Afterdark Master Clock for Uptone EtherRegen

[JonD]

Well I am waiting for my Emperor Giesemann EVA which will be powered by a Farad Super3 and plugged into an EtherREGEN, which in turn will feed a dCS Bartok.

 

I am sure its going to be an awesome combo and I am looking forward to receiving my clock.

 

I am interested in the cascade Buffalo GS2016 custom switch, which if the reviews are good, will be on my list of things to acquire 😄

 

Really pleased i discovered AfterDark, its a fantastic company for us audiophiles 👍

[JonD]

Thanks for the update Adrian, appreciate you taking the time; and I am looking forward to receiving the clock when its ready.

 

Congratulations on becoming a Farad dealer, this is great news as well. I think the Super3 will be very well suited to AfterDark products. I can see a few more of these LPSUs in my future 😄

 

 

[JonD]

My Giesemann EVA clock and Project ClayX clock cable arrived last week. Its been burning in and I have been waiting for my MiniCircuits filter to arrive (came today) before any testing and reporting back. So that is my task for tonight. Will knock up a network diagram so people can see how its all connected and powered 🙂

[JonD]

Network diagram below.

 

First test was to remove the whole EtherREGEN/Giesemann layer from the network and go straight from the EE 8Switch to the Bartok. This is my reference sound. 

 

Next I went to the full EtherREGEN+Giesemann/filter setup and the difference is very noticeable. The amount of depth in the music increases significantly. You arent concentrating hard to hear the difference, its very obvious. More to the music, sounds more vibrant and I tend to associate this with reduction in noise floor and I really notice better separation, bass and vocals in particular. Overall a more engaging experience.

 

Now the Bartok was good before the EtherREGEN, but the improvement is very nice to have and its one of those that once you hear it, you don't want to go back.

 

Next step will be to test with/without the Giesemann in the setup. This will determine how much the external clock adds to the EtherREGEN. More to come.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JonD]

@skatbelt I did make sure I totally powered down the Bartok when i was changing the network setup; trying to ensure nothing stored is just being reused, since i was using one track to test for differences.

 

I just finished testing the setup with the EtherREGEN and then with and without the Giesemann EVA; and it does add some additional depth, vibrancy etc to the music; an improvement. I would say the EtherREGEN is delivering at least 70+% of the uplift and then the clock adds a little more; say 20-30%. On paper the Giesemann EVA is a higher spec than the standard REF10, but I am no expert, so don't know how the two compare in back to back tests.

 

Now to caveat, I am using a really cheap LPSU with my Giesemann EVA clock for now; the TeraDak is known to be towards the bottom of LPSUs in terms of performance. I would order another Farad Super3; however, I have already paid for a Sean Jacobs SR5T that will arrive towards the end of May. So I do expect that to make a difference. The SR5T was going to be used with a Melco N100; but I am not decided about that just yet. In any case, if i do go for the N100, I would get another Farad Super3 for the Giesemann EVA.

 

 

 

[JonD]

The percentages are relative, I dont try and define the absolute differences in SQ. Bartok with standard ethernet input sounds really good already. So we are talking incremental improvements.

 

So I tested a base setup and with everything in the network to establish if the ER+Giesemann made a noticeable difference. It does and I called this increase 100%. The 20% was only my attempt to do the following:

 

Base setup:            0%  (arbitrary value; but sounds excellent)

add ER:                  80% (my attempt at describing how much ER contributes to overall improvements from what i call base setup)

add Giesemann:    20% (my attempt at working out how much the clock finally adds)

ER+Giesemann = 100% (again cant describe accurately how much better than standard network this sounds, but is very easy to hear it and worth having; i set this to 100% to make the numbers inbetween easy) 

[JonD]

6 hours ago, AfterDark. said:

 

Please let the Giesemann EVA burn in for 7 days, the music will make you smile. The vocal will be so sweet and soundstage will be much wider. 

 

 

Yes I waited for over a week once I had the Giesemann before attempting any kind of comparison. 👍