UpTone Audio EtherREGEN Switch Review

[Wes]

@Superdad

@ 39 minutes: No it's not apparent that 1500 sold means it obviously does something. 1500 people believing in Unicorns doesn't make Unicorns real.

@ 40.5 minutes: If John Swenson has a room chock full of measurement gear then why don't we have any published measurements?

@ 41 minutes: Some of do understand Manchester encoding and PAM. Yes and at 10GBe these interfaces are all incredibly tight jitter tolerance. Tolerances that you can't even come close to with your $640 box.

@ 44 minutes: As long as the the next hop can recover the data we are only concerned with the duration. 24/192 or DSD 128/256 has an incredibly short wire time. Fractions of a second.

@ 46 minutes: Signal integrity will degrade over the 328 foot distance, most PHY's are good for 380 feet. Most home installs probably deal in the 45-60 maximum foot range.

@ 47.5 minutes: Who cares if a bit of ground plane noise introduces some clock float. These Eye Pattern requirements have +/- threshold.

@ 49 minutes: If you have all these changes of current demand then why can't you put a test signal into a DAC, use common tools to generate all sorts of system load on various sub systems and show it in the DAC output! I invite you to blind test this on a system where I use iPerf to generate traffic while you listen.

@ 55 minutes. USB 2.0 is not faster than 1GBe Ethernet. As a matter of fact it's 50% of the speed.

@ 57 minutes: Where is John taking this leakage current measurement?

@ 101 minutes: I can stop leakage current with optical or wireless Ethernet. I did 10GBe fiber, that's switch, SFP+ LC SR modules, and network cards for $210, 33% of the cost of your eR and I get 3000% the throughput and 100% electrical isolation and tighter Jitter tolerances. Again where are the leakage current's measured?

@ 104 minutes: "I can show you graphs" please do and while you are at it show this at the output of the DAC.

@ 115 minutes: Why don't we just ground strap a power supply if this is all it takes to shunt that noise away from the powered device?

Congrats - you just put 10x more effort into that than they did into verifying the unit's usefulness.

 

[Soikki]

I have a blog page (Https://diabolusinhifi.com sorry in Finnish) and a fellow hifi-enthusiast contacted me, asking to evaluate etherregen. Even though in a few writings I had very seriously questioned possibility of audible differences in ethernet stuff, NAS boxes etc.

Naturally I told him "ok" as I am always ready to test new stuff. I had the attitude "I want to believe". This guy had not invested in just Etherregen, but also into a really big and expensive powersupply, hifi ethernet cable, external clock device and even "hifi BNC cable" to deliver the external clock signal to Etherregen.

I unpacked the stuff and first installed just Etherregen. At first I thought I heard a difference! But after repeating the test and conducting several retests, I noticed that I am not able to hear any difference to my own 30€ tp-link switch.

Well, onwards I said and installed all the fancy stuff; power supply, external clock etc.

I spent many, many hours listening and testing over three days. Sometimes I listened to just about 30s of a song and switched, sometimes I listened almost an hour and switched.

But no matter how hard I tried, I always ended up with no difference. I wrote the story and sent the stuff back to the owner. He was surprised of the result, but accepted it and he was a real gentleman.

I think that the digital domain (ethernet, NAS, computers, digital cables) are such a big mystery to people that they easily believe that almost any changes to this stuff will change sound quality. It is so interesting to change clocks, "tune" computers etc. Much more interesting than boring old hifi stuff! Also manufacturers of this stuff are using so much FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) that people get fooled into this.

Melco who build hifi switches, hifi NAS's etc, are experts in FUD. Check this out: ( mel_2073_s100_a4_2pp_info_sheet_v3.pdf (melco-audio-masters.com) : ”Any damage to packet data, timing, packet order, noise, or intrusive data, damages the overall musical performance. IT switches are optimised for speed and throughput – not data integrity.”

Utter crap, as IT switches are really built with data integrity in mind.

My story is here: https://diabolusinhifi.com/2021/01/25/onko-ethernetkytkimilla-aanenlaadun-suhteen-valia/

You can try if Google translator gives a sensible output...

 

[tw99]

This guy

https://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/threads/uptoneaudio-etherregen.236414/page-5#post-4301524

has really got it bad... I guess he's happy on his "journey".

 

[DonH56]

I have a blog page (Https://diabolusinhifi.com sorry in Finnish) and a fellow hifi-enthusiast contacted me, asking to evaluate etherregen. Even though in a few writings I had very seriously questioned possibility of audible differences in ethernet stuff, NAS boxes etc.

Naturally I told him "ok" as I am always ready to test new stuff. I had the attitude "I want to believe". This guy had not invested in just Etherregen, but also into a really big and expensive powersupply, hifi ethernet cable, external clock device and even "hifi BNC cable" to deliver the external clock signal to Etherregen.

I unpacked the stuff and first installed just Etherregen. At first I thought I heard a difference! But after repeating the test and conducting several retests, I noticed that I am not able to hear any difference to my own 30€ tp-link switch.

Well, onwards I said and installed all the fancy stuff; power supply, external clock etc.

I spent many, many hours listening and testing over three days. Sometimes I listened to just about 30s of a song and switched, sometimes I listened almost an hour and switched.

But no matter how hard I tried, I always ended up with no difference. I wrote the story and sent the stuff back to the owner. He was surprised of the result, but accepted it and he was a real gentleman.

I think that the digital domain (ethernet, NAS, computers, digital cables) are such a big mystery to people that they easily believe that almost any changes to this stuff will change sound quality. It is so interesting to change clocks, "tune" computers etc. Much more interesting than boring old hifi stuff! Also manufacturers of this stuff are using so much FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) that people get fooled into this.

Melco who build hifi switches, hifi NAS's etc, are experts in FUD. Check this out: ( mel_2073_s100_a4_2pp_info_sheet_v3.pdf (melco-audio-masters.com) : ”Any damage to packet data, timing, packet order, noise, or intrusive data, damages the overall musical performance. IT switches are optimised for speed and throughput – not data integrity.”

Utter crap, as IT switches are really built with data integrity in mind.

My story is here: https://diabolusinhifi.com/2021/01/25/onko-ethernetkytkimilla-aanenlaadun-suhteen-valia/

You can try if Google translator gives a sensible output...

That's hilarious... Lacking a basic understanding of how the technology works, let alone assigning all the myriad business and enterprise level devices that must work 24/7 with massive loads to the trash bin. I am sure Cisco and all the other router and switch manufacturers, along with all their users (Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, banks, hospitals, etc.), would be very surprised to hear that data integrity is not important.

 

[Jinjuku]

This guy

https://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/threads/uptoneaudio-etherregen.236414/page-5#post-4301524

has really got it bad... I guess he's happy on his "journey".

You can't converse with people that actively cultivate their misunderstanding.

 

[DonH56]

Oh boy... Obviously Amir's tests were wrong because he did not use the appropriate audiophile fuse in the switch... It is really sad how these people get taken by marketing and their own bias. Been there, done that, but not to the extent it happens today.

I have previously reported that in my systems audiophile fuses improve the sound. I found a definite improvement with a Hi Fi Tuning Supreme 3 powering the Etherregen. with a bigger volume to the sound. (I’ll try SR Orange at some stage)

 

[Jinjuku]

Oh boy... Obviously Amir's tests were wrong because he did not use the appropriate audiophile fuse in the switch... It is really sad how these people get taken by marketing and their own bias. Been there, done that, but not to the extent it happens today.

I think he should send some Fuses to what ever streaming services he uses. This audiophile ethernet stuff has went too far. This isn't how this works.

 

[DonH56]

The latest is to cascade two switches from different manufacturers for the best sound... It is really insidious the way they prey on people.

 

[Jinjuku]

The latest is to cascade two switches from different manufacturers for the best sound... It is really insidious the way they prey on people.

What's two more switches when the music you are listening to already went over 15 hops?

 

[DonH56]

What's two more switches when the music you are listening to already went over 15 hops?

But, but, but... It's the first switches your equipment sees!

 

[mansr]

But, but, but... It's the first switches your equipment sees!

Unless you connect the Ethernet cable the wrong way around, obviously. That's why direction is important.

 

[Wes]

Cable direction has to match the magnetic flux

 

[pkane]

Cable direction has to match the magnetic flux

I’m going to realign all my cables with the Earth magnetic field. I expect a non-subtle improvement and many veils lifted!

 

[Jinjuku]

But, but, but... It's the first switches your equipment sees!

But EVERYTHING matters...

 

[Wes]

I’m going to realign all my cables with the Earth magnetic field. I expect a non-subtle improvement and many veils lifted!

it will be so yuge that not only will your wife hear it from the kitchen, but it will lift her veil too!

 

[HiFidFan]

Wait. What? Fuse rolling? Is that a thing?

 

[pkane]

Wait. What? Fuse rolling? Is that a thing?

Where have you been?

 

[Music1969]

Their ultimate goal of an Uptone DAC is interesting and I hope that comes sooner rather than later.

Skipping external fixer-upper devices.

Put all that stuff inside a DAC box and give ethernet and USB input and clean DAC analogue output.

Especially with the virtual sound card for ethernet input that was discussed in the video.

 

[ahofer]

Wait. What? Fuse rolling? Is that a thing?

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/fuses-fuses-fuses?highlight=fuses
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/aftermarket-fuses?highlight=fuses

 

[HiFidFan]

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/fuses-fuses-fuses?highlight=fuses
https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/aftermarket-fuses?highlight=fuses

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.