Uptone ISO Regen Review and Measurements

[Jinjuku]

Actually you can readily see the difference from turning around the small Best Buy hub's wall wart!

He said "No Mains HARMONIC" that's key here. You see typical AC sweep but no harmonics.

 

[Jinjuku]

Here is another look. I took the Yellow trace and inverted it and roughly lined it backup with the green. You don't seem to understand what a harmonic is.

 

[Jinjuku]

Alex, is there any chance in hell that you or someone else you are in league with would sit for a bias controlled evaluation session if you are attending RMAF?

I could try to score another Emotiva DC-1 and use one with my 18" USB cable and then another with your ISOR/MeanWell and some headphones.

 

[Fitzcaraldo215]

View attachment 8114 Here is another look. I took the Yellow trace and inverted it and roughly lined it backup with the green. You don't seem to understand what a harmonic is.

That seems to be the least of his problems.

 

[Superdad]

Alex, is there any chance in hell that you or someone else you are in league with would sit for a bias controlled evaluation session if you are attending RMAF?

I'm not attending RMAF this year. Too busy running the business and working with John on new products.

 

[amirm]

Actually you can readily see the difference from turning around the small Best Buy hub's wall wart! For almost all the harmonics of 60Hz the green and yellow traces are in opposite phase, with the green trace having much lower harmonics than the yellow. This is just as predicted. It just happens that the 22W Mean Well (which of course exhibits larger excursions due to its size) is reinforcing with the leakage currents of your AP analyzer. If you can turn the plug around of either the Mean Well or the AP (just one, not both), then you will see a decrease in the amplitude of the spikes.

I am sorry but you are forgetting your own story. This is what I responded to:

You were hypothesizing some kind of cancellation was going on with the Hub power supply in the orientation it was. So I reversed and there was no change in amplitude or simulation of what is going on with your device. So you were throwing at me to test has been shown to be untrue.

Remember, I fed your power supply with 70 Hz, isolated power and all of the mains harmonics tracked with that. Here is that graph:

All the contributions were at 60 Hz when I drove your device from the wall, and it shifted to 70 Hz when I fed it isolated, clean AC generated by my lap AC generator. This is a $2,000 device by the way that fronted your device. But problems remained. If there are interactions with the leakage from AP at 60 Hz, we should have seen that above.

And if the AP is the problem, why does is not show when the DAC is powered by the computer with switchmode power supply? Heaven knows the computer switchmode power supply is orders of magnitude bigger than yours.

Here is the issue: you have a high AC leakage device. It is ready and willing to dump that into its output. The downstream device in an unbalanced situation would happily accept that source across the shield of RCA cable. It has nothing to do with the AP having a switchmode power supply. Any device downstream could sit at a lower potential and have that flow occur due to your device.

In simpler form, you have an AC noise pump built into your device. You are injecting that over the USB to downstream devices. That is what you have built.

You say you have tested this and seen it but we have no way of verifying that and at any rate, sitting here we still have no data showing that.

In any unbalanced system, people need to eliminate AC sources if they can, and certainly those where the manufacturer itself openly says they used a cheap switchmode part which leaks AC.

The right solution here would have been to build a larger box, put in a linear supply with the different voltages derived from that for internal operation. This notion of taking a switchmode power supply externally eases your job but no one is here to enable that for you. People think they are getting a high-performance tweak and instead, they are given low-end, DIY class products built for cheapness and convenience.

I shudder to think that people are putting your device in front of otherwise well designed DACs with good internal power design. Just like my Audio Precision analyzer. Then comes your little box, leaking AC current into it.

Maximizing your profits by using a tiny enclosure, external switchmode power supply, etc, is not what folks think they are buying.

 

[dallasjustice]

Au contraire, you sir are forgetting the unmeasurable part which is also apparently among the most audible effects.

Besides it did help one DAC.

The unknown uknowns are best articulated by the great philosopher Don Rumsfeld.

 

[Sal1950]

The unknown uknowns are best articulated by the great philosopher Don Rumsfeld.

Gotta love both the Donald's

 

[Palladium]

Damn you and your pesky measurements! There are things you simply can't measure but it's really there because that is how science is supposed to work.

 

[amirm]

Here is another DAC I have, the iFi micro iDSD.

It is a $500 DAC. The measurements are with its pre-amp bypassed. With it, it has increased distortions.

Usual story remains:

1 ) Uptone Iso Regen provides no reduction of noise or distortion/jitter. There is for example some low frequency random noise that widens our main tone at 12 Khz. It is the same with and without Iso Regen.

2) Increased AC mains (hum) induced again in the output of the DAC when run through Iso Regen (seen in red).

 

[Don Hills]

... external switchmode power supply ...

The counter-argument is that no true audiophile would use an ISO Regen with the switchmode supply. They'd buy an LPS-1 or other linear supply to power it. (Just look at the thread over on CA...)

The ability of an audiophile to throw good money after bad is astonishing. For the amount you paid for the noise susceptible DAC (one that the ISO Regen can actually help), plus the ISO Regen and LPS-1, you could have bought a much better DAC without the problem.

 

[amirm]

Can the ISOR be ran with the SMPS supply from the Insignia hub to see if the 60Hz noise goes away?

Unfortunately not. The hub power supply is standard USB 5 volt which is too low of a supply to power the Iso Regen. It also has a tiny, non-standard plug that doesn't mate with Iso Regen. If I didn't need it for further testing I could cut the plug but for now, don't want to do that.

Here is another test though. Found a random wall-wart from another DAC and powered the Iso Regen with it:

The red curve is with Iso Regen's own power supply. Green is with the other. Note the (relatively) large increase in noise induced. So in that sense the Meanwell supply is doing well. Its stated noise and ripple is just 80 mvolts which is very good for a cheap switcher. Of course linear lab supplies are down in the 1 to 2 millivolt range.

This should by the way be another piece of evidence that the source of this mains hum is the regen and has nothing to do with the Audio Precision.

 

[Superdad]

Okay, I give up. You're right.
The 22W Mean Well tabletop SMPS that we offer as an option (because it gave better bass performance the wimpy 1A ones I tried, has full world certifications, and an IEC320 C14 socket for easy world power cord selection--and I hate wall warts) does have more direct leakage currents than other choices, and with single-ended inputs will transfer some low level harmonics into the DAC.

Mean Well--a manufacturer we trust (far more reliable and consistent than many of the other Chinese SMPS brands) is now offering a bit wider range of "medical" AC>DC adaptors. These have about 1/10th the "touch current" as their industrial Level VI adaptors. But except for the truly overkill 40W units, they come only with two-prong C8 sockets. It is a real pain to have to stock cords with plugs for every county, and the customers get mad when they can not use a standard power cord.

I'd rather have people use a modest LPS with the ISO REGEN (or our 100% leakage free ultra-low-noise UltraCap LPS-1), but maybe I can offer a low-leakage wart for those who want it.

So now will your fixation with our supplied SMPS end?

 

[March Audio]

Hey Amir, I know we both know it would be a pointless exercise, but I am happy to independently perform your tests here with our Keysight U8903B audio analyser.

edit: Just saw the post above mine, so my offer is rather moot.

 

[March Audio]

Okay, I give up. You're right.
The 22W Mean Well tabletop SMPS that we offer as an option (because it gave better bass performance the wimpy 1A ones I tried, has full world certifications, and an IEC320 C14 socket for easy world power cord selection--and I hate wall warts) does have more direct leakage currents than other choices,

and with single-ended inputs will transfer some low level harmonics into the DAC.

Mean Well--a manufacturer we trust (far more reliable and consistent than many of the other Chinese SMPS brands) is now offering a bit wider range of "medical" AC>DC adaptors. These have about 1/10th the "touch current" as their industrial Level VI adaptors. But except for the truly overkill 40W units, they come only with two-prong C8 sockets. It is a real pain to have to stock cords with plugs for every county, and the customers get mad when they can not use a standard power cord.

I'd rather have people use a modest LPS with the ISO REGEN (or our 100% leakage free ultra-low-noise UltraCap LPS-1), but maybe I can offer a low-leakage wart for those who want it.

So now will your fixation with our supplied SMPS end?

and you never picked this, frankly obvious, problem up in product development and testing?

When you say "low level harmonics", do you mean the the ones massively larger than the alleged totally unmeasurable (yet audible) beneficial effects that the regen is meant to impart?

So you can hear the unmeasurable benefits but not the easily measurable deficits the Regen creates.

OMFG, when will people wake up.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Okay, I give up. You're right.
The 22W Mean Well tabletop SMPS that we offer as an option (because it gave better bass performance the wimpy 1A ones I tried, has full world certifications, and an IEC320 C14 socket for easy world power cord selection--and I hate wall warts) does have more direct leakage currents than other choices, and with single-ended inputs will transfer some low level harmonics into the DAC.

Mean Well--a manufacturer we trust (far more reliable and consistent than many of the other Chinese SMPS brands) is now offering a bit wider range of "medical" AC>DC adaptors. These have about 1/10th the "touch current" as their industrial Level VI adaptors. But except for the truly overkill 40W units, they come only with two-prong C8 sockets. It is a real pain to have to stock cords with plugs for every county, and the customers get mad when they can not use a standard power cord.

I'd rather have people use a modest LPS with the ISO REGEN (or our 100% leakage free ultra-low-noise UltraCap LPS-1), but maybe I can offer a low-leakage wart for those who want it.

So now will your fixation with our supplied SMPS end?

Thanks Alex. I needed a good laugh after a long day. Heavy duty high current, high wattage SMPS on a USB isolator translates into better bass vs some wimpy power supply.

I would say you can't make this stuff up..............except you did!

Maybe Amir should do some bass tone measurements with the Regen and see if any inkling of more powerful bass can be osbserved vs no Regen.

 

[March Audio]

So basically this device completely fails to isolate. I would recommend anyone who genuinely needs galvanic isolation buy the Intona. Its USB data pair and power supply are properly isolated. If you read the Intona FAQs you quickly realise these are designers who know what they are doing.

 

[March Audio]

Thanks Alex. I needed a good laugh after a long day. Heavy duty high current, high wattage SMPS on a USB isolator translates into better bass vs some wimpy power supply.

I would say you can't make this stuff up..............except you did!

Maybe Amir should do some bass tone measurements with the Regen and see if any inkling of more powerful bass can be osbserved vs no Regen.

Thats pure comedy.

 

[dallasjustice]

 

[Sal1950]

Thanks Alex. I needed a good laugh after a long day. Heavy duty high current, high wattage SMPS on a USB isolator translates into better bass vs some wimpy power supply.

I would say you can't make this stuff up..............except you did!

Maybe Amir should do some bass tone measurements with the Regen and see if any inkling of more powerful bass can be osbserved vs no Regen.

Well for GOD's sake D, everyone knows that a bigger, better power supply makes for better bass, it's been discussed forever in manufacturers marketing material.

In the Regen's, Dem 0s and 1's just come thru stronger!