So I've had an EtherRegen in rack for 2 weeks...

[Jud]

Just wanted to mention that I'm very pleased indeed with the subjective effect of my ER. I was somewhat skeptical and not at all expecting it to make the subjective difference it did.

 

Of course I realize this could very well be a purely subjective effect, since I've done no objective testing whatever. Yet I've never enjoyed my music more or wanted to listen so often. So I'm very happy.

[Jud]

4 hours ago, plissken said:

 

I wish the power of suggestion held that amount of sway for me.

 

 

Who knows, maybe it does.  

 

[Jud]

6 minutes ago, m3lraaHnevetS said:

huh? one troll pulling the disagree card get's my reply deleted? that's gay effective trolling right there, respect 😉 

 

You might wanna take the bigotry somewhere else. This place is about having fun with audio.

[Jud]

4 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

But if you're happy...

 

and you know it, clap your hands.

 

I am, very much so. Entirely personal and subjective impression, of course.

 

4 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

 

Plissken has done something worthwhile and valuable, while expending a lot more effort than someone who just buys and says gosh my confirmation bias sounds great!

 

Was this somewhere other than the original post? Or was it the other side of the subjective coin? If the former, please point me to it.

 

4 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

I'd prefer to see blinded listening tests however, but I'm a subjectivist.

 

Blind tests with negative results must be considered subjective unless (1) The test is set up so as to detect failure to discern actual difference, and (2) The procedure intended to detect whether or not a difference exists has been proved effective.

[Jud]

14 hours ago, plissken said:

 

But there is a sure fire way to shut me up. Any takers?

 

This is what I was writing about in my last handful of comments.

 

- Do we know if your procedure will work to find a difference if one exists? Any data showing it does?

 

- Is there any protection built into your procedure against a bias that there is no difference?

 

Unless these two things are both true, what we have is an interesting subjective report that should be helpful for people who have found in the past that they have subjective tastes similar to yours.

 

Those like myself who have a subjective liking for the piece do of course have to acknowledge there are currently no supportive measurement data.

[Jud]

Do we have any actual data on whether plissken's cable pulling posts now outnumber Alex's regarding digitally identical files sounding different?

[Jud]

Just now, sandyk said:

 

What brought this on Jud ?

 I have had very little to say in this thread, and that was several pages back about the mediocre playback equipment he is using.

 

Alex

 

I thought it might highlight for plissken, in a somewhat humorous way, that he had about as much chance of convincing anyone who wasn't already convinced at this point as the odds he would suddenly agree with you.

 

And I hoped it would be all right with you, my friend. No disrespect whatever intended. If I have offended, I apologize.

[Jud]

3 minutes ago, plissken said:

So Sandy. Do you, or do you not understand Clock Domain boundaries and how they negate input Jitter?

 

Not Sandy, but are you just talking about the way an async USB input (for example) works, or something else?

[Jud]

16 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

No. Earlier I posted a picture of my 10GBe SFP+ NIC. It has a quarter Gigabyte of RAM on it. I pointed out that this is going to buffer input so any jitter on the inbound would cease.

So a buffer eliminates any jitter in the DAC whatever, no more worries?

[Jud]

2 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

The buffer on an Ethernet NIC eliminates the input jitter from the Ethernet switch segment that it is on. Not sure why USB DAC's keep getting dragged into this. We are talking about Ethernet.

 

Because a DAC is where we are interested in jitter.

[Jud]

4 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

Not at all Chris.

 

What these I/O buffers do is solve a design problem: What to do when you two different clock domains. Ethernet runs at one speed, PCI-E at another. You can't sync these up in real time in any reasonably manageable way.

 

So along comes a bit of buffer that allows inputs and outputs to run at their own rate with some form of management software or firmware that controls the buffer so it doesn't over/under fill.

 

They eliminate jitter.

You're describing async interfaces with I/O buffers, yes?

[Jud]

18 hours ago, plissken said:

 

Can we agree on this: Jitter is a variance in what would be the otherwise optimal timing of a signal? Can we also agree that there is always going to be some jitter on all signals if we get a powerful enough measurement device on it?

 

Sure. The question is always going to be whether the jitter is at a level that causes concern, whether by virtue of a certain amount of measured distortion or audible noise.

 

Please listen to these two files and tell me what you hear. Note the quality isn't the best because they were made simply by holding an iPhone in front of speakers more than 3 years ago.

 

1A.m4a A1.m4a

[Jud]

1 hour ago, plissken said:

 

Ok so this will bring me to a point I want to make:

If we can agree on the fact that jitter is variance outside of perfect/optimal timing, and I start play back, and cause the largest possible jitter, and that is pulling the Ethernet cable, and the music still plays. Trust me you pull an Ethernet cable mid transfer you've created an incredible amount of jitter.

 

What does any jitter on the Ethernet input have to do with any jitter a USB / AES-EBU / S-PDif may introduce?

 

What did you hear when listening to those files?

[Jud]

4 hours ago, Confused said:

Out of curiosity, I had a listen to these two this morning.  Lets just say one sounded quite good considering it was recorded with an iPhone, the other did not.  The bad one sounded a bit like a reel to reel tape recorder that had seen better days and is in need of a service, lots of wow and flutter and electrical issues.  I assume something else was in play though?

 

Appreciate it. Want to give plissken time to have a listen because I think it may be relevant to some of what's been discussed here in his thread.

[Jud]

11 hours ago, Confused said:

Out of curiosity, I had a listen to these two this morning.  Lets just say one sounded quite good considering it was recorded with an iPhone, the other did not.  The bad one sounded a bit like a reel to reel tape recorder that had seen better days and is in need of a service, lots of wow and flutter and electrical issues.  I assume something else was in play though?

 

23 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

1 track is louder (either higher gain, closer mic source, or compression) and for lack of a better term had some ringing and sibilant like quality to it.

 

But both sounded pretty bad.

 

Interesting. @Confused's description, for what it's worth, is much, much closer to the way it sounded in the room.

 

One file (the worse one) was recorded when there was a noise loop in the system; the other of the same track with a small configuration change that stopped the noise loop. Without the noise loop, the track sounded very good indeed in the room; with it, it sounded terrible, obviously distorted. @Confused's description of sounding like wow and flutter with "electrical issues" (static-sounding noises) is apt.

 

The noise loop involved the Ethernet connection in the system between router and NIC. The reason I know this is because inserting a Baaske Ethernet isolation transformer in that connection reduced the noise/distortion significantly, though it didn't eliminate it altogether.

 

So we know from this that the Ethernet connection between router (or switch) and NIC is capable of being involved in noise loops in the system, perhaps significant enough to be very audible, as this one was, or perhaps not plainly audible, but enough to mask low-level musical detail (or enough to affect the clock in the DAC?).

 

Obviously UpTone can't be held to my (lack of) understanding of how the ER is supposed to operate regarding jitter, but my impression was that it wasn't surmised jitter was literally jumping clock domains; rather, it had to do with the electrical effect of clock edges being transmitted through the system. Whether this is correct or, even if correct, is significant enough to make an audible difference is something I don't know, and which at the moment at least has not been demonstrated by measurement.

 

Perhaps the ER might simply potentially reduce noise being transmitted via Ethernet (as I and anyone who listens to these files will realize it can be), and have no particular effect on jitter. Perhaps there are other ways to do this, and perhaps at least some of them might be cheaper. I don't know; it's just speculation on my part, other than knowing from having heard it myself and recorded it that a significant amount of noise can be transmitted through a system via Ethernet. But it seems to me this fact means a sonic improvement in an audio system by means of the ER is at least possible.

[Jud]

1 minute ago, plissken said:

 

I understand what you are saying but I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. As I wasn't there I have only your word to go on.

 

Are you saying you think an audiophile switch would have solved this?

 

Don't know. I just know that Ethernet connections are capable of being involved in noise loops, and at least some types of noise (for example, leakage current) are what the ER purports to reduce. It's also interesting that another common solution for leakage current, an Ethernet isolation transformer, did reduce the noise/distortion but did not eliminate it.

 

1 minute ago, plissken said:

 

Do you know the type of cabling that was in use?

 

Absolute stock Ethernet cable. (I don't think I had the Blue Jeans cable in the system yet.)

 

1 minute ago, plissken said:

Was the person that set up the system competent?

 

Only as competent as me.  I'm no genius, but I usually do OK.

 

1 minute ago, plissken said:

Was any of the network equipment modified as Audiophile owners are want to do?

 

No.

 

1 minute ago, plissken said:

 

If you think an audiophile switch would solve this how do you know another off the shelf switch wouldn't?

 

As I said, I don't know if the ER would have eliminated the noise loop, just that at least some of what it purports to do (reduce or eliminate leakage current) appeared to help matters when implemented by way of the Baaske Ethernet isolation transformer. My off-the-shelf router didn't solve the problem.

 

1 minute ago, plissken said:

What's the possibility of faulty hardware?

 

While I can't say there was no faulty hardware anywhere in the system, I can tell you that what totally resolved the problem was running my MacBook Pro from battery rather than its SMPS. (Running my DAC and a CuBox that was also in the system from battery did not help.)

 

1 minute ago, plissken said:

I know what wow and flutter sound like. What I heard was more ringing and sibilant sound along with a higher noise floor. I did nothing but setup Audio Edit studios for 7 years. I would suggest direct connecting output from the preamp to an ADC with Heaphone Monitor loop.

 

Higher noise floor for sure. However, in the room it definitely sounded like flutter - I dubbed it the "warble."

 

1 minute ago, plissken said:

I'm up for a get together, and in part explore this.

 

You're more than welcome any time, my friend. However, I no longer have some of the components involved in this, and my system configuration has changed, so we can't test causes and solutions to this particular problem. Also, I now live in the Desert Southwest. That of course means this is a very nice place to visit, but it might be some distance for you.

[Jud]

Just now, jabbr said:

There needs no hand waving to say that all sorts of equipment— not only audio— can result in “ground loops” or more generally common mode noise.

 

Yep. When designing the inside of a component you might run a circuit simulator to eliminate problems in the layout and interconnections, because the combinations and permutations of even a relatively small number of components and interconnections can get complicated pretty quickly. But we don't run simulators to see what sorts of noise loops might exist with the multiple components and interconnections in our audio systems.

[Jud]

1 minute ago, plissken said:

 

I think f'd up networking is a possibility. It could even be a wiring at the wall jack problem.

 

What I do know is that you were at an event with a compromised system and not a single one of you were capable enough to resolve it without resorting to bandaids.

So that's my take on it.

 

It was just me at home.  Of course I resolved it, but because it was unusual I took the trouble to record it.

 

[Jud]

1 minute ago, plissken said:

 

If I have vinyl spinning and I place my finger on the transport to alter it's speed I hear wow and flutter. It's pitch shifting. What I heard was ringing, distortion, higher noise floor.

 

That's fine. Everyone who wants to can listen and decide for themselves what it sounds like to them. But we're agreed there was plainly audible noise and distortion.

[Jud]

32 minutes ago, plissken said:

I just spent $214 and went with optical isolation that is 3000% faster.

 

I see you edited your response.

 

What's interesting is that I resolved the noise loop not on the networking side, which remained the same, but by simplifying the configuration on the power side of the system.

 

Even with optical Ethernet, you're still plugging stuff in. In that regard, I note the ER comes with an inexpensive power supply with a ground shunt for leakage current.

[Jud]

Just now, jabbr said:

Right so the Ethernet switch could be a huge red herring. Any cheap SMPS could infect your system.

 

My isolation transformer blocks that ... and only fiber in.

 

That said, it’s great that manuf are paying attention to these issues.

 

Yes, I have no way of knowing if the ER would have resolved this specific problem, only that Ethernet can be involved in carrying noise loops, and certainly that the power to our equipment can be involved in that as well. (I also have my system on an isolation transformer, a Topaz unit - maybe something similar to the one you use?)

 

I've got my home wired with fiber, but haven't gone ahead and connected it yet - still using the copper system. After I retire and have time to play around with things and my separate work network is out of the way, I might want to do something about that.

[Jud]

On 2/16/2020 at 5:09 PM, plissken said:

 

T.I.'s paper on radiated emissions of 10/100 Ethernet PHY speaks plainly to the Achilles heel of single ended power supplies on network gear.

 

If I want Wi-Fi 6 capability, and all the power supplies on my network gear to be balanced, what would you suggest and what would the pricing be like?

 

Edit: One other thing, I would like these not to be potential sources of leakage current.

[Jud]

4 minutes ago, plissken said:

 

Jud, it's wireless....

 

And has a power supply, which is what I was asking about. This will be plugged into the same circuit as the audio system. Suggestions?

 

Edit: It will also have at least one wired Ethernet connection.

[Jud]

22 hours ago, plissken said:

 

Get the Furman P-2400 IT 20A. $2400. It's balanced and conditioned.

 

If you want to go 10GBe with POE the Aruba 3810 part # JL076A refurbs for $1600. Get the 670 watt supply with it if you are driving multiple WAP's. The nominal on the 3810 with no POE is ~100 watts.

 

If you don't care about leaving some bandwidth on the table the Cisco 3750X is a tank and you can get them for ~$150. Also POE.

 

Either will plug into the Furman and you drive all your wired and wireless with it. You can also add a 4 port SFP+ to the Aruba or 4 port SF+ to the 3750X and drive fiber connections.

 

I can remote and configure either switch for you. So bottom line is drive the WAPs with POE and drive the POE switch with the Furman.

 

10 hours ago, jabbr said:

 

Do you mean a Wi-Fi card like https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07SH6GV5S/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_JgbtEbTVZM09E

 

Plug it in and it’s bus powered. 
 

If you use your fiber network, and have a good iso transformer for your audio system, then you don’t need to worry about common mode noise from your network. ***

 

Some people worry about EMI from Wi-Fi — not the Wi-Fi power supply — presumably the card, but I haven’t looked into this in great detail. 
 

*** leakage current is one of the things that you get from common mode noise. If you have a balanced input and have common mode noise, the return circuit is the ground ie leakage current. Blocking common mode noise blocks leakage current. If you want to read up on this, reading about common mode noise will yield a wealth of information!

 

I very much appreciate the information from both of you. These are great suggestions, though they're not the direction I'm headed. Hopefully they'll be very helpful for others thinking about audio or any other sort of home networking.

 

Let me explain a little more about my system (though it's in my sig, more detail will probably help) and what I want to do.

 

Friend @jabbr: I do have a good iso transformer for the audio system. That transformer (a Topaz) supplies the separate circuit on which I have the system. I also already have the ER, which purports to take care of leakage current via Ethernet. I don't need an AX200 card - already have one in my office desktop, which is actually the only place I want and can use it.

 

The office desktop runs Audiirvana or occasionally HQPlayer, sending the signal via Wi-Fi to my audio system in the living room - first to my eero router (which is connected to my cable modem), from there to the ER, then to the microRendu, from there (through an IsoREGEN) to my DAC.

 

Friend @plissken: Your suggestions are great - that would be one terrific network system. But I already have a power conditioner and network setup as explained above, and $4000 (before any access points) is actually a fair amount more than I've spent at one time on audio in my life, let alone for something that would be to at least some extent redundant. (Yes, I'm sure this sounds silly to you coming from someone who paid for a $600+ switch that according to Amir's measurements and your subjective impressions is perfectly ordinary. I didn't expect a switch to make much if any difference myself, so I was already thinking about telling Alex I didn't want one before I listened. I'm also aware my conscious skepticism didn't confer immunity to getting an inaccurate subjective impression. But I did listen, did get the subjective impression I wanted one, and so here we are.)

 

I'm actually looking to replace the cable modem and router with a Wi-Fi 6 gateway, likely the Netgear CAX80, though I might rent the Comcast Wi-Fi 6 gateway in the interim if it's available substantially before the Netgear. Depending on the coverage I get from the gateway, I may keep the eeros and run them from it with a double NAT arrangement. (I'd like my office desktop and my iPhone to be using Wi-Fi 6 rather than the slower eeros.) So I just wondered if there was something inexpensive to power the Netgear that would be preferable to whatever wall wart it's going to come with; but maybe not?

 

Thanks again.

 

[Jud]

I've thought about inviting folks down for a post-RMAF Balloon Fiesta get-together. Biggest gathering of hot air balloons in the world and a great city-wide party.