sandervdp Posted January 6, 2020 Share Posted January 6, 2020 hi all, I received the Farad Power Supply a couple of weeks ago. From the start, there was a noticeable improvement. @Superdad is right that you don't need fancy power supplies, as the EtherRegen itself already is a considerable improvement. But the Farad sure brings out more of the good stuff. The Farad comes standard with a generic DC cable. I'm thinking of ordering a better version. Now I'm confused about what I've read. In the post from @JohnSwenson about DC cables, he recommends thick wires, star quad configuration, e.g. the Ghent Canare 4s6. However, I remember Alex mentioning he thinks the Gotham GAC4/1 is a good option. which is also star quad, but using a lot of tiny 38AWG conductors to make only 22AWG. And if I look at the Farad cables, their best cable (level 2) is also made of thinner wires run in parallel, which seems to run counter to John's advice? So my question, in this setup (farad to etherregen) what would be the better option out of these three; the higher gauge Canare 4s6 JSSG360, the Gotham GAC4/1 UltraPro JSSG360 or Farad's own option using lots of thin, tin plated copper wire? Link to comment
Popular Post sandervdp Posted January 7, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted January 7, 2020 @HumanMedia I find the differences between Farad and SMPS hard to describe. It's similar to what the EtherRegen itself brings; music is easier to listen to, more stress free. Once you remove a certain amount of noise, you hear more of the original music. I find it easiest to hear with string instruments and vocals. It sounds more like the real thing. That's what the ER was doing, and that's what a better power supply for the ER is doing (and also what I2S was doing vs USB in my system). The SMPS was in the same (dedicated) circuit as my streamer, dac and amp, so part of the improvement might also result from less switching mode noise going into those components, don't know. I do have the Farad configured as a 12v, so Incus's comments in the other thread preferring 7v over 12v have me slightly worried ;) But I think either is fine, and I do remember John Swenson recommending 12v for an ER power supply (can't seem to find that thread now, but it's here on AS somewhere) Thanks all for the tips on dc cables, will go with the cheaper Neotech 7N solid core copper for now, and will definitely try the audio sensibility solid core silver some day.. gstew, HumanMedia and soares 1 2 Link to comment
sandervdp Posted June 16, 2020 Share Posted June 16, 2020 I've also had Supra Cat8, replaced that with Ghent JSSG as I much preferred the latter (at the time Ghent didn't have the JSSG360) I've since swapped out a few Ghent JSSG cables for Ghent JSSG360 cables (namely etherregen to streamer, and streamer to dac (which is connected via I2S RJ45), and the 360 seems even better skatbelt 1 Link to comment
sandervdp Posted July 3, 2020 Share Posted July 3, 2020 After enjoying the EtherRegen for more than 6 months now, have decided to go ahead and order a second one The EtherRegen has so dramatically increased the enjoyment I get out of my set music, that it's worth seeing what another one upstream might do See below for my system setup. The EtherRegen will replace the Netgear in this setup. Any ideas on how the moat should be crossed? Cable modem on the b-side, everything else (oppo, mac mini, apple tv, downstream etherregen) on the a-side? That should isolate it from the rest of the network most, right? And the second etherregen will create another moat to isolate the streamer from the server/etc. Is that correct? And is it worth experimenting with fiber in between the etherregens? Also happy to hear any other suggestions for experiments FrankMA 1 Link to comment
Popular Post sandervdp Posted July 6, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted July 6, 2020 hi all, thanks for the comments, really helpful i've attached topologies of various experiments, and a very subjective score on my enjoyment as a result hopefully that gives some insight and what works and doesn't work in my system - 1: ran microrendu, ultrarendu for a long time, which I never really enjoyed for some reason, could be totaldac not liking the usb - 2: big change when I switched to the Ambre, and ran AES/EBU into the totaldac - 3: small improvement with an Adagio replacing the totaldac (possibly due to I2S, definitely better than AES/EBU on the Adagio) - 4: this is where I started, as suggested by @simon_pepper was pretty good - 5: tried the etherregen closer to the streamer, with SMPS plugged into shared circuit, not good, all digital harsh was back, this was worse than the netgear - 6: the SMPS powering the etherregen from the dedicated circuit was a big improvement, and best setup till then - 7: the Farad brought a nice improvement, really happy with the sound currently I replaced the SMPS from the cable modem with a medical grade SMPS, but no noteworthy changes, so don't feel like experimenting more upstream, unless you all think otherwise. I liked the suggestions for the OpticalModule However, I also use this system to stream netflix/movies (oppo connected to dac over s/pdif) So was thinking that an upstream etherregen would improve the quality of the apple tv stream signal as well, an optical module would not do that I see couple of experiments for the upstream etherregen: - router on B, everything else on A, to create a moat from the ISP/rest of the network - in this setup, could try fiber to isolate the two etherregens even more - all equipment on A, B to downstream etherregen to create double moat Will post back if the etherregen comes in and can run these experiments thanks all for your thoughts so far skatbelt, Maceear and Superdad 3 Link to comment
sandervdp Posted July 6, 2020 Share Posted July 6, 2020 9 minutes ago, simon_pepper said: Ok, so try a derivation of this one, with the Farad Super3 on the dedicated Power Circuit powering the EtherREGEN. The JS-2 is still on the MacMini, and maybe the now spare 12v that was on the EtherREGEN on the ISP Modem/Router, thar just so it doesn’t go to waste! Hi Simon, thanks for this suggestion, but not sure how to pull that off. There's only 1 outlet on the dedicated power circuit, which is roughly 10m away from the mac mini/oppo/atv. And the router is another 25m away from that location Link to comment
sandervdp Posted July 6, 2020 Share Posted July 6, 2020 11 minutes ago, jamesg11 said: Sandervdp, with the 9+ setup - I assume your tv input is from the netgear via apple & oppo, not from the ER? hi james, correct, the apple tv is connected to the netgear, then from there the apple tv's HDMI goes into the back of the oppo, which goes via HDMI into a projector and S/PDIF into the dac Link to comment
sandervdp Posted July 6, 2020 Share Posted July 6, 2020 the oppo has s/pdif out to the dac, much better than optical out from the mac mini so that's why the apple tv goes into the oppo the 9+ is only referencing the sound from the MacMini source (mainly local FLACs) to Ambre btw. The sound from Apple TV (e.g. when watching netflix) seems to be significantly less Not sure if that is due to compression or leakage/noise/cheap clocks BluRay is much, much better than netflix via ATV and a lot closer to MacMini/Ambre Still have to try Netflix on Oppo (a bit clumsy to control, but if SQ is much better could be worth it) Link to comment
Popular Post sandervdp Posted July 7, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted July 7, 2020 8 minutes ago, Vangelis said: Does higher voltage sound better or is the 7v just fine? I was fortunate enough to try all 3 voltages side by side In my system, the 7v sounded slightly better I think one or two others were also able to compare and found the same Differences between them are very small though, my guess is you'll like what you'll hear no matter the voltage HumanMedia and soares 2 Link to comment
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