UpTone Audio EtherREGEN Switch Review

[ahofer]

I just read both links.

My jaw is on the floor. I have no words. Fuses are directional. . .

"My experience with the SR Black fuses is similar to those of nonoise with his fuses. I listened to the fuses placed in one direction and then reversed this direction. Without fail there’s an undeniable change in the sound, not necessarily good vs bad, but "different ". One direction was very clear and "locked in ", the other had an "out of phase " character."

Just. . . wow.

My first postulate of Audiogon: The veracity and reproducibility of an audio concept is inversely proportional to the vociferousness of its support on Audiogon.

There are just no ideas bad enough to avoid repeated endorsement in that forum. Good ideas, however ('of course you should look into room treatment blahblahblah, but this quantum cleaner changed my life')

 

[HiFidFan]

My first postulate of Audiogon: The veracity and reproducibility of an audio concept is inversely proportional to the vociferousness of its support on Audiogon.

There are just no ideas bad enough to avoid repeated endorsement in that forum. Good ideas, however ('of course you should look into room treatment blahblahblah, but this quantum cleaner changed my life')

I had no idea. The more I read, the more depressing It gets.

 

[welsh]

Clearly all that bad noise is being turned into heat by the cleansing process in the switch. Those folk must have exceptionally noisy lines. Look for the new and improved, upgraded, heavy-duty, fan-cooled version to be released soon.

The opposite perhaps of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, which turns heat into noise...

 

[Soikki]

You poor, miserable mortals. I am currently tinfoiling my house to protect my ethernet connections from unwanted interference. I have banned cellular phones, wlan etc from my family. After tinfoiling I'll be looking how to move into Amishland with my family as there unwanted RFI noise might be even less disturbing. There might be some issues with moving my private biogas-energy station, but eventually I'll make it.

 

[JustJones]

Audiogon is a hoot. The new tweak is dump the EtherRegen and get the Network Acoustics ENO.

 

[JustJones]

They also have magic mats for your panel box.

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/perfect-path-solutions-pps-emat

 

[mansr]

You poor, miserable mortals. I am currently tinfoiling my house to protect my ethernet connections from unwanted interference. I have banned cellular phones, wlan etc from my family. After tinfoiling I'll be looking how to move into Amishland with my family as there unwanted RFI noise might be even less disturbing. There might be some issues with moving my private biogas-energy station, but eventually I'll make it.

Or you could move here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Radio_Quiet_Zone

 

[Soikki]

Or you could move here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Radio_Quiet_Zone

This would be great, but I'm a little bit worried about the scientists. Do they have capability of electronic measurements? My belief might be questioned...

 

[Jinjuku]

Audiogon is a hoot. The new tweak is dump the EtherRegen and get the Network Acoustics ENO.

Years ago I went out to Audiogon member, WUtz, in Denver. He had a specialty CAT6, cryogenic treated cable that he had all sorts of superlatives for.

When he didn't know which was which he only picked his cable 40% of the time.

Additionally we were using Tidal and he queued up a 10 minute piano track and after 30 seconds I showed him that the entire song would play back without cable for 10 minutes. He also couldn't tell when a cable plugged in or not.

 

[Sal1950]

I had no idea. The more I read, the more depressing It gets.

Why depressing, the enlightenment you learn here makes it all elevating .

The opposite perhaps of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, which turns heat into noise...

But the most beautiful IC sound on the planet.

 

[kevin1969]

You would think that every ISP would be offended by the quality of the one's and zeros they are allowing their customers to receive.

 

[maverickronin]

You would think that every ISP would be offended by the quality of the one's and zeros they are allowing their customers to receive.

I've grown quite cynical about this kind of stuff so I'm actually surprised that this search still does not return 100 page long threads arguing about the comparative merits or Comcast, Charter, and AT&T...

 

[Thomas savage]

It switches gullibility for cash.

 

[tw99]

I've grown quite cynical about this kind of stuff so I'm actually surprised that this search still does not return 100 page long threads arguing about the comparative merits or Comcast, Charter, and AT&T...

Maybe there's room for an "audiophile ISP". Come up with some nonsense QoS or clocking story, charge £200 a month, retire to Hawaii.

 

[mansr]

Maybe there's room for an "audiophile ISP". Come up with some nonsense QoS or clocking story, charge £200 a month, retire to Hawaii.

There has to be several tiers spanning at least two orders of magnitude in price.

 

[Universal Cereal Bus]

The next frontier in digital-domain snake oil marketing should be climate/energy fearmongering. Take a page out of the credible concerns over data center and blockchain currency mining energy use. Concede that error correction can perfectly reconstruct the bits of your audio message, but argue that the consequent additional decoder processing overhead has a measurable power consumption and tangible climate impact. Slap some green packaging on your device and donate 1% of each purchase to reforestation.

Of course, the joke is that these devices waste more energy than they could possibly save.

Thermal Measurements
Half-way through the test, I start to smell what resembled like overheating electronics. Decades of repairing electronics has sensitized my nose to such things. I get my nose close and realize it is the Ether Regen that is cooking! You could easily small it through the ports. While I still could hold it, it was running quite warm. I took an IR scan of it:

Case temp is between 36 and 40 degrees C. I worry how hot the internal components are running and whether the junction max temp is too close for comfort.

AC Power measurements showed that the switch is consuming 7 watts. That may not sound like much but for everyday electronics, it is good bit of power. We will have to see in a few years whether these things fail or not. If my math is right, running EtherRegen will cost you $9/year at 15 cents a killowatt-hour electricity cost.

 

[vibess]

Just finished watching the video.
I definitely know more about networks and packet routing than audio, and this is just mind blowing. There should, be if there aren't already some regulation, or something that makes selling products with these kind of claims downright illegal.

25 years ago I dug into the audiophile world when I wanted to improve my listening experience with a new set of speakers. And until recently where discovered this site and Amir's work and knowledge I was skeptical about the insanely expensive cables, wooden volume knobs, gold plated optical cables and whatnot. I didn't buy in any of that, but hey I wasn't sure. Now I am, now I believe in numbers and measurement's and not in the hocus pocus.

Thank you

 

[duckworp]

I am fairly new to ASR. I don’t understand this thread. 59 pages about a switch. What I fail to understand is why are you all so interested to spend so much of your valuable time on this? Some people have this switch and are happy with it. They are either hearing things not measured here or they are hearing things in their brain which are not real. Either way they are happy with their purchase.
So why the 59 pages, when it is not complicated?

I am genuinely interested in understanding why so much heated interest. Why do you all feel that it is outrageous that a product can be being sold and bought and popular when you believe it cannot work? I can only suppose that you feel it your duty to protect further people from buying such a device. But why is this such a concern? If people are buying it and enjoying it, even if it is in their imagination, so what? Why is it incumbent on YOU to try to deny them that pleasure? Or if you feel that is your duty, to be the consumer police, why not also take up a cause against loads of consumer goods which could be argued do the same. For example, interior and exterior Paint - it has been proved that Dulux (UK mass market interior and exterior paint) is genuinely better quality and available in the same colours than most of the boutique paints that cost three times the cost. That is no different a situation - people buy the boutique paint because they believe it is better, and so it is for them, and they feel good about it. To me this is fine, but to you ASR folk this should also be an anathema- people are buying ‘snake-oil’ paint. Why only crusade against Hi-Fi components you feel don’t add anything, have a crusade against paint too!

There is a perception from the outside world in Hi-Fi that ASR is a bit of a ‘cult’ and this thread shows why, as the reactions shown on this 59 page thread are so out of proportion to what it is you are discussing - a £600 network switch which some people feel adds to the SQ.

 

[mansr]

At times, I wonder what might compel a person to register on a forum for the sole purpose of telling the participants they are wasting their time. Today is one of those times.

 

[tw99]

I prefer 59 pages of this type of discussion to 59 pages of people's deluded impressions about the "not subtle" difference that the device made in their system.

Other forums are available, but the aim of ASR is simply to bring some more reality to the HiFi environment.