Popular Post opus101 Posted March 16, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 16, 2020 4 minutes ago, Archimago said: The point is your white paper says nothing about your device being capable of changing the sound of a DAC or streamer. You would need "rocket science" (maybe quantum science!?) to suggest that these points actually result in any significant change! As I said, there's really nothing here until you guys can show some evidence that the Regen actually can make a difference - measurements would be nice. Just cherry picking one paragraph. ISTM that John Swenson isn't making any claims in his white paper about changing the sound because its very system-dependent. If he were to make claims, guys with your ideological persuasion would be even more down his throat than at present. ISTM this box is a fixer-upper and if the end user had a perfect DAC they'd experience no change at all. The reality is though DACs are all imperfect to some degree - to that degree there may be an improvement by adding the ER. There is the evidence of a considerable number of happy customers to consider - but with your ideological stance you prefer to dismiss that. As you want measurements start by telling John Swenson which measurements and why those measurements. motberg, Audiophile Neuroscience, sandyk and 4 others 2 2 3 Link to comment
Popular Post jabbr Posted March 16, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 16, 2020 1 hour ago, Superdad said: On 3/13/2020 at 10:07 PM, jabbr said: The proposed mechanism specifically predicts noise on the ground plane. Yes, and we can and have measured that. And when John's expensive new Jackson Labs PhaseStation system is delivered and set up he will be able to present DAC-clock-pin jitter comparisons to demonstrate the phase-noise effects. Since you've measured that, and haven't provided measurements, I have to assume that your measurements do not support your proposal that Ethernet phase error f +|- x causes receiver ground plane noise at x frequency. i.e. assuming your ethernet clock is 25 Mhz, your proposal suggests that phase error 25 Mhz +/- 10 Hz results in ground plane noise at 10 Hz ... right? Can you demonstrate that? It is a very specific prediction. Arpiben, pkane2001 and plissken 3 Custom room treatments for headphone users. Link to comment
plissken Posted March 16, 2020 Share Posted March 16, 2020 1 hour ago, opus101 said: There is the evidence of a considerable number of happy customers to consider - but with your ideological stance you prefer to dismiss that. I would prefer to validate that. Claims without evidence are just as easily dismissed without evidence. I would like to see what test rig UT developed against, or say at a show like RMAF or Axpona have UT provide a debiased listening session. sandyk 1 Link to comment
opus101 Posted March 16, 2020 Share Posted March 16, 2020 1 minute ago, plissken said: For myself I'm not asking about all the permutations.... I'm asking on what system UT made this happen. What is 'UT'? I'm with you on the points about jitter, despite having read the white paper I still cannot see how jitter is an issue unless DAC designers aren't implementing best practice in terms of PCB layout. Which is why I'd like examples of DACs in the marketplace where this has been screwed up. On the CM noise/isolation front, I would agree that fibre renders it a non-issue. Is anyone making a DAC which has fibre as its input? Link to comment
opus101 Posted March 16, 2020 Share Posted March 16, 2020 3 minutes ago, plissken said: I would prefer to validate that. Claims without evidence are just as easily dismissed without evidence. How would you validate it? Jud saying he's a happy punter should just be dismissed as 'no evidence' ? If not, then what? Link to comment
plissken Posted March 16, 2020 Share Posted March 16, 2020 12 minutes ago, opus101 said: What is 'UT'? I'm with you on the points about jitter, despite having read the white paper I still cannot see how jitter is an issue unless DAC designers aren't implementing best practice in terms of PCB layout. Which is why I'd like examples of DACs in the marketplace where this has been screwed up. On the CM noise/isolation front, I would agree that fibre renders it a non-issue. Is anyone making a DAC which has fibre as its input? UT = UpTone Lumin makes one. But don't miss the forest for the trees here: If copper RJE connectivity is so problematic, why does Auralic, Lumin, NAIM, Cary Audio, Cambridge etc, etc... all have that type of connectivity? Given the expensive measures I've seen many go through optical based Ethernet is kids play. Link to comment
plissken Posted March 16, 2020 Share Posted March 16, 2020 11 minutes ago, opus101 said: How would you validate it? Jud saying he's a happy punter should just be dismissed as 'no evidence' ? If not, then what? SBT testing would be one way. Capturing some output would be another. Jud posted two files where he was having some form of ground loop induced noise. I listened to them blind and could 100% pick out the problem child. Link to comment
opus101 Posted March 16, 2020 Share Posted March 16, 2020 3 minutes ago, plissken said: Lumin makes one. But don't miss the forest for the trees here: Copper RJE connectivity is so problematic, why does Auralic, Lumin, NAIM, Cary Audio, Cambridge etc, etc... all have that type of connectivity? Given the expensive measures I've seen many go through optical based Ethernet is kids play. Are you curious as to the reasons those companies make DACs with copper connectivity or are you arguing to make a point like 'Those guys make DACs with those interfaces so cannot be so problematic' ? If the former, have you asked them? If the latter, consider how many manufacturers make products with single-ended analog inputs and outputs using RCAs. Siltech817 1 Link to comment
opus101 Posted March 16, 2020 Share Posted March 16, 2020 3 minutes ago, plissken said: SBT testing would be one way. Capturing some output would be another. SBT testing of whether customers are happy? Are you serious here or just changing the focus to something not relevant to the discussion? Recall originally this was about my claim that there's evidence of happy customers. Your reply was 'I'd like to validate that' - by which you didn't mean that you didn't want just to rely on UT's claims they were happy but wanted to check for yourself? Siltech817 1 Link to comment
plissken Posted March 16, 2020 Share Posted March 16, 2020 1 minute ago, opus101 said: Are you curious as to the reasons those companies make DACs with copper connectivity or are you arguing to make a point like 'Those guys make DACs with those interfaces so cannot be so problematic' ? If the former, have you asked them? If the latter, consider how many manufacturers make products with single-ended analog inputs and outputs using RCAs. If copper based RJE is such an issue, and these are outfits with smart engineering staff... It's simply a question I believe with 1 of 2 answers: 1. Copper RJE isn't a problem 2. As a luxury item with appreciable costs for a lot of people I would hope the best possible interface technology to be right there with the rest of their products pedigree. Link to comment
plissken Posted March 16, 2020 Share Posted March 16, 2020 15 minutes ago, manueljenkin said: Umm. So, a published, reviewed paper will do? Let me know the list of things you are 100% certain of! Fr is all you need to know in a headphone? All DACs are the same? What else? I'm certain properly implemented Copper RJE will deliver stellar results in an audio system that can not be improved upon with an audiophile switch. As I've mentioned I'm willing to pay out to be disabused of the notion. Anyone can PM me for details. Link to comment
plissken Posted March 16, 2020 Share Posted March 16, 2020 3 minutes ago, manueljenkin said: Adding to that. We have things like packet loss etc. I've heard real packet loss, buffer underrun, etc by tweaking my buffer settings keeping the rest of the things bit-perfect. You don't necessarily need to hear drastic clicks or pops (though I was able to make it worse enough for that scenario also to happen). The lesser ones just get concealed (delta Sigma dac acts as a natural packet loss concealer). Are you talking about USB packets or IP? Link to comment
manueljenkin Posted March 16, 2020 Share Posted March 16, 2020 1 minute ago, plissken said: Are you talking about USB packets or IP? Got carried away. Was talking about usb packets. Not ethernet. Transmission error still holds. But if you can configure the protocol well enough you can do error correction I suppose. Usb audio protocol doesn't do it. Link to comment
Popular Post jabbr Posted March 16, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 16, 2020 1 hour ago, manueljenkin said: Got carried away. Was talking about usb packets. Not ethernet. That's ok, hardly anyone is talking about Ethernet here 😂 plissken, DuckToller, alfe and 2 others 5 Custom room treatments for headphone users. Link to comment
jabbr Posted March 16, 2020 Share Posted March 16, 2020 4 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said: Ethernet is not jitter-free. Fact. You can't weasel your way around that. Yes we should qualify our statements because nothing (sic) in the real world is ever jitter free or noise free or perfect or true or false. What we can say is that jitter is not additive across modern ethernet interfaces and jitter signatures do not pass across modern ethernet interfaces. That's true for modern ethernet interfaces which are tested compliant with modern ethernet standards. Let me be very specific here, if the Ethernet interface jitter in a stressed eye pattern test were additive, the interface would fail the test. Asked and answered. The EtherREGEN is not compliant with these modern standards (I assume the testing has not been done, and these standards are 10GBase-X, 40GBase-X, 100Gbase-X 200, 400...), yet legacy ethernet is in common usage among home audio equipment. It indeed serves a niche for home audio networks and equipment using legacy protocols. Teresa 1 Custom room treatments for headphone users. Link to comment
Bill_G Posted March 17, 2020 Share Posted March 17, 2020 "On the networking side, this includes switches, routers, and even Ethernet cables, which I admit I found very disconcerting. I did my own experiments using OS monitoring tools to look for errors, re-transmissions, or any other indications of functional misbehavior, and found none. All I could conclude was that we were hearing some orthogonal phenomenon - unrelated to the actual digital function of the device - which was not yet understood." Look at the electrical characteristics instead. If you're not seeing any significant changes there, above the audible threshold of such phenomena, then it's perceptual biases causing the "differences". Link to comment
Superdad Posted March 17, 2020 Share Posted March 17, 2020 4 hours ago, Bill_G said: Look at the electrical characteristics instead. If you're not seeing any significant changes there, above the audible threshold of such phenomena, then it's perceptual biases causing the "differences". Precisely which electrical measurement characteristics do YOU think will correlate to the differences the reviewer hears between all the elements in his highly refined digital chain? Do you believe that the “ASR verified” under $1,000 system you put together (and spoke about in another thread here) with $400 Yamaha integrated amp/streamer (a nice desktop piece though) will present music as compellingly and accurately as the one used in this review? In one of your other posts—also in reply to a product review article on this site—you wrote: ”A performance analysis with a lab grade audio analyzer showing actual differences in output, or it only happened in your brain. That'll be the only evidence anyone with a extensive science and engineering background will ever accept. Our senses are too unreliable, too easily fooled by our emotion states and perceptions, to be accepted as valid evidence. So, yes... my mind is closed to opinions and anecdotal "evidence"... ” There are other threads on this forum where you can take that debate. But it is not likely anyone reading this review is going to take your bait... [EDIT: Note that I recall writing the above reply when Mr. Bill’s post was made in the EtherREGEN review thread. I guess Chris moved both posts over to this thread—which is clearly where such debate should occur if desired. ] gstew 1 UpTone Audio LLC Link to comment
plissken Posted March 17, 2020 Share Posted March 17, 2020 1 hour ago, Superdad said: Precisely which electrical measurement characteristics do YOU think will correlate to the differences the reviewer hears between all the elements in his highly refined digital chain? Do you believe that the “ASR verified” under $1,000 system you put together (and spoke about in another thread here) with $400 Yamaha integrated amp/streamer (a nice desktop piece though) will present music as compellingly and accurately as the one used in this review? In one of your other posts—also in reply to a product review article on this site—you wrote: ”A performance analysis with a lab grade audio analyzer showing actual differences in output, or it only happened in your brain. That'll be the only evidence anyone with a extensive science and engineering background will ever accept. Our senses are too unreliable, too easily fooled by our emotion states and perceptions, to be accepted as valid evidence. So, yes... my mind is closed to opinions and anecdotal "evidence"... ” There are other threads on this forum where you can take that debate. But it is not likely anyone reading this review is going to take your bait... [EDIT: Note that I recall writing the above reply when Mr. Bill’s post was made in the EtherREGEN review thread. I guess Chris moved both posts over to this thread—which is clearly where such debate should occur if desired. ] How can you knock someone else's system yet at the same time, as of date, not provide a system that this can be demonstratively proved on? What DAC/Computer or network streamer and switch can we use with your product do perform quantitative testing (either instrumented or truly ears only) with? So far the only empirical evidence is what Amir has produced. Amir also produced evidence that your USB Regen can make a difference on a singular Schiit product and he also proved, and you entrenched on this one but finally capitulated in the face of measurements, that your meanwell smps was defeating the LPS isolation. lucretius 1 Link to comment
alfe Posted March 19, 2020 Share Posted March 19, 2020 On 3/13/2020 at 1:10 PM, jabbr said: @JohnSwenson: I read your white paper. You have identified the well known nonlinearity as described by Rubiola whereby power supply noise at eg 10Hz causes a frequency offset error in a crystal at f +|- 10Hz. Ok that’s all correct, however: There is not a well identified inverse nonlinearity whereby phase error an an input f +|- 10 Hz is downconverted to ground plane noise at 10Hz. If there is switching noise from a gigahertz input Ethernet signal, it will cluster at a gigahertz. On the other hand common mode noise transmission down a cable could cause 10Hz (or 60Hz) noise in a receiver. There is no known mechanism to say that 10Hz noise transmission by a gigahertz Ethernet cable has anything to do with Ethernet clock jitter as opposed to common mode noise.. The contradiction in this paper is to identify a non linearity from one side and assuming a Lorentzian shape of the spectrum from the other side. jabbr 1 Link to comment
The Computer Audiophile Posted March 20, 2020 Share Posted March 20, 2020 I'm going to go through this thread and get rid of the off topic and subjective comments. @jabbr is correct, this is an objective sub-forum fo such discussions. austinpop 1 Founder of Audiophile Style | My Audio Systems Link to comment
Popular Post plissken Posted March 20, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 20, 2020 In a bit I will be posting some ADC captures of audio playing from a $400 audiophile switch, a $19.99 D-Link GO-SW-8GE, and no connectivity what so ever. Since the white paper premise is that we are affecting the DAC analog out and we are thus capturing that output.... Everyone will be able to listen and decide when it was an Audiophile Switch, a $20 D-link, or no switch at all. I'm up for track suggestions and if people want to make a 16/44.1 track available just PM a D/L link. This should meet 100% the definition of objective. I'll capture a screencast of it. Teresa, sandyk and lucretius 2 1 Link to comment
Popular Post jabbr Posted March 20, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 20, 2020 1 hour ago, austinpop said: Since this is the objective forum, this thread should just go on an extended hiatus until John publishes his measurements. What else - objectively - is there to discuss? Objective discussions of papers include objective discussions of the statements made in the papers. The paper has no measurements rather proposes a theory to explain a theoretical electrical phenomenon. Publishing a paper invites discussion of the theory. According to your definition I am a subjectivist yet I enjoy discussing the scientific merits and engineering. I’m quite capable of listening for myself and judging what I like, that said life is short. Teresa, sandyk, pkane2001 and 5 others 6 2 Custom room treatments for headphone users. Link to comment
Popular Post CG Posted March 20, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 20, 2020 In my view, it should be up to UpTone to offer proof of their results, if asked. It's then up to them if they want to provide that. If that's not good enough for a potential customer, that's fine. If no testing is fine for a potential customer, that's ok as well. Nobody is holding a gun to anybody's head to buy these products. As far as I can tell, these products do not affect anybody's health or the overall environment. (I'll certainly be receptive to proof of either of those to the contrary!) BUT... The measurements I've seen to date from various independent measurers haven't proven much of anything in either direction. The testing regime is flawed as is the overall system set-up. By the latter, I mean that these devices are intended to be used within imperfect home audio systems that are fraught with all sorts of current loops carrying all sorts of signals. Most test set-ups carefully avoid those problems, but that's not how actual home audio systems work. Most people use power amplifiers and stuff like that. I won't offer my opinion of these products - I'm just saying that the tests are misleading. tapatrick, motberg, One and a half and 3 others 3 1 2 Link to comment
Superdad Posted March 20, 2020 Share Posted March 20, 2020 1 hour ago, plissken said: In a bit I will be posting some ADC captures of audio playing from a $400 audiophile switch, a $19.99 D-Link GO-SW-8GE, and no connectivity what so ever. Since the white paper premise is that we are affecting the DAC analog out and we are thus capturing that output.... Everyone will be able to listen and decide when it was an Audiophile Switch, a $20 D-link, or no switch at all. I'm up for track suggestions and if people want to make a 16/44.1 track available just PM a D/L link. This should meet 100% the definition of objective. I'll capture a screencast of it. That's pretty funny. You do realize that your ADC (unless it is some wildly spectacular unit) is going to wipe out any differences to be heard. How about you first use that ADC to capture audio from a $100 DAC and a $5,000 DAC and have people report on what they hear. plissken and sandyk 1 1 UpTone Audio LLC Link to comment
Popular Post Summit Posted March 20, 2020 Popular Post Share Posted March 20, 2020 3 hours ago, austinpop said: Uptone published a white paper. Objectivists here say it's just a marketing document of claims, with no proof. Uptone say John Swenson is working on measurements. Stay tuned. Since this is the objective forum, this thread should just go on an extended hiatus until John publishes his measurements. What else - objectively - is there to discuss? Ultimately, I hope all of us on AS are audiophiles. Which means we listen to music on audio gear, and seek to enhance the experience from time to time with upgrades/changes. The key difference is: Subjectivists evaluate gear based on perceived improvements in SQ by listening. Objectivists evaluate gear based on published measurements. WRT the ER, this seems simple. If you're a subjectivist, continue to consider the ER based on its sonic attributes. If you're an objectivist, don't buy it. Wait until the measurements are published, and decide if you find them compelling. If you do, consider buying. If not, don't. Just please stop this eternal bickering. Discussions of a manufactures theory is not bickering IMO. Discussion of theories and what different type of designs can have for SQ effect is of great interested to me and many other audiophiles, and not only to Objectivists. Teresa, wwc, sandyk and 1 other 4 Link to comment
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