UpTone Audio EtherREGEN Switch Review

[Wes]

A DAC is not connected to Ethernet. It connects to a streamer that connects to Ethernet. So you have to first show that it makes a difference to a streamer. Then show that said difference travels through a badly designed DAC. One of these is next to impossible to show. Two of them cascaded requires multiplying their probabilities together and that makes the number as impossible as impossible gets.

As per a post I made above, I'm not talking about Ethernet at all. Tho i agree with you...

 

[tmtomh]

wrong on both counts

1. I am unconcerned with purchasing one as I noted above.

2. I do not so assume.

Please read my posts above so that - if you want to argue - you can argue against what I actually said.

I'm not trying to argue with you. I didn't think for a moment you were concerned with purchasing. My point is simply that the edge case you refer to is real, but it also involves "really bad DACs," which are better dealt with by replacing them with a properly designed DAC by bolting on an ethernet de-noiser which (a) costs more, and (b) is unlikely to even solve the problem.

So I was not disagreeing with you about the fact that such DACs - like the Schiit Modi 2 for example - exist.

As for the second point, I was not assuming. I was pointing out the logical assumptions that underlie your comment that these devices could be effective in such edge cases.

 

[Wes]

when you say "You assume" then you are assuming something

and, "really bad DACs" may be created in a quest for euphonicity - hence, my original posts on this matter

 

[tmtomh]

when you say "You assume" then you are assuming something

and, "really bad DACs" may be created in a quest for euphonicity - hence, my original posts on this matter

This is getting silly. I’m happy to drop it and let others make their own judgments about our respective reading comprehension skills, and about who does and does not care about winning an argument.

 

[Wes]

Thanks for that clarification. I get the logic of what you're saying. But I would respectfully say that you're leaving out two important factors

1. Cost/value: If a DAC is really badly designed, why spend $650 on an EtherRegen when you can get a well-designed, superbly-performing DAC for less than that and just replace your entire bad DAC?
2. Effectiveness: Your argument here assumes that these devices would be effective with a bad DAC. That is a flawed assumption, and it remains to be proven. Given that Amir's text showed the EtherREGEN and similar products to have no impact on noise, jitter, or distortion that come out of a good DAC, and that he ran tests on frequencies from below 20Hz up to 1MHz, it would appear that it is far from a safe assumption to make that these devices would do what they claim in any situation, even with a "really bad" DAC.

yeh, silly

 

[tmtomh]

yeh, silly

Dude, I was saying what your argument assumes - that's not the same thing as me making an assumption.

This is what I was implicitly referring to when I said others could judge our respective reading comprehension skills for themselves. Let it go.

 

[amirm]

As per a post I made above, I'm not talking about Ethernet at all. Tho i agree with you...

So what are you talking about? You said this earlier:

I bet it's possible to make a DAC so badly designed that this things helps it.

"this thing" is not the device in this review? If it is, then my answer remains that it is not a DAC thing.

 

[tw99]

This is getting silly. I’m happy to drop it and let others make their own judgments about our respective reading comprehension skills, and about who does and does not care about winning an argument.

FWIW, I have no idea what he’s on about either...

 

[Wes]

So what are you talking about? You said this earlier:

units for USB

 

[krabapple]

Here's another 'thing" : No one who markets audiophile crapola like this, and none of the pretentious fawning goofballs who write in praise of it on the websites or in farcical journals like The Absolute Sound, is ever talking about 'edge cases'. *Only* 'objectivists' ever do that, bending over backwards in the name of rigorous language that only they care to use.

It's good until it's ridiculous.

 

[tw99]

units for USB

This is neither a sentence, nor an unambiguous collection of words. Maybe you can start a new thread to explain your point properly if it’s not relevant here.

 

[Wes]

context is important

Maybe you can start a new thread to ask about context

 

[Victor BR]

UpTone Audio EtherREGEN Review and Comparison - Reviews - Audiophile Style

And other reviews like that are really wrong???????

X-FILES????

As someone with both an academic and industry background in networking, I can sympathize with this skepticism. Not that many years ago, I too scoffed at the notion that any part of the chain of digital components upstream of a DAC - not just switches - could have any impact on SQ. It was only when I actually took the plunge and started listening to gear that I realized the upstream chain could profoundly affect - both positively or negatively - the SQ of the system. 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, retransmissions, 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.

 

[Theriverlethe]

UpTone Audio EtherREGEN Review and Comparison - Reviews - Audiophile Style

And other reviews like that are really wrong???????

X-FILES????

As someone with both an academic and industry background in networking, I can sympathize with this skepticism. Not that many years ago, I too scoffed at the notion that any part of the chain of digital components upstream of a DAC - not just switches - could have any impact on SQ. It was only when I actually took the plunge and started listening to gear that I realized the upstream chain could profoundly affect - both positively or negatively - the SQ of the system. 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, retransmissions, 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.

“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.”

This is partly correct. The author is hearing well-understood bias and vagaries of human perception that he makes no effort to control.

 

[tw99]

UpTone Audio EtherREGEN Review and Comparison - Reviews - Audiophile Style

And other reviews like that are really wrong???????

X-FILES????

As someone with both an academic and industry background in networking, I can sympathize with this skepticism. Not that many years ago, I too scoffed at the notion that any part of the chain of digital components upstream of a DAC - not just switches - could have any impact on SQ. It was only when I actually took the plunge and started listening to gear that I realized the upstream chain could profoundly affect - both positively or negatively - the SQ of the system. 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, retransmissions, 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.

 

[Jinjuku]

UpTone Audio EtherREGEN Review and Comparison - Reviews - Audiophile Style

And other reviews like that are really wrong???????

X-FILES????

As someone with both an academic and industry background in networking, I can sympathize with this skepticism. Not that many years ago, I too scoffed at the notion that any part of the chain of digital components upstream of a DAC - not just switches - could have any impact on SQ. It was only when I actually took the plunge and started listening to gear that I realized the upstream chain could profoundly affect - both positively or negatively - the SQ of the system. 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, retransmissions, 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.

As a practicing network engineer and architect I find people claiming "A background" in any such thing to be dubious at best.

I shot a video of the eR and Aruba switch going to a teamed (LACP LAG) Intel NIC on a Window 10 Pro machine using JRiver and was able to start playback and swap out the network cables at will with zero gap in playback.

Did the sound get better, worse, or no change is the question. It's one I keep offering my $4000 to anyones $1000 in their own setup, loser pays misc associated expenses.

 

[Victor BR]

UpTone-J.Swenson EtherREGEN 'white paper'.pdf (shopify.com)

More Crap?????

 

[mansr]

UpTone-J.Swenson EtherREGEN 'white paper'.pdf (shopify.com)

More Crap?????

I have a roll of white paper next to the toilet. Works much better than a PDF.

 

[AudioSceptic]

UpTone-J.Swenson EtherREGEN 'white paper'.pdf (shopify.com)

More Crap?????

As you asked, yes. Great example of pseudoscience.

 

[VintageFlanker]

UpTone-J.Swenson EtherREGEN 'white paper'.pdf (shopify.com)

More Crap?????

Without any measurements to verify/prove their own claims in some "paper"... yes: most likely crap.

Everybody can publish a paper, few may prove or demonstrate what it's said in it.