Article: UpTone Audio EtherREGEN Review and Comparison

[Le Concombre Masqué]

Looks admirably thorough but have you tried with cheap CAT6 UTP cables, you know the ones with plastic connectors so they don't create ground issues to start with?

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15 hours ago, Nenon said:

 

Have you actually read the review? Let me point one part out:

Have you looked at any of the diagrams that clearly list "generic cat 6 cable"? I counted at least 15 diagrams, so that should have been obvious.

 

Rajiv did not specify that, but this review is about cutting edge technology. Yes, those cheap CAT6 UTP cables with plastic connectors made a huge difference what feels like ages ago when everything digital was a ground noise bomb.

If I was still using a cheap laptop connected to my all-in-one cable modem via Ethernet and directly connected to my DAC via the USB cable provided with my printer - yes, they would make a significant difference over the ones with metal connectors that pass the ground from one device to another. But also, not every ethernet cable with metal connectors passes the ground from one end to another.

 

When you have a complex system like Rajiv's with multiple custom Paul Hynes DR SR 7's connected to your network devices, fiber isolation, multiple well designed switches clock synced by a top reference clock, JCAT Net Femto NIC powered by another Paul Hynes LPS, and so on - I can tell you what happens to those cheap CAT6 UTP cables with plastic connectors - you throw them in the garbage because they are the biggest enemy of your sound system. That's what happens :).

 

I will tell you this - I had a JCAT Reference Ethernet cable that I had to replace with a regular cheap cable (pretty well made actually). The sound stage collapsed, the clarity disappeared, everything went downhill with my Qobuz streaming. I have no desire to listen to Qobuz until that cable is back in my system, because I know what I am missing. And I actually have both - the Melco and the etherREGEN switches currently connected together like in the review above.

Rajiv was delicate enough not to open up this can of worms but ethernet cables make as much difference as the switches in this review. And most of these cheap cables with the plastic connectors are actually horrible.

 

Sorry if I am too harsh, but I wanted to send a clear message out there. Nothing personal. Those conversations about Ethernet cables and switches and the useless never ending debates have been had over and over in this forum and I am kind of getting tired of hearing them.

 

@austinpop deserves a big thank you for the honest and very well thought out review.

He even gave credit to the manufacturers who declined or did not respond to the request for review samples. How many honest reviewers are left out there that would do that? I don't know because I stopped reading audiophile magazines a while ago and stopped getting any influence by reviewers. But this review is really good.

thank you. My remark was based on the "Associated Equipment" listing. I went for it in seconds and therefore haven't actually read the review as you correctly assumed. Now I will read the article with the attention it deserves (you obviously did). However not in too much of a hurry ; I'm not yet convinced it matters the slightest fraction of attention in room response deserves.

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5 hours ago, Nenon said:

Can't disagree with the importance of the room. I give the room 50% in my system. It's more important than any single component. 

I'm not in headphones for ages, so went over Harman's et al research in a swift, but it seems that, even more than room correction, headphone correction is needed since most masterings are done for and with speakers in rooms where room gain lifts the LF. Since Rajiv does not mention any such thing and since I've only seen headphones in his equipment, I hope he's not spending fortunes in minute details to compensate for a way off in very measurable decibels in ears response. 

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37 minutes ago, austinpop said:

May I ask how any of this is relevant to the topic at hand? You seem to want to debate room correction and/or headphone equalization in thread about an ethernet switch review. 

 

 

Trust me, he's not. (Referring to myself in the 3rd person. )

 

no no I do want to debate room correction and/or headphone equalization in thread about an ethernet switch review. 

I meant : compared to x change, if x change yields a 10 difference out a scale of 10, then y change has  a zyx value, that is.... i picked headphone equalization as an example for x, etherregen being the y ; pick whatever you want in place of headphone equalization, ie, a change of  SPL by volume selector we all have one place or another.

It's a general issue I have with any review : how to scale what a change brings compared to other types of changes.

Maybe this could be an hygiene for any review : once we have found huge differences through whatever gear or setting, let's listen 1 or 2 dB softer and louder and recalibrate our impressions

 

[Le Concombre Masqué]

17 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

That's a fair point, and something I'm very aware of. The language of describing sonic differences can exaggerate the magnitude. Hopefully you actually read my review, but if you just skimmed, please do take a look at my Reflections section, where I talk to exactly this point.

And you do it very well