EtherREGEN: Installation, Usage, Difficulty, Questions thread

[Puma Cat]

On 11/9/2019 at 3:59 PM, Superdad said:

For EtherREGEN owners, this is the thread to discuss any issues regarding installation and usage, and to report any difficulties you might encounter.

 

This can also be the thread for prospective EtherREGEN purchasers to ask tech questions.  Though I do ask that you first read thoroughly the EtherREGEN web page and also look through the User Guide. There is a really good chance that your question will be answered there.

 

Please post all reports about what you hear (and how you have the EtherREGEN hooked up) in the Listening Impressions thread.

 

As for the The long development and active launch discussion thread, that can remain the place for all other EtherREGEN miscellaneous talk. Things like batches, ordering, technical discussions not related to actual use, and just general EtherREGEN-related social chatter among enthusiasts. 

 

Thanks everyone!

--Alex C.

Excellent idea...was going to suggest this, but you're leading by example, Alex! 

 

 

[Puma Cat]

1 hour ago, dctom said:

 

Success!!

Thank you for your replies Alex. Power cycling the EtherREGEN has done the trick, NUC connected to all points now. Have been able to set AL on the NUC to 100Mps.

Does it have any "burn in" period? it is doing an excellent job as it is.

I can hear the improvements now, wider sound stage, the already excellent image is deeper, harmonics are richer and more detailed, subtlety stronger dynamics.

Congratulations on an excellent device.

Alex has already responded but I'll just confirm that there is a benefit to "burn-in" that I've also observed. Having done a LOT of experiments to my digital streaming front-end this year, I've observed this with pretty much all the devices and cables I've implemented/installed, respectively.

 

Example: the excellent Sonore Optical Module needed about 72 hours to burn in, and in between first power-ip it up and getting to those 72 hours, it got very bright and detailed at about 36-48 hours, but once it got to 72 hours, it smoothed out beautifully and started to sound really very good. 

 

For any device that has clocks (and all digital devices do), the crystal oscillators that function as clocks are very sensitive to both vibration and temperature. These devices encounter a fair bit of vibration during shipping. Once they are received from the courier, installed and powered up, they need time to "settle" (with respect to vibration) and also to stabilize with respect to temperature. 

 

Its generally agreed by folks with a lot of professional experience in the audio industry (e.g. vendors travelling to audio shows) that most all digital audio equipment, and all cables, require at least 24 hours to settle and stabilize and really start to function optimally at  ~48 hours after installation. This is why many demo rooms at audio shows sound better on Sundays than they do on Fridays. 

 

Side note: a tweak I've found that provides an audible improvement for my network bridges (e.g. my SOtM UltraNeo), my Uptone LPS-1.2 and my EtherREGEN is using Herbie's Audio Lab Tenderfeet; these small square footers are inexpensive, and do a very good job of isolating these devices from vibration from the sound pressure generated in the room from playing music over loudspeakers. The SPLs interact with the audio rack, & feeds vibration into these devices. This is why many other high-end digital product companies e.g. InnuOS, Auralic, MBL, etc. implement vibration-damping functionality into their products. 

 

 

[Puma Cat]

9 hours ago, jamesg11 said:

Yes, been on the Herbies Tenderfeet ‘micro’ vibration control (+ heat control + non-marks-on-surface control!) for some years - keeping things like regens & rendus in place require the Herbies Supersonic Stabiliser on top (handful allow a shuffle around, depending on items in use). Relatively inexpensive ...

Yep, I need to get some of those stabilizers at some point. I fully agree that good mechanical grounding as well as vibration decoupling are key to obtaining maximal performance. 

[Puma Cat]

9 hours ago, wwc said:

Apologies if this has been covered already.  

 

Are the AudioQuest ethernet cables-- the higher-end ones which have silver connectors and are shielded at both ends -- compatible with the EtherRegen?   I recall reading somewhere this would be a noise producer...

No. While the Audioquest Ethernet cables are shielded, the shields are not connected at both ends, that is, one end is (colloquially referred to as) "floating", so they will not conduct leakage currents "downstream". 

[Puma Cat]

Given the multitude of (sometimes complex) different ways that can Ethernet switch can be utilized in streaming systems, the potential and real effort for supporting all the possible configurations has gone up by at least an order of magnitude vs. say, a linear power supply. 

 

The one thing I know I can count on from Alex is to do his absolute best to "make it work" and "make it right" for customers.

[Puma Cat]

9 hours ago, FrankMA said:

I'm still having a bit of an issue. Have to do some digging to see if this could be Roon 1.7.

 

I started streaming at 9:30AM yesterday. Before I went to bed at 10:30 or so it had stopped.  Got it running again by hitting Play Now at the top of my Roon queue.  The odd thing is Roon looks like it is playing (meters near the song working, in Play mode) but the song is not incrementing (on 0.00 and I'm getting no output). But I do get Track Not Available in Tidal/Qobuz (connectivity blip?) when I see this.

Same condition when I woke up this AM.

 

Each time I have searched for my player I still see it on the network (prior to the fix I didn't) so I'm not sure it's the same network connectivity/ER issue because before once the music was stopped the player was not on the network.

 

Still at the drawing board

 

I think its a Roon 1.7 issue; I've been having similar issues ever since upgrading to it. It seems like Roon goes into a  "sleep mode" and needs to be woken up if its not being actively used, e.g. overnight. My Roon Core is on a small computer in my bedroom/study, and I interface with it using Roon on my MBP in the living room/listening roon. I often came back to the MBP with Roon saying its trying to connect to the default Roon Core. I have to go into the bedroom, open up the OS that the Roon Core is on, bring up Roon (its open and running) and then it comes back on my MBP in the living room. Didn't have these issues of connectivity with 1.6. 

[Puma Cat]

On 11/23/2019 at 4:12 PM, simon_pepper said:

Question to current EtherRegen users, what have you placed your EtherRegen on?

 

Mine is behind my 2 Aavik tables sat on the wooden floor, as that’s where the 5-port CISCO switch was it has replaced & there is no shelf space available & that’s where all the Ethernet cables are, however should I be placing it on something isolating? And should that be a small bamboo chopping block or a cork pad (e.g. a table place mat).

 

My UltraRendu and UltraCap have the dual faceplate, so a larger unit, plus cables only coming from the rear of these units.

 

Does anyone have any suggested isolation components for these sized components?

Does placement affect the performance?

 

Is this the right thread for this type of question/discussion?

Hi Simon,

My recommendation would be to get your ER, UltraCap and UltraRendu off the floor. The crystal oscillators in your ER and UR are very sensitive to vibration and will pick up resonances from your floor from the loudspeakers and this will be fed into these devices. So its best to provide isolation from vibration and also good mechanical grounding for these digital components. My suggestion would be place them onto a platform like a small chopping block you suggested. Ikea has one that a lot of audio folks use called Aptitlig, that is a bamboo butcher block board that sells for only $20. Its 17 3/4" x 14 1/4" in dimensions, so you can place all three devices on this board. I would get some cork & rubber antivibration pads from Amazon and place them on the floor and your cutting block on top of these: Anti Vibration Pads. The anti vibration pads are key because they isolate the board from the floorborne vibrations so they will not transmit through to the board. 

 

If you have the budget, the product I would recommend and that I use are ButcherBlock Acoustic hard rock maple boards. They are affordable, a 19" X 16" X 1 3/4" is only $88 and includes the 4 anti vibration pads referenced above. I really like these hard maple boards a lot, they provide superb isolation and a very solid foundation for mechnical grounding (I have my power distributors on them, for example): ButcherBlock Acousics. They are very affordable for the quality and sizes you can get. 

 

On top of your board, I would place each component on top of a Herbie's Audio Lab Tenderfeet footer. I use these under my LPS-1.2 UltraCap, my ER, my SOtM SMS-200 UltraNeo, and my Keces P3 power supply and they bring an audible improvement for every device they are placed under. They remove audible "smearing" and "blur & slur" from the presentation, and provide a cleaner, more "focused" image.  I use 3 per device because a "tripod" cannot rock on a surface. The Herbie's Tenderfeet work really well and at only $14/each, are considerably less expensive than IsoAcousics Orea or Stillpoints footers. Link: Herbie's Tenderfeet

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

[Puma Cat]

Consistent product robustness problems with the the SFP Cage and Optical Transceiver on the EtherREGEN:

 

Since I received my ER back in October, I've experienced consistent problems with the SFP cage and optical transceiver on EtherREGEN. I am using the Sonore SystemOptique-certified 850 nM optical transceiver (purchased from Sonore) in the ER's SFP cage. 

 

My experience is that even if barely move, or in some cases, even touch the ER or the Tripp-Lite OM-1 specification optical cable that is plugged into the OT, the OT almost always disconnects in the SFP cage, and then I usually spend a considerable period of time trying to get the digital audio steam from my server to connect.

 

Today, after placing my digital streaming front end a nice maple board, I just spent >90 minutes trying to get ER to connect up. To say it was exasperating was putting it mildly, I was just about to give up and spend the afternoon listening to LPs when it "connected" again and I could stream my files to my SOtM SMS-200 UltraNeo. 🙀

 

Back when was I was working as Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) Master Black Belt, teaching product development principles to scientists and engineers for one of the leading biotech companies in the world, there was a key quality attribute that I spent a lot of time drilling home: the concept of a ROBUST product or system-level ROBUSTNESS.

 

A "ROBUST" product is defined as:  "Function performs on-target with minimal variation in the presence of NOISE factors."

 

The noise factor here is the optical transceiver module, and presently, the SFP cage/OT interface of ER is not robust to the optical transceiver utilized.

 

ER should work in a statistically robust manner with any industry-standard specification 850nM, 1000-Base SM MMX fiber optical transceiver, and in my experience, with the number of times that I (and for reference, a good friend that has also an ER) have had the problems described above, this is not the case. 

 

I know folks will chime in, here..."Oh, don't use that optical transceiver, use this OT, instead."

 

Look, gang, I get it, and I'll have to do that, I guess, in order to have a consistent and less exasperating customer experience. 

 

But, so that I am maximally clear here: that is not the point of this post.

 

The truth of the world is this: There are NO, and I mean, NO perfect manufacturing processes or perfect products, from any manufacturer in any industry. None. They do not exist.

 

The Japense have a very specific term for their philosophy about designing and manufacturing products: KAIZEN (Change for the Better, ref here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen)

 

The key point about kaizen is to work with humility and open-ness with a spirit of "continuous improvment" so that overall product quality increases continually over time. When product quality improves, the customer's ability to use the product and their experience improves, and society as a whole improves, too. 

 

Understanding this key principle with humility rather than indignation is the basis for one of the highest quality manufacturing systems the the world, The Toyota Production System (reference: The Toyota Way by James Likert).

 

This post was written in the spirit of kaizen with respect to helping Uptone Audio developing what is truly an excellent product into an higher-quality one, specifically with respect to product robustness. One that will realize its full and considerable potential all the while providing 1) a function performs on-target with minimal variation in the presence of noise factors and 2) a satisfactory customer experience.

 

Right now, its not doing that. 

 

Improving ER's "robustness quality attributes" will not only improve the customer experience, it will also lower service, support, repair, and warranty costs, a lower COPQ (Cost of Poor Quality), and result in greater profitability for Uptone Audio. And that's a good thing; I sincerely want Uptone Audio to be maximally profitable and successful as they bring a great deal of innovation and value to the audio industry. And, they're really nice guys, too. 

 

Alex, happy to work with you and Uptone Audio as a professional DFSS resource regarding the SFP/OT robustness quality attribute in any way I can. Feel free to reach out. 

 

all my best, 

Stephen

[Puma Cat]

Hi Gang,

Sorry I've been away since my last post...I've been VERY busy my first articles for The Absolute Sound. 

 

Just wanted to update my previous post about the ER:

 

I've now obtained a 10Gtek 850nM optical transceiver, the one that Alex and Uptone Audio recommends.

 

It worked upon first install and has been functioning perfectly since. No dropouts, and to date, no issues with it the optical transceiver disconnecting from barely touching or moving the ER. 

 

So far, so good, and I'll update my observations and final thoughts with time as I use this new optical transceiver. 

 

Cheers, gang. 

[Puma Cat]

On 11/18/2019 at 7:32 PM, Superdad said:

While the galvanic isolation, low noise power supplies, and low-jitter oscillators common to the very fine Sonore and UpTone products are important and comparable, the EtherREGEN is about more than that. Its active differential isolation moat and ultra-low-jitter reclocking flops aim to erase the phase-noise fingerprint of upstream clocks--which cause ground- and power-plane noise on the board and inside the chips. This is what @JohnSwenson is gearing up to directly measure. And his explanation of the mechanisms will be part of the white paper which will accompany those measures.

Until such time as we are ready to publish that, all we can go on as proof of the concept are the many positive experiences which EtherREGEN users are having--including a number of opticalModule and opticalRendu owners who have posted in detail about the synergy between each of these Swenson designs.

Hi John and Alex,

Any word on this (hopefully forthcoming) white paper? Its been two months now since this was posted. Personally, this white paper would be an excellent reference for me to show to friends and fellow audiophiles about the John's discoveries of the role of high-impedance leakage currents on clock phase noise, and the benefits that ER brings in addressing this. 

 

Cheers and thanks!