I'll stop now

[Darryl R]

15 hours ago, Darryl R said:

 

Fred, I'm reluctant to say one is better (and I've never enjoyed spending a lot of time doing A/B comparisons).  I can say that I am and will continue to use both, and that as of today, I only need one of the ports on the JCAT card.

 

I wanted to add to my response to Fred another thought, that if the industry assimilates the JS moat concept, perhaps the two could combine into a REGEN card.  But right now, you can use both.  That said, the post below may imply you can jettison the JCAT and use a plain motherboard port.

[Darryl R]

Because I was close to pulling the trigger on a hi-end server, like for instance the Pink Faun 2.16x, and I don't think I will now, I asked John a few questions about those touted enhancements like, for instance, motherboard clocks.  Since he was kind enough to give me some of his valuable time, I thought I'd share his response here so we all can start to better understand the phenomena (except, of course, for those of you who already know it all).  It's an extension of what he and Alex have been telling us:

 

My paper will really go into all this in much better detail ... In a nutshell, each device has its own clock phase noise, the phase noise from upstream devices can "overlay" the phase noise of the local clock. Making the local clock better stops being useful when the overlay is much greater than the local clock phase noise. So in some situations doing things like putting really good clocks on a motherboard may help, but it may not.

 

The EtherREGEN gets rid of all this so upstream stuff like that doesn't really matter. The only clocks that really matter are the renderer AFTER the EtherREGEN and the DAC fed by that. THOSE two WILL benefit from lower clock phase noise, no matter how you get it there, whether it is built in or coming from some external source. Because the EtherREGEN interrupts the clock over laying process, you can clearly hear the differences in clocks in the downstream devices.

 

So if the external clock is feeding the NUC feeding the DAC, yes, that is a good thing, if it is feeding the motherboard of the server feeding the EtherREGEN, probably not worthwhile.

 

I know these concepts seem weird and not what other people are talking about, but the intent of the paper is to really get down to the nitty gritty about how all this happens and what the EtherREGEN does about it.

 

John Swenson

[thyname]

7 hours ago, firedog said:

However, I would say in the big picture they have a point: We've yet to see measurements showing improvement AT THE DAC OUTPUT for the  USB/network devices they denigrate. It's not so hard to show that a device itself is "quiet"; it's something else to show that the quiet actually improves the result at the DAC output. Archimago had a blog showing that a "noisy" server running full out directly connected to the DAC made no measureable difference to the output of the DAC compared to other devices. 

 

3 hours ago, firedog said:

The way to shut them up would be to post measurements that show your device improves the output at the DAC. They think it is impossible with network/USB devices and a well designed modern DAC

 

Measurements are always helpful. But they only tell one side of the story. Over the past 15-16 years I have been in this hobby, there have been many times when I heard stuff that I could not explain at that time, and later on, yup! it was explainable.

 

So my (hypothetical) questions are:

 

1 - How do we know we are measuring the right thing? How do we know what we measure is relevant to the quality and sound of the device? Say for example, we can easily measure the sperm count. But how useful is that data in determining the heart condition of that individual

 

2 - Assuming all these people have their own measurement device / instrument, how can they be sure that instrument is sensitive enough to provide a full explanation of what is going on

 

3 - Maybe there are other things that can really impact audio, but we don't know yet about them, so we are not measuring?

 

All I am saying is that we as humans don't have an answer for all the phenomena in the universe. To claim that we have figured out everything there is to know is foolish. We have not.

 

As one famous person said (not sure who the original was): there are known unknowns, and there are unknown unknowns