Uptone Audio EtherREGEN Owners & Discussion Thread

[aussievintage]

6 hours ago, Snoopy8 said:

It seems that threads in the Great Audio Debate are now restricted to members who have been here for a while. It appears to be something newly implemented?

When I looked it is just plain shut down.

[rodders3]

I have this one. Works an absolute treat and easily fits into corners of the room to snake between the router and audio server. Very well made for the price.

 

https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B07BVSH4LC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

.

[awayward]

2 hours ago, dbastin said:

Well ... I dont have permission!

There was a member on the last pages who had been testing ethernet cables and is now using shunyata ... if someone still has access, I'd love to get in touch with that member.

I still have access, not sure how or why, try andresz, he commented he is using shunyaya.

[Snoopy8]

We are getting OT. Suggest discussing Ethernet cables here

https://www.stereo.net.au/forums/topic/298043-does-ethernet-cable-makes-sound-difference-like-an-usb-cable/?tab=comments#comment-4430404

 

[HumanMedia]

Yes agree, the above link and tip for ethernet cables was specifically for the b side output of the EtherRegen. Note also that the A side needs ethernet cables that do NOT have the shield tied at both ends.

 

Day 5 of the EtherRegen, highs are more relaxed. Soundstage is less like an effect now and more natural. 

[davewantsmoore]

5 hours ago, HumanMedia said:

Also note the ER output B side is only 100mbps.

Yes, I understand this.

 

A cable designed for higher category will distort the digital signal less, and have better noise performance....  so if it's availble at commodity prices then it can't hurt.

[Snoopy8]

Here is my review after burn-in and extended listening:

 

Current Setup

 

A simple UPnP setup using a MinimServer to get music from a NAS and serving to a pair of Devialet Phantom Gold.  Running convolution room correction on MinimServer. Using wired connections with standard Cat6 Ethernet cables to a Netgear Orbi switch, except for a Supra Cat8 cable to the Dialog (connector box for stereo pairing).

 

EtherREGEN Setup

Added EtherREGEN to setup with an additional standard Cat6 cable on “A side” and connected the Supra Cat8 cable to “B side”.

 

Listening Impressions

“WOW!” Was expecting some improvement but not such a big jump. Often, a new component may introduce subtle changes which require careful listening and many comparisons to identify any improvement.  For the EtherREGEN, the changes were obvious in the first few minutes of listening.  The background was darker which allowed more detail to come through.  All smearing was removed with a clarity that was unsurpassed.   Diana Krall’s “My love Is” starts with finger snapping. I have never heard how precise that snap was until now! Similarly, an old favourite, Salvatore Accardo’s rendition of the 1st movement of Pagnini’s Violin Concerto No. 4, sounded wonderful. It is the closest violin rendition to my benchmark, a live concert at the Melbourne Recital Centre. 

 

Have spent a lot of time doing convolution room correction to correct both impulse and phase. Managed to remove a significant amount of smearing and improved the sound stage.  The EtherREGEN essentially “completed the room correction” (not sure how else to describe it?) by removing all the smearing.

 

An A/B testing was not necessary, but I did it anyway.  There was a stark difference between the current setup and the EtherREGEN setup with the darker background and no smearing the obvious differences.

 

I could not stop listening that first evening (Sunday) and am still amazed at what the EherREGEN could do. I bought the unit to evaluate (has a 30 day money back guarantee). It is NOT leaving my setup!   

 

p/s a linear power supply does improve things, more later...  Post on using an LPSU here.

Edited December 28, 2019 by Snoopy8
Added link to post on LPSU

[Neo]

Can this be purchased in Australia yet?

Neo

[frednork]

I had the chance to listen to an EtherRegen yesterday for a few hours due to the fantastic generosity of an SNA member along with some exotic ethernet cables also on loan from another SNA er.  Ha, lucky me !!!!

 

The digital setup is a pretty standard Roon - SOTM one:

a  gen8 nuc running roon ->modded switch w external clocking port -> SOTM SMS200 ultra neo with clocking  port -> DAC.

 

All ethernet cables are elecom cat 8 standard and either 1 or 2 meter. 

 

Does the EtherRegen make a difference to a externally clocked switch?

EtherRegen replaced the switch with the SOTM ultra on the B side. 

Result : There was an increase in ambient information and more of the sense of a distinct space .  Voices and acoustic instruments were a bit more 3d sounding, The soundstage was deeper and also came out more towards the listener.  A small reduction in sibilance and tonally a bit smother overall. So .. yes.

 

Does a change  power supply make a difference?

replaced included SMPS with linear power supply:

Slight further improvement in smoothness and noise floor. While it made a difference it was very small compared with the difference the unit itself made.  

 

Does a change in ethernet cable downstream of the ER make a difference?

I had a ridiculously expensive SOTM dCBL CAT 7  network cable on loan to try as well as a wireworld  starlight cat8 cable.  I didnt have time to try all combinations and comparisons but i tried these:

With Wireworld connected from the ER switch to the nuc, is there a difference between SOTM dCBL and Elecom when put inbetween the ER and the SOTM SMS200 ultra neo?

 

Sotm is a $750 cable and the Elecom has been mentioned previously on SNA and elsewhere as a qood quality inexpensive cable.  The SOTM is not a typical network cable and has a "filter" box of some sort attached to it and the cable is extremely stiff and hard to wrangle (have to assume there is prodigious shielding and insulation).

 

This result was really disappointing as I was hoping that the ER would negate any downstream changes. For me in my setup the change was of a similar magnitude to the ER itself. So I guess the answer is regardless of the ER doing its thing downstream cable changes were still evident. The combination of the ER and SOTM in my system fleshed out vocals and instruments even further and and it sounded more like the performers are in front of you. The combination was quite pleasing and made having just the ER  a bit deflating. 

 

OK if the SOTM dCBL cat 7makes so much difference, compare SOTM dCBL with clocked switch to ER with Elecom? Essentially testing whether an inexpensive ethernet cable and the ER was better than no ER and a regular switch (albeit externally clocked) with the pricey SOTM dCBL?

 

I really wasnt able to pick a winner between these two, They both improved things but slightly differently and I was getting a bit fatigued from all the prior comparisons. 

 

Conclusion

 

I dont expect everyone to have the same result and would stress the majority of the benefit I detected was in the focus of the individual instruments and the solidity and audibility of the soundstage image, and depth. If you dont have a reasonably good quality front end digital setup then also it may make little difference. I have read elsewhere that some people are not interested in soundstage and focus on tonality so while there was a benefit to tonality I think the benefit was mostly in spacial cues. If this is not a big deal for you or dont really notice that aspect then you may not see the benefit at all.

So takeaways for me are

1. the ER made a difference
2. Downstream changes of ER made a difference
3. Power supply to ER made a difference.

As I literally only had the unit for a few hours, whether I would continue to like the changes heard is not a given. Sometimes it takes a while to to get used to the changes to hear the negatives associated with changes and as i was unable to try long term all I can say is the changes seem positive and I didnt hear negatives in that short time.

 

I think if I was reading this I would be a bit sceptical and say,  well how big are the changes? 

 

Ok very hard to answer as it depends on the system and listener greatly. But I would say suprisingly large. If you have gone from  around a $500 ish speaker cable to a quite expensive (in the thousands) speaker cable and found a difference, I would say approaching those levels of change, and with both the SOTM and ER perhaps equalling or exceeding that change. As always having the rest of the system and room sorted is essential to hear the difference and also to make sense of whether it is much better to improve another component or treatment than add on these tweaks.

 

So are you going to buy the ER or SOTM or both?. 

 

Probably (but not in the short term) or something else similar but am focussing on some component upgrades atm and unfortunately the budget is not unlimited. I also think this space is only just getting going and there will be many more such products as this area (which should make no difference - to quote most techs) appears to impact SQ quite a bit. Still hoping I can do other things that are cheap or free to get some of the benefit i heard. But will see. maybe I will just get a turntable - they will be much "easier"

 

Can you still enjoy your system without these  "improvements"?

 

Yes absolutely

 

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 17, 2019 by frednork

[Guest rmpfyf]

Great write ups all.

 

Wish I could afford to join some ER owners.

[awayward]

2 hours ago, Neo said:

Can this be purchased in Australia yet?

Neo

There are no distributors or retailers in Australia, it must be purchased directly from Uptone.

[awayward]

@frednork nice review and very thorough for the time you had the ER, thanks for posting your thoughts, appreciated.

Owners are reporting the ER takes a while to burn-in, do you know how many hours were on the ER you used?

[Snoopy8]

4 hours ago, Neo said:

Can this be purchased in Australia yet?

Either direct or from AfterDark in HK. Mine came from AfterDark, took 4 days to arrive.  Hint: they currently have stock!

16 minutes ago, awayward said:

@frednork nice review and very thorough for the time you had the ER, thanks for posting your thoughts, appreciated.

Owners are reporting the ER takes a while to burn-in, do you know how many hours were on the ER you used?

It had 70 hours burn-in and my unit!  I only started listening after 24 hours, but did not note the changes over time because it was so good...  Thank you @frednork for the excellent review.  I did not mention anything about Ethernet cables  because it will likely swamp this thread.  Will start another thread on the EtherREGEN and Ethernet cables..

[Guest rmpfyf]

5 hours ago, frednork said:

 

Does a change in ethernet cable downstream of the ER make a difference?

I had a ridiculously expensive SOTM dCBL CAT 7  network cable on loan to try as well as a wireworld  starlight cat8 cable.  I didnt have time to try all combinations and comparisons but i tried these:

 

How short were the cables from the ER to streamer?

 

Did anyone try with a super short UTP patch?

[frednork]

1 minute ago, rmpfyf said:

How short were the cables from the ER to streamer?

 

Did anyone try with a super short UTP patch?

The elecom was 1m and the SOTM is 1.5m, I dont have a short utp unfortunately.

[Guest rmpfyf]

57 minutes ago, frednork said:

The elecom was 1m and the SOTM is 1.5m, I dont have a short utp unfortunately.

 

Would think length counts for much here. Try an 0.25m anything, even a 6 or 6a patch lead.

[awayward]

11 minutes ago, rmpfyf said:

 

Would think length counts for much here. Try an 0.25m anything, even a 6 or 6a patch lead.

As the OP has said this topic should not be used for cable stuff, but..... my experience and from what I have read ethernet cables should be no shorter then 1m between active components, I have experienced degraded SQ with shorter cables.

[frednork]

5 minutes ago, rmpfyf said:

 

Would think length counts for much here. Try an 0.25m anything, even a 6 or 6a patch lead.

@Snoopy8 might like to try. ER is his. I will try to find something to compare with the SOTM which I still have.  He will be along soon to tell us not to discuss Eth cables.   (its his trademark line). In our defence this is about what ER plus cable effect is.

[Snoopy8]

Decided to start a separate thread for Ethernet cables & EtherREGEN so that it does not swamp this owner's thread. Will request for the posts on Ethernet cables here to be shifted to this:

https://www.stereo.net.au/forums/topic/298328-uptone-audio-etherregen-ethernet-cables/

 

[HumanMedia]

5 hours ago, awayward said:

As the OP has said this topic should not be used for cable stuff, but..... my experience and from what I have read ethernet cables should be no shorter then 1m between active components, I have experienced degraded SQ with shorter cables.

And you are correct as a certain amount of capacitance is needed for the PHY to operate correctly in most equipment. However the EtherRegen was specifically designed to address this with capacitors in the right places so that short ethernet cables can be used.

[awayward]

8 hours ago, HumanMedia said:

And you are correct as a certain amount of capacitance is needed for the PHY to operate correctly in most equipment. However the EtherRegen was specifically designed to address this with capacitors in the right places so that short ethernet cables can be used.

Good to know, thanks.

[HumanMedia]

7 days continuous burn-in and it is sounding great. Lower bass has returned, more cohesive across the frequency spectrum. There is still something niggly about the upper frequencies, but that is minor compared to the across the board improvements. It is definitely staying! 
 

Anecdotes from batch 1 owners suggest that 200 hours, 8 days, are when changes settle down, so now I will start tweaking. Power supplies are the first port of call, then cheap ethernet cables. A quick test with a couple of supplies I tried have definite influence over the high frequencies and dynamics. I’ve also dropped a big heat sink on the top which definitely brings the case temperature down in this crazy hot weather. 

[Snoopy8]

On 20/12/2019 at 6:46 AM, HumanMedia said:

 I’ve also dropped a big heat sink on the top which definitely brings the case temperature down in this crazy hot weather. 

I am using a CPU heatsink as well, takes it down to neutral to touch when running.

On 20/12/2019 at 6:46 AM, HumanMedia said:

A quick test with a couple of supplies I tried have definite influence over the high frequencies and dynamics. 

Uptone Audio mentioned in the user guide that a LPSU was not necessary for the EtherREGEN, but I am suggesting using one. Compared with the supplied switch mode power supply, both the Gieseler Audio Kraftwerk 12V 4A and the new Gold Tune Enhanced 12V 2A version improved the sound quality.  However, the Gold Tune Enhanced version gave more body and warmth to the music compared with the standard version. What I liked was the ability of the Gold Tune Enhanced version to provide a more engaging and musical reproduction.

 

One more thing.  Uptone recommended separately grounding the EtherREGEN if using a “floating” LPSU.  The Gold Tune Enhanced version comes with grounding; there is an internal jumper on the pcb to disable this, if required.

 

If you want to improve the already good sound quality of the EtherREGEN, I can recommend the Gieseler Audio Kraftwerk 12V 2A Gold Tune Enhanced version.

Edited December 24, 2019 by Snoopy8
Typo

[Snoopy8]

Another tweak.

 

In my current setup, the Dialog communicates to the Golds using Power Line Connection (PLC) which has been excellent, no noise.

 

At the behest of someone on DevialetChat, I reconfigured the setup, using the "A side" as output, with Ethernet cables  between the Dialog and Golds.

It produced a small step improvement with more detail and this has now become my new configuration.

 

Note that using the "A side" with multiple outputs may not work in every instance.  The EtherREGEN reduces the noise when the Ethernet signal crosses its "moat" but devices  across the moat may re-introduce noise.   Hence, need to test with your own configuration. 

[awayward]

28 minutes ago, Snoopy8 said:

Another tweak.

 

In my current setup, the Dialog communicates to the Golds using Power Line Connection (PLC) which has been excellent, no noise.

 

At the behest of someone on DevialetChat, I reconfigured the setup, using the "A side" as output, with Ethernet cables  between the Dialog and Golds.

It produced a small step improvement with more detail and this has now become my new configuration.

 

Note that using the "A side" with multiple outputs may not work in every instance.  The EtherREGEN reduces the noise when the Ethernet signal crosses its "moat" but devices  across the moat may re-introduce noise.   Hence, need to test with your own configuration. 

I’m very surprised that your new configuration produces better sound, as having the A and B sides switched goes totally against the design philosophy.