EtherREGEN: Installation, Usage, Difficulty, Questions thread

[scolley]

Great post. Thank you.

 

Our listening impressions differ, but IMO your well considered dissenting  short term evaluations are an important data point to our discussions here. Thank you for that. But, I would ask, is this an apples to apples comparison?

 

What exactly has changed from your current configuration from your prior? And if - as it appears to be - more than just interjecting an ER into the chain - why do you feel the differences you are hearing should be attributed to the ER? Apologies if I’m not completely intuited the unmentioned changes you’ve made.

 

I hope the ER’s potential sonic benefits improve for you. And thank you for your honest and factual post. :-)

[One and a half]

5 hours ago, mattjtaylor2809 said:

Wow...lots to take in.

 

I didn't get the opportunity to play with my set up yesturday but hopefully will later today.

 

I did like the fact that the Zen Mini had bridged Ethernet, the idea of connecting the LAN to one port & then the STREAMER port direct to a noisy switch before then heading back to your DAC made  sense.

 

However, maybe in this example, the ER is working as an even better "Bridge" & the signal isn't travelling back to the main switch but to the A side of the ER, then isolated to the B side feeding the cleanest signal into the DAC.

 

So, in theory, this should work.

 

 

 

PS- I've been told a few times now to remove the ROON Core from the Innous, if I were to go back to having the Core on my office PC, is it still ok, even beneficial to have the music stored on the internal memory of the Innous, it's just removing the processing heavy ROON software that can create noise?

 

Cheers

Matt

 

 

The Cat8 are most likely shielded. Please replace with ordinary UTP Cat 5, this will avoid ground loops and differing potentials.

Yes, also move the Roon Core to your office PC.  I'm wondering if the Innuous is becoming obsolete, perhaps use it as an endpoint for Roon, but since it cannot accept SFP, this just complicates.

[mattjtaylor2809]

Is this a problem? I spent a bit of money on these specifically shielding Cat8 cables which have been highly recommended & have led to big improvements in SQ....I don't understand why after installing an ER I should then go backwards to un-shielded Cat 5 cables, seems counter intuitive?

[Encore]

2 hours ago, mattjtaylor2809 said:

Is this a problem? I spent a bit of money on these specifically shielding Cat8 cables which have been highly recommended & have led to big improvements in SQ....I don't understand why after installing an ER I should then go backwards to un-shielded Cat 5 cables, seems counter intuitive?

Yeah, it is confusing. John Swenson has explained it some posts, and was discussed a while back in the thread (or another, I can't quite keep track). I would say hold your horses a bit.

 

Like yours, all my Ethernet cables are shielded, so after having read John Swenson's advice, I dug out a Monoprice Ethernet Cat8 cable that I was willing to sacrifice and stripped the shielding in one end.

 

I have had it play in my system for four days (between eR and streamer PC), and while it did sound better than I remembered, I still think that my boutique cable sounds better, even though it's shielded. The Monoprice lacked weight, coherence and finesse. I have just reinserted the boutique cable, though, so I'll spend today and maybe tomorrow to come to a conclusion.

 

So in short, the sonic benefits of your fancy cables may outweigh the negatives that the shielding causes.

 

However, since you are experimenting, you might consider going back to all unshielded Ethernet cables. And then--once you have found the optimal way of connecting your Innous, eR, and DAC--you can try switching to your fancy cables.

 

This will all take time. It's very wise of you to let things settle in and listen for several days before making judgements. IME, short evaluations are close to useless. So for each change you make--unless it's obviously inferior--you should give it some days to settle in and get to know the sound of that particular combination.

 

 

Now, my boutique cable may sound better if stripped from the shielding, but I had a VERY hard time removing the stripped Monoprice cable from my streamer PC. Turns out, the shielding metal also guides the plug in and out of the female connector, so I was panicking for 10 minutes or so. I will be VERY reluctant to remove the shielding on my boutique cable. I have tried to cover the shield with masking tape, but that was too thick. I may try with a thinner type of tape.

[Johnnydev]

With a Cat7 or Cat8 cable with telecartner plugs, the grounding can be disconnected on one side.
With Supra cat8 DIY you can arrange this yourself when making your own.
Audioquest always does, they only connect the ground shield on the receiving side.

All this to prevent those ground loops.

 

Here at home I have chosen and assembled everything in that way and then in such a way that the groundshields are connected in such a way that it can be drained to the earth pin.
So everywhere 1 side connected that can find its way to earth.

All the ground shields of the ethernet cables are not connected to my two EtherRegens.

In this way you can take advantage of better Ethernet cables without suffering from disadvantages or malfunctions.

It works perfectly here

[FrankMA]

10 hours ago, mattjtaylor2809 said:

PS- I've been told a few times now to remove the ROON Core from the Innous, if I were to go back to having the Core on my office PC, is it still ok, even beneficial to have the music stored on the internal memory of the Innous, it's just removing the processing heavy ROON software that can create noise?

 

Cheers

Matt

 

 

I am running the Roon Core on a Innuos MKII SE on the A Side of the ER with no issues. Looks like you have this setup now so most noise should be killed by the ER. And the ER is now outputting the Audio to your DAC...

[Encore]

4 hours ago, Johnnydev said:

With a Cat7 or Cat8 cable with telecartner plugs, the grounding can be disconnected on one side.
With Supra cat8 DIY you can arrange this yourself when making your own.

If I hadn't already invested in a boutique cable, I might have gone with on of those recommended by you. I have checkeed out Telegärtner's website--their connectors look awfully shielded to me, so do you disconnect the shield behind the actual connector? Ie. so that you don't connect the shield of the connector to the shield strands of the cable?

 

I didn't know that one can DIY Supra cables. Their CAT8 cables are quite decent-sounding, and if hadn't had the experience with the Monoprice cable that I almost couldn't remove from my streamer PC again, I would probably have tried to remove the metal shield on one of those (I have several). Maybe I should explore moving further back on the connector to disconnect the shield at the source, so to speak, i.e. from the shield strands of the cable?

[mattjtaylor2809]

When referring to the metal shield on the Supra Cat 8, are you referring to the gold metal outer casing (see below) or deeper inside the cable?

 

 

I'll contact the guy in Canada who made the cables & ask whether he's grounded both ends.

 

BTW - If you did have a grounding issue &/or differing potentials, what would this sound like?

 

Cheers

Matt

[Encore]

39 minutes ago, mattjtaylor2809 said:

When referring to the metal shield on the Supra Cat 8, are you referring to the gold metal outer casing (see below) or deeper inside the cable?

 

 

I'll contact the guy in Canada who made the cables & ask whether he's grounded both ends.

 

BTW - If you did have a grounding issue &/or differing potentials, what would this sound like?

 

Cheers

Matt

Yes, those are the ones. If you put a multimeter probe on both ends, you'll find that they are connected. What i did with my Monoprice cable--and what gave me problems--was to forcefully remove the shield.

 

I can't say exactly what a leakage loop would sound like, as I don't know yet if it's a problem in my system. But I recently discovered that I had a ground loop btw. my DAC and amp. Eliminating that gave more resolution, quieter background, more authoritative bass, and better dynamics. Not night and day, but very nice. I could imagine that eliminating leakage loops would be similar in character.

 

Make sure to distinguish between leakage loops and ground loops. They are not the same. John Swenson has explained this elsehwere. Try search the forum for posts on leakage and ground loops posted by John Swenson.

[MarkusBarkus]

...if you have a VOM (Volt Ohm Meter) you can check for continuity yourself. This issue is not the shielding per se (although that may have a sonic signature) it is the shield connecting two devices. A "floating shield" is a shielded cable, but connected at only one end (or neither end). 

[Johnnydev]

1 hour ago, mattjtaylor2809 said:

When referring to the metal shield on the Supra Cat 8, are you referring to the gold metal outer casing (see below) or deeper inside the cable?

 

 

I'll contact the guy in Canada who made the cables & ask whether he's grounded both ends.

 

BTW - If you did have a grounding issue &/or differing potentials, what would this sound like?

 

Cheers

Matt

no, leave the plug intact.

When assembling the supra cat8 yourself, you can internally control in the plug on which side you do not want the shield connected.

 

By the way, that is in almost all cases the best, as long as you find out on which side the shield is connected, and that drainage to the ground can also take place there.

[PYP]

Are all of you talking about the cable feeding the eR?  IIRC, Alex said that the shielding issue does not apply to the cable between the eR and DAC.  In my setup, the cable leading to the DAC made the largest contribution to better sound (YMMV).  

 

At any rate, experimenting may still be needed.   I started with mono price cables feeding the eR and between the two eRs and saved the fancy cable to use between the second eR and the DAC.  Sounded very good.  Since I had another fancy cable, I tried that between the eRs and the sound was better (not huge difference but worthwhile).  That said, I have no idea about how the two boutique cables actually ground their cables.  

 

@Encore's advice to get the big stuff right first (how it all connects) is sensible -- cables are often a tweak that fine tunes the system-- as is the point that it takes time to settle in.   The boutique cables took two weeks to settle into my system.    

 

John's posts are very informative and have contributed a lot to the better sound of my system (and his designs too, of course:  JS-2, eR, LPS 1.2).  Even with all of his experience and knowledge, he often notes that "it all depends" because of all the variables across systems as well as some unknowns.   I found it beneficial to keep that in mind.  

[Johnnydev]

12 minutes ago, PYP said:

Are all of you talking about the cable feeding the eR?  IIRC, Alex said that the shielding issue does not apply to the cable between the eR and DAC.  In my setup, the cable leading to the DAC made the largest contribution to better sound (YMMV).  

 

At any rate, experimenting may still be needed.   I started with mono price cables feeding the eR and between the two eRs and saved the fancy cable to use between the second eR and the DAC.  Sounded very good.  Since I had another fancy cable, I tried that between the eRs and the sound was better (not huge difference but worthwhile).  That said, I have no idea about how the two boutique cables actually ground their cables.  

 

@Encore's advice to get the big stuff right first (how it all connects) is sensible -- cables are often a tweak that fine tunes the system-- as is the point that it takes time to settle in.   The boutique cables took two weeks to settle into my system.    

 

John's posts are very informative and have contributed a lot to the better sound of my system (and his designs too, of course:  JS-2, eR, LPS 1.2).  Even with all of his experience and knowledge, he often notes that "it all depends" because of all the variables across systems as well as some unknowns.   I found it beneficial to keep that in mind.  

yes you are right.  By me is the minimum time to settle in 2 weeks, but better 500 hours and that applies to all cables, including power supplies and even fuses. 

[Encore]

19 minutes ago, PYP said:

@Encore's advice to get the big stuff right first (how it all connects) is sensible -- cables are often a tweak that fine tunes the system-- as is the point that it takes time to settle in.   The boutique cables took two weeks to settle into my system.    

 

John's posts are very informative and have contributed a lot to the better sound of my system (and his designs too, of course:  JS-2, eR, LPS 1.2).  Even with all of his experience and knowledge, he often notes that "it all depends" because of all the variables across systems as well as some unknowns.  

Also because with shielded cables, Matt may have a leakage loop in one config and not in another. This will give a "false" result.

[R1200CL]

2 hours ago, mattjtaylor2809 said:

When referring to the metal shield on the Supra Cat 8, are you referring to the gold metal outer casing (see below) or deeper inside the cable?

Yes. 
 

Anyway a shielded connector like the Telegartner is good, and better than any plastic connector. The point is the shield of the cable must NOT be connected to the connector. This cable is probably the best shielded cable  you can get, done without connecting the shields.  https://www.ghentaudio.com/pc/et11.html (and purchase some good DC cables as well if not done)
 

A very good other option is Blue Jeans Cables. https://www.bluejeanscable.com/, where no shield is present. Your wallet to decide. 
 

Leave you Roon core where it is 😀

Please read this as well:

(It’s later known as JSSG360) 

 

[Encore]

2 hours ago, PYP said:

Are all of you talking about the cable feeding the eR?  IIRC, Alex said that the shielding issue does not apply to the cable between the eR and DAC.  In my setup, the cable leading to the DAC made the largest contribution to better sound (YMMV). 

I missed this. That may explain why it didn't help to insert a cable without shielding between the eR and my streamer PC (which sends AES/EBU to my DAC). In fact, I concluded that my boutique Ethernet cable has developed over the months--the difference to a Monoprice cable was larger than when the cable was (relatively) new.

 

 

 

 

[One and a half]

15 hours ago, mattjtaylor2809 said:

Is this a problem? I spent a bit of money on these specifically shielding Cat8 cables which have been highly recommended & have led to big improvements in SQ....I don't understand why after installing an ER I should then go backwards to un-shielded Cat 5 cables, seems counter intuitive?

When using the DX filters with shielded cables, the difference is notable. DX filtering attenuates picked up noise on Ethernet cables, so the common mode noise that's still present, is conducted by the shield. The cables are dirt cheap, I would advise a trial without much money spent.

Shielded cables are great BUT. There needs to be a parallel run of an earth cable that runs with it, star grounding schemes, for Ethernet, that's not so simple. Easier on the power AC side, but when long lengths are involved with many nodes, problems arise.

[FIndingit]

1 hour ago, One and a half said:

When using the DX filters with shielded cables, the difference is notable. DX filtering attenuates picked up noise on Ethernet cables, so the common mode noise that's still present, is conducted by the shield. The cables are dirt cheap, I would advise a trial without much money spent.

Shielded cables are great BUT. There needs to be a parallel run of an earth cable that runs with it, star grounding schemes, for Ethernet, that's not so simple. Easier on the power AC side, but when long lengths are involved with many nodes, problems arise.

But the DX filters themselves have no ground. 

[mattjtaylor2809]

8 hours ago, R1200CL said:

Yes. 
 

Anyway a shielded connector like the Telegartner is good, and better than any plastic connector. The point is the shield of the cable must NOT be connected to the connector. This cable is probably the best shielded cable  you can get, done without connecting the shields.  https://www.ghentaudio.com/pc/et11.html (and purchase some good DC cables as well if not done)
 

A very good other option is Blue Jeans Cables. https://www.bluejeanscable.com/, where no shield is present. Your wallet to decide. 
 

Leave you Roon core where it is 😀

 

 

I've just looked at the GentAudio website & I'm happy to buy some new RJ45 cables but it's not obvious that either version they have for sale is ungrounded at one end or does that not matter, as long as the shielding isn't connected to the outer connector?

 

With this design, does Cat 6 or Cat8 matter, I like the look of these ET12 Cat8 cables?

 

https://www.ghentaudio.com/pc/et12.html

 

I started to read John's DIY DC Power cable thread but at 51 pages long...😬

 

Cheers

Matt

[mattjtaylor2809]

These are the cables I bought 18 months ago & are currently installed.

 

https://www.canuckaudiomart.com/details/649815803-finest-digital-solution-premium-ethernet-that-outshines-the-competition-no-risk-purchase-20-off/?utm_source=featured_ad&utm_medium=web&utm_content=category&utm_campaign=category-featured-ad-click&utm_term=649815803

 

The Telegartner connectors are the same connectors that Shunyata, Siltech and CrystalConnect use on their Multi Thousand Dollar Ethernet cables. The Telegartner Connectors are Impedance matched and shielded, to ensure the flow of data without external influence.

 

The silver cables I have are 22 gauge and made in the USA by a Military Defense Contractor for an Audiophile Cable distributor that supplies me with raw cable. The surface area of the silver coating is polished to a perfect surface.

 

This cable is specifically designed for the audiophile market and it is the latest CAT8 Ethernet standard. This standard calls for individual shielding on each twisted pair and a braided shield over the 4 twisted pairs. It has a 10%+ Silver coating (not Plated), over Solid Core audio grade OFHCC Copper cable. This is greater than 25% more copper plus silver over a normal 24 Gauge cable. This increased, 22 gauge cable requires special Terminations that accommodate the larger cable size. The Silver cable's increased gauge and silver coating, offers up silent EMI/RFI characteristics and minimizes errors and internal reflections. The increased gauge gives more depth, detail and range.

 

To put pricing into perspective, AudioQuest CAT7 Vodka which is 10% Silver and uses Telegartner CAT6 Terminations for 1.5 Meters, is $469 US or $620 CDN.
 

[One and a half]

2 hours ago, FIndingit said:

But the DX filters themselves have no ground. 

They do maintain the shield of the connector.

[One and a half]

12 minutes ago, mattjtaylor2809 said:

 

I've just looked at the GentAudio website & I'm happy to buy some new RJ45 cables but it's not obvious that either version they have for sale is ungrounded at one end or does that not matter, as long as the shielding isn't connected to the outer connector?

 

With this design, does Cat 6 or Cat8 matter, I like the look of these ET12 Cat8 cables?

 

https://www.ghentaudio.com/pc/et12.html

 

I started to read John's DIY DC Power cable thread but at 51 pages long...😬

 

Cheers

Matt

No need to look too hard, the local Jaycar can fix you up, UTP Cat5e is more than adequate for speed.. Just to prove a point.

[mattjtaylor2809]

Confirmation from the builder of my Cat8 cables, i.e,

 

"I use an EtherRegen myself with my cables. The cables have no grounding connected between outer shield and connectors.  Telegartner does provide for this in instructions with a drain wire but I choose not to have a ground connection in my construction."

 

That clears that up.

 

Cheers all

Matt

 

PS - I'll keep the config as it for a while (i.e. ER in between Innous Server/Streamer on the A Side & my DAC on the B-side) but I'd say the SQ has decreased as it's become more strident, sibilant & I've lost any form of top end detail....quite fatiguing but I'll persist for a few more days.

[R1200CL]

4 hours ago, mattjtaylor2809 said:

 

I've just looked at the GentAudio website & I'm happy to buy some new RJ45 cables but it's not obvious that either version they have for sale is ungrounded at one end or does that not matter, as long as the shielding isn't connected to the outer connector?

 

With this design, does Cat 6 or Cat8 matter, I like the look of these ET12 Cat8 cables?

 

https://www.ghentaudio.com/pc/et12.html

 

I started to read John's DIY DC Power cable thread but at 51 pages long...😬

 

Cheers

Matt

None of Ghent’s cables has cable shield connected to the plugs. (Hence he says JSSG360). 
 

Quote

With this design, does Cat 6 or Cat8 matter

I would say no. 

 

The cables you have doesn’t use the Faraday Cage technology suggested by John. 
(I’m not saying they’re not any good). 

[R1200CL]

……..interesting https://www.neutrik.com/en/products/data/ethercon

 

But I don’t know about any switches using those plugs. Or endpoints. 

https://www.ghentaudio.com/pc/et21.html