Master Clock for your EtherREGEN

[GMG]

Thanks!

I don’t want to quantify and characterize the noise. Just want to see if there is anything severe on the line. Will I be able to see it on the wave form? I mean if the AC is perfect then I expect to see a perfect sine. If there is considerable noise I expect to see a distorted sine - wiggily, choppy, peak is not round but flat. Stuff like that.

or will such a cheap device only show the general shape of the wave form and frequency?

[Clockmeister]

To fully scrutinise your mains power correctly, you would need a single phase AC power analyser  such as Fluke/Tektronix/ these will deliver a plethora of full power remeasurements from reactive power to crest factor as well as harmonic content.

 

Quality power analyser Example

 

 

If you are using a scope then will require a quality high voltage differential probe that isolates you (and your scope) from the incoming a/c saves you and your scope from being electrocuted, remember all scopes are earth referenced. Ideally a respectable ac/dc current probe 30 amps is fine. You can split the two inputs across two channels (just remember to set the correct ratio on the HVDP first you do not wish to destroy your scopes front end!).

 

Depending on your scope and RBW and if it is equipped you can then use the FFT (Fast )Fourier transform to look at any harmonic content with the incoming a/c power.

 

Ideally a power analysis app on the scope as well (but not essential) will give you great insight to the amount of common mode/dcoffset and harmonic noise on the incoming line.

 

Also you can measure the dc line at the same time (four channels or more on the scope) and look at any correlations between the two sets of power.

 

Below is testing of a new psu design.

 

First the before ac incoming power with a 1.6amp dc load on the output, next after going through a new ac treatment device, next the testing to IEC Class  'A' standards with harmonic content. Conformation with a spectrum analyser of the noise way down in the mud as we say. Lastly the test set up itself with probes attached and Spectral analysis taken via a DC LISN

 

 

[GMG]

Thanks for the detailed answer,

this scope is way beyond the scope I need 🙂

[Clockmeister]

Sorry I forgot the line harmonics images from the scope

 

 

[Clockmeister]

You can just view the DC circuit, test that circuit before and after load with a good sampling 5.5 digit DMM you will be able to glean a lot of information that relevant for you within that circuit.

 

IMHO all audio lovers should have a good DMM, around $250 would cover it, considering what you could spend on equipment it is a good investment

[MasterWarzombie]

On 4/4/2021 at 1:25 AM, DarqueKnight said:

Road Trip

 

I removed the triple square wave 75 ohm output BG7TBL from my home stereo system and evaluated it in my stereo system at work.

The sonic improvements were similar to those achieved at home.

 

In the home stereo system, the DAC and digital player are locked to a dCS Puccini word clock. I have not (yet) taken the Puccini word clock out of the chain and re-evaluated the BG7TBL's performance in that scenario. There is no master clock in the work stereo system.

 

Figure 1. Ready to travel: BG7TBL clock, TeraDak DC-30 linear power supply, Signal Cable 10 AWG 10 foot long power cord for, DC cable, Revelation Audio Labs Prophecy Cryo-Silver 75 ohm digital cable.

 

Figure 2. Office system, top to bottom: Bryston BDP-2 digital player, Bryston BDA-3 DAC, Bryston BP-26 preamplifier. At the left is a docked Dell VenuePro 7140 tablet computer used for controlling the BDP-2 digital player. The following components are under the desk: TeraDak DC-30 linear power supply for the EtherREGEN switch, TeraDak DC-150 linear power supply for the Synology DS718+ NAS, Synology DS718+, Bryston MPS-2 power supply for the Bryston BP-26 preamplifier, and PS Audio P10 AC regenerator. Loudspeakers are a pair of highly modified Polk Audio SDA CRS+ bookshelf speakers.

 

Figure 3. The EtherREGEN sits beind the Bryston equipment stack.

 

Figure 4: Office system BG7TBL evaluation setup.

 

Every aspect of stereophonic performance was enhanced by the addition of the BG7TBL: sound stage size, image weight, clarity, detail, bass articulation, tactile sensation, etc. The thing I appreciated the most was the improvement in detail at low listening levels. Assuming the AfterDark Giesemann clock works out in my home stereo system, the BG7TBL will be permanently reallocated to the work system.

 

 

hi ,

I see you are using Wireworld starlight RJ45 cables like me.
Did you measure the impact on the ground loop that these cables can produce and break the B side of the etherregen because some say that this type of cable is "bad" although it is called audiophile.
I would like to have your specialist opinion?

Laurent

[Superdad]

1 hour ago, GMG said:

I don’t want to quantify and characterize the noise. Just want to see if there is anything severe on the line. Will I be able to see it on the wave form? I mean if the AC is perfect then I expect to see a perfect sine. If there is considerable noise I expect to see a distorted sine - wiggily, choppy, peak is not round but flat. Stuff like that.

or will such a cheap device only show the general shape of the wave form and frequency?

 

Even if you buy that inexpensive portable scope, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE heed @Clockmeister's warning: NEVER CONNECT REGULAR SCOPE PROBES OR TEST LEADS DIRECTLY TO THE AC MAINS!!  Doing so will cause serious damage to both you and the scope!

Safest way to put a put a regular scope to the AC mains--other than buying an expensive high-voltage differential probe--is to use a small 24V step-down transformer.

 

But honestly, if you are not comfortable, familiar, or qualified working with test gear and high voltages, we advise that you let the idea of looking at your mains go for a while.  You probably won't like what you see anyway, and digging deeper into the waveforms to understand what is going on the potential sources of distortion takes some expertise. 

[GMG]

Yep. 
Not going there...

 

Thanks for the warning 

[MartinT]

I second @Clockmeister recommendation to own a good DVM - I have two, because sometimes I want to measure two things at once.  If they can read resistance and capacitance, all the better.

 

Sadly, my oscilloscope is old and only 20MHz bandwidth, so not good enough to see a 10MHz squarewave without distortion.

[DarqueKnight]

2 hours ago, MasterWarzombie said:

 

hi ,

I see you are using Wireworld starlight RJ45 cables like me.
Did you measure the impact on the ground loop that these cables can produce and break the B side of the etherregen because some say that this type of cable is "bad" although it is called audiophile.
I would like to have your specialist opinion?

Laurent

I did not do any ground loop measurements and I do not have any audible ground loop issues. I will say that the Wireworld Starlight 8 twinaxial cables sonically outperformed the previous Audioquest Vodka Cat7 cables. I bought the Wireworld cables used on Audiogon out of curiosity.

[Superdad]

4 hours ago, MartinT said:

Sadly, my oscilloscope is old and only 20MHz bandwidth

 

Wow, just how old?  Even the all vacuum tube Tektronix 543 I owned decades ago (built in 1966, just a few years after I was born) was a 30MHz scope. 

[JohnSwenson]

6 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

Wow, just how old?  Even the all vacuum tube Tektronix 543 I owned decades ago (built in 1966, just a few years after I was born) was a 30MHz scope. 

I had a 500 series Tektronix when I was a senior in high school, it was a dual channel model, but after buying that I couldn't afford any scope probes, so I built my own out of 35mm film cans, rather weird looking probes but they worked! That scope sat on the kitchen table for a long time, until my mom insisted I take it to my room , but that was not easy, it weighed 90lbs.

 

That was my scope until I got out of college and got a real job and bought a brand new Tektronix (2246).

 

Oh the joys of putting in new tubes and then spending days recalibrating the whole thing.

 

John S.

[Clockmeister]

1 hour ago, JohnSwenson said:

 

 

That was my scope until I got out of college and got a real job and bought a brand new Tektronix (2246).

 

 

Still one of the best analogue scopes today, we have a couple of them John a 400Mhz and 200Mhz, great for diagnostic work and a decent back up.

[MartinT]

Look what I've received...

 

[manueljenkin]

On 1/2/2021 at 8:20 AM, JohnSwenson said:

Wow, someone who gets this stuff! I'll make an attempt to answer this stuff. First off I forgot to mention magnetic fields. The whole process takes place in a strong magnetic field which tends to align spins making these lines easier to detect.

 

#1, this is a gas at low pressure, it doesn't have to be ultra high purity, but that does help. Visual light is used to pump the gas to the particular line in question. So the gas is glowing at that color (line) that contains the hyperfine line in question.

 

#2, YES! This is all about the wave equations for the atoms. But not just the electron cloud but of the nucleus as well. Your second part is correct. The fine lines ARE changed by interactions from one atom to the nearby atoms in the gas. But the hyperfine lines are nucleus to its own electrons which are much closer than the electrons in other atoms due to the low pressure of the gas. That is actually one of design parameters, lower gas pressure give less interaction with other atoms, but fewer atoms to look at! The energy difference between hyperfine lines stays constant, even though temperature, pressure etc are changing the fine structure.

 

#3, Good question, I'm not quite sure. It always seems that when you are using a microwave field to tune for such lines, when you are in tune the field gets lower (atoms absorb the microwaves). I'm not sure what happens with the re-emitted em waves.

 

 There are two ways to do the feedback, one has a separate coil of wire going to an amplifier to detect the amplitude of the field for the feedback loop, the other just measures the electrical signal going into the chamber. The electrical signal going in is always what is used to measure the frequency.

 

#4, you bet! That is always one of the big issues with the designs. Really good deigns these days use hydrogen masers for that purpose! (they cost $250,000 and are the size of a refrigerator).

 

The REALLY top of the line ones these days are called "fountains" they let the atoms fall in free space so the interactions between atoms is extremely small.

 

I think we better stop this now, Alex is probably going to get annoyed with this digression from EtherREGEN stuff.

 

 

John S.

Hi John. It's been a while now and I have taken effort to go through electromagnetism and quantum physics to decent depth. Now I'm able to understand the above conditions even better. It needs to be a low pressure gas so that the interaction between gas molecules is minimised. The hyperfine lines correspond to electrons moving between degenerate orbitals, and it needs to be maintained in a specific electric/magnetic field to reduce randomness of this happening. And since this is mostly intrinsic to each gas molecule it is generally unaffected by the other interaction, atleast in the low pressure scenario. These emit electromagnetic waves that the circuit we have responds to (some kind of antenna) and is then amplified through a barkhausen condition amplifier. Am I right? I would like to say a heart felt thanks for your knowledge sharing.

 

There's also this lecture series that I have been going through, is fantastic: 

There are also papers on the same topic (I haven't read them yet, hope to do it soon). Sorry for the off topic post, I felt it was too good to leave without sharing.

 

Btw would it be okay if I approach you in PM for guidance on certain topics I'm interested in?

[MartinT]

Since the filter was proposed by @JohnSwenson, I naturally put it in circuit to the EtherREGEN, feeding it cleaned sinewave and leaving the squarewave feeding the Mutec. There was a small improvement in low level clarity and soundstage atmosphere. Using Why Don’t You Try Me from Ry Cooder’s Borderline album, the opening is very low level with plucked acoustic guitar accompanied by a bass line. Superb for evaluating subtle changes. The filter sounded worth the £43 I had paid.

 

Then I thought about things some more, remembering that the Mutec is the last stage before my DAC and therefore ultra-critical of its clock input. So I swapped things around, feeding squarewave into the EtherREGEN (which Uptone have always recommended anyway), and the filtered sinewave into the Mutec. I had to swap one Canare LV-77S out for a Belden 4694R as the former was too short to accommodate the BLP, running between the BLP and Mutec.  I had found them almost identical in previous listening tests.

 

Bingo! Now things are less subtle and more obviously improved. More defined detail, better ambience, edges with real shape (like Tangerine Dream’s electronic drums), less sibilance (the Paul Simon test) and organically sounding music. I’ve never heard the LKS DAC sound so good, testimony to the ultra-pure reclocked signal reaching it. All this using an inexpensive Chinese master clock!  The system sounds at once more detailed and textured, yet calmer in presentation. No, I can’t explain it either. I’m very happy, though.

 

I'm going to get another filter to use with the EtherREGEN, using my two sinewave outputs and ditching the squarewave output.  Practical listening trumps theory!

[soares]

On 4/5/2021 at 4:12 AM, GMG said:

Does anyone have a recommendation for reasonably priced multimeter scope that I can use to measure and see the waveform output of my clock?

And while I am at it I would also like to be able to see my mains waveform - see how noisy (or not) it is.

 

Will this work?

 

https://www.amazon.com/YEAPOOK-Handheld-Oscilloscope-Professional-Bandwidth/dp/B07XBL4BTL/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=1VZZ3OSFUOL2D&dchild=1&keywords=multimeter+scope&qid=1617609321&sprefix=multime%2Caps%2C299&sr=8-2-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFSNDZOUFNBUVBTRDMmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTAxMjI5NzZRREw1OTJJNEY0RkImZW5jcnlwdGVkQWRJZD1BMDcyMzA0ODFEOVUxWkZJMEk2NTUmd2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl

Sorry for my ignorance but can this device be used to measure the clock phase noise?

Thank you.

Jorge

[JohnSwenson]

1 hour ago, soares said:

Sorry for my ignorance but can this device be used to measure the clock phase noise?

Thank you.

Jorge

This is actually quite a good price for a small 100MHz scope. You can use this to look at a clock waveform, but there is no way you can use this to measure phase noise even close to the levels we are talking about here.

 

John S.

[soares]

26 minutes ago, JohnSwenson said:

This is actually quite a good price for a small 100MHz scope. You can use this to look at a clock waveform, but there is no way you can use this to measure phase noise even close to the levels we are talking about here.

 

John S.

Tks John! 
🤗

[ambre]

B I N G O   HERE ALSO with BLP-10.7+ of Mini Circuits! Now things are indeed less subtle and more obviously improved. More defined detail, better ambience, edges with real shape.   I’ve never heard the AURALIC Vega G2.1 streaming DAC sound so good.

 

Indeed a testimony to the ultra-pure reclocked signal reaching to Afterdark Emperor Crown Masterclock with Cybershaft 50=>75 and BLP-10.7+  The system sounds increasinly  more detailed and textured, yet calmer in presentation.

 

Thanks John Swenson and Superdad for tadvice and explanation. It was worth the wait 😃 

[MasterWarzombie]

The crazy thing is that for months people have been buying things at high prices. The returns were always a never-so-good SQ. In: conclusion: stratospheric. some are even poets!

And there a small filter because recommended, and there it is again "crazy from crazy."
It makes you wonder if it was that good before.

I wonder if the human ear is so sharp to hear such differences.

Ah yes, it seems that if you hold the clock with a bat wing, the effect is even better.

I tease but I wonder about the feelings of each one. We buy a basic etherregen, which is actually not that good basic for audiophile experts because you have to add 4 times the price of etherregen to get a real result .....

[PYP]

31 minutes ago, MasterWarzombie said:

I tease but I wonder about the feelings of each one. We buy a basic etherregen, which is actually not that good basic for audiophile experts because you have to add 4 times the price of etherregen to get a real result .....

It makes more sense if you look at each stage.  

 

For my system and to my ears:

1.  add stock eR:  much larger soundstage, more detail, better defined HF and LF.  Many users stop at this step and are completely satisfied.   

2.  add clock:  more organic, more natural sounding (that is, preserves qualities from #1 and adds a more natural flow).  Some on this thread have added a $100 clock with excellent results.  In audiophile terms, that is inexpensive indeed!

3.  add second eR:  a greater level of engagement with the music (not sure how to define that), including music I rarely listen to.   Another step for crazy folks like me...

 

I was happy with #1, but had read that adding a clock, etc. would bring other improvements.  Over time, I decided to add those things.  

 

I was happy with my system before #1, and adding all that stuff hasn't change the basic qualities of my gear, but the presentation of those qualities has changed in ways I prefer.   Is it better?  It is better to me and my listening partner, so yes.  

 

My DAC also functions as a streamer.  I decided rather than purchase something like the Auralic and run USB into the DAC, I would treat the ethernet signal that goes into my DAC's ethernet input.   Frankly, I hadn't expected to add a lot of small, hot boxes with little cables to connect them all.  :)  But the outcome has been worthwhile.  

[Superdad]

33 minutes ago, MasterWarzombie said:

We buy a basic etherregen, which is actually not that good basic for audiophile experts because you have to add 4 times the price of etherregen to get a real result .....

 

That seems a bit cynical. 

 

a) Show us another Ethernet switch with anywhere near the technical innovation and parts cost relative to sale price.

 

b) As of today 2,200 people are happily enjoying the EtherREGEN in their music systems (including many with $100K+ invested), and only a small fraction of those feel compelled to add an LPS or an external clock.

 

c) If we were to get fancy and situate an EtherREGEN (with further functional and performance enhancements) in a large case with power supplies and top-end clock, it would have to retail for about $3K (with a build cost that would have other firms charge $5K for).

 

John and I would much rather have thousands of people able to enter and benefit at a low price than to only offer something extreme that far fewer can afford. 

 

We might go there someday—as we know we are leaving money on the table since we see there are those anxious to spend big bucks. But presently we are hard at work on two other projects using techniques and technology never before applied to USB. (I promise they will make some heads spin; but we don’t yet know the exact timeline so please don’t ask.)

 

It is more fun to change the game than to play by others rules and expectations! 

[lwr]

19 minutes ago, Superdad said:

 

That seems a bit cynical. 

 

a) Show us another Ethernet switch with anywhere near the technical innovation and parts cost relative to sale price.

 

b) As of today 2,200 people are happily enjoying the EtherREGEN in their music systems (including many with $100K+ invested), and only a small fraction of those feel compelled to add an LPS or an external clock.

 

c) If we were to get fancy and situate an EtherREGEN (with further functional and performance enhancements) in a large case with power supplies and top-end clock, it would have to retail for about $3K (with a build cost that would have other firms charge $5K for).

 

John and I would much rather have thousands of people able to enter and benefit at a low price than to only offer something extreme that far fewer can afford. 

 

We might go there someday—as we know we are leaving money on the table since we see there are those anxious to spend big bucks. But presently we are hard at work on two other projects using techniques and technology never before applied to USB. (I promise they will make some heads spin; but we don’t yet know the exact timeline so please don’t ask.)

 

It is more fun to change the game than to play by others rules and expectations! 

Well said.  I, and many others are able to incrementally improve our systems over time with the way you guys make your products with a perfectly satisfactory external SMPS, and leave it to us to later upgrade to a LPS at a quality and price point befitting our available cash flow at the time.  

Adding an external OCXO, and eventually a separate LPS for it, are further benefits we can add later, incrementally, again at a quality and price point befitting our cash flow at the time.

 

The possible upgrade paths that you guys build into your products is ideal for many of us who would otherwise be left out.

 

Thank you for all you do.

 

Sincerely,

Wayne

[PYP]

47 minutes ago, Superdad said:

But presently we are hard at work on two other projects using techniques and technology never before applied to USB. (I promise they will make some heads spin; but we don’t yet know the exact timeline so please don’t ask.)

 

It is more fun to change the game than to play by others rules and expectations! 

First leak (age current) about the the direction of the new projects!