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"Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation
(07-Dec-2019, 10:32)thumb5 Wrote: Be honest, David, if you criticised ASR's measurement for being non-scientific, how can you happily accept uncontrolled, anecdotal, sighted listening reports from a group of people who have been "in on" the development of the ER and by all accounts were so eager to buy one that the first batch of production sold out in minutes?  Would you not agree that they had a very high susceptibility to expectation and confirmation bias?

(07-Dec-2019, 09:48)David A Wrote: I doubt we're ever going to see a listening test that he would be completely happy with, simply because that sort of test is extremely expensive to set up and conduct and it's hard to get access to the budget and facilities required for such a test unless there is a compelling reason to conduct the test.

Agreed.  Probably more to the point, who would fund such a test?  The only people who would benefit would be UpTone and then only if the test gave a positive result.  It is a very high risk for them to take in case the test produced a negative result.


Self selection certainly does mean these reports are unreliable if you want to distinguish the behaviour of the ER from placebo.  On the other hand, if you're interested in hearing stories about what people hear, of course the self-selection is irrelevant.


Deleted the quotes from my posts where they weren't necessary for understanding my comments here.

Did I say that I happily accepted ununcontrolled etc etc tests? I said that at the moment that's what we've got which is a very different thing. On anecdotal evidence generally, show me a well designed and conducted listening test, one we're both happy to accept, and I'll show you a pile of anecdotal reports that someone has turned into quantifiable data for statistical analysis. Science depends on observation and in a hell of a lot of cases the observations on which the science was based started off as uncontrolled anecdotal reports. I happily accept that one needs to use caution when assessing such reports but those reports are often extremely valuable and what some people seem to be all to willing to forget is that scientific knowledge, what some people like to call the "laws of physics" don't really prescribe what will happen. What they do is to state the principles we use to predict what will happen and when we find that what is predicted does not occur, that something else is observed to happen and those observations can be verified, then the so called "laws" change as scientific theory is updated. In reality it's observations which determine what gets counted as scientific knowledge and it's not scientific knowledge that determines what we're going to observe. Science starts with observations that raise questions and ends with observations that confirm that the answers we came up with allow us to make reliable predictions.

Self selection doesn't make observations unreliable. Mistakes make observations unreliable and beliefs can lead to mistakes. Self selected subjects are no more prone to making mistakes than any subject selected by whoever is conducting the test when they hold equally strong beliefs and you're just as prone to not hear a difference if you believe there isn't one as you are to hear one if you believe there is one' Having a belief is a potential problem regardless of which belief you have. Both sides are equally at risk from self selection and also as a result of their beliefs.

Now if everyone on both sides of the fence was inclined to think that the people on the other side of the fence to them were just as honest, intelligent, and reliable as a witness as the people on their own side, and as equally prone to making mistakes as the people on their own side rather than more prone to making mistakes, it would be a lot easier to have a reasonable and useful conversation about a lot of these questions. Unfortunately there's a tendency for people to only see one side of the argument as reasonable, the side they believe in, and they're not interested in listening to things that support the other side because when you're convinced you're right then you "know" the other side is wrong and there's no need to waste time listening to what they other side says.

I don't know which side is right on this question and I've said that. What I do know is that there's rubbish that doesn't hold up being said on both sides of the fence and there's also observations being reported on both sides of the fence which deserve to be acknowledged by the other side as data to be seriously considered. Anecdotal reports deserve just as much serious consideration as do specific tests which don't show a difference on a particular parameter. Yes, the anecdotal reports may be mistaken but it's equally possible that the tests were inaccurate or that, while accurate, they simply didn't measure the things which needed to be measured to show a difference.

It would be great if both sides could show a lot more respect for the views and experience of those on the other side.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.

Brisbane, Qld, Australia
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Actually I think the problem comes when you start talking in terms of "sides".  I am not on a "side" as such and don't see any conflict between (1) trying to determine whether a product works as its makers claim, that's to say does something objectively useful, and (2) enjoying the subjective experience of buying and using something which makes music more fun to listen to.  The difficulty and risk of misunderstanding arises when people try to mix these two domains together and use information from one domain to make statements about the other domain.

If you want me to "put my cards on the table" as clearly as I can: on (1) based on some limited domain knowledge and what I've seen from UpTone, I am sceptical that the ER does anything that would objectively change the output from a well-designed streaming DAC; on (2) I can't make any comment as I haven't tried an ER, and other people's listening reports are not relevant to what I would personally experience, except insofar as they might introduce some bias. To be clear again, that doesn't mean I think other people's listening reports are any less valid subjective experiences for them.
Roon (Mac Mini), Wilson Benesch Full Circle, Expert 1000 Pro CI, Kaiser Chiara
Warwickshire, UK
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I am not taking a side either and have previously owned two UpTone Audio devices.

As there was a discussion on measurements and what can and cannot be measured, one would think the following, highlighted in bold, could be measured no?

"The design methods and innovative ADIM of the EtherREGEN results in dual, isolated clock/data/power domains, blockage of all external leakage currents, a significant reduction in upstream phase-noise fingerprint, and maximal signal integrity."


Anyway no dog in this fight, to each their own, interesting topic, my thinking in this regards has changed quite a bit over the past five years.
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(08-Dec-2019, 11:13)Confused Wrote: Whilst I am here, I read on Audiophile Style that Uptone will be shipping the "second batch" EtherRegens to overseas distributors this coming Monday.  One of these, on it's way first to AudioStore Vortexbox, is mine!  So it looks like I will have mine in time for the "seasonal holidays".  I can't wait to try it!  Wink

Very well written post. I hope you put on your anti-expectation bias suit prior to listening. Big Grin

I have made the conscious decision to not purchase an ER (or any other non-objective based audio products) going forward.

My feeble brain is to gullible when it comes to marketing hype!
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While we're swapping incredulity: another interesting story on the AS thread(s) (I can't remember which one exactly) was the debacle about the v2 firmware.  To summarise, among all the glowing initial reports there were a few people who reported drop-outs with the ER in place.  Turns out that this was an engineering mistake to do with support for Energy-Efficient Ethernet, which was fixed by a firmware update.  No problem, it's a new product, and these things happen...

Then there was a stream of reports that the new firmware caused the ER to sound significantly worse than the original firmware.  We then had the very peculiar situation where Superdad on that forum, who I understand is the owner/boss of UpTone, said that people couldn't trust their listening tests between v2 and v1 firmware, because their aural memory was too short and they were in reality comparing the new firmware with what they *thought* the old firmware sounded like, and that was not a valid basis for comparison.  I'll leave you to ponder the irony of that.  Really, you couldn't make it up.

(Needless to say, if anyone thinks I've misunderstood or misconstrued what happened, let me know.)
Roon (Mac Mini), Wilson Benesch Full Circle, Expert 1000 Pro CI, Kaiser Chiara
Warwickshire, UK
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To the mods: perhaps this thread should be moved to Tweakers' Corner?
Roon (Mac Mini), Wilson Benesch Full Circle, Expert 1000 Pro CI, Kaiser Chiara
Warwickshire, UK
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(08-Dec-2019, 12:34)thumb5 Wrote: While we're swapping incredulity: another interesting story on the AS thread(s) (I can't remember which one exactly) was the debacle about the v2 firmware.  To summarise, among all the glowing initial reports there were a few people who reported drop-outs with the ER in place.  Turns out that this was an engineering mistake to do with support for Energy-Efficient Ethernet, which was fixed by a firmware update.  No problem, it's a new product, and these things happen...

Then there was a stream of reports that the new firmware caused the ER to sound significantly worse than the original firmware.  We then had the very peculiar situation where Superdad on that forum, who I understand is the owner/boss of UpTone, said that people couldn't trust their listening tests between v2 and v1 firmware, because their aural memory was too short and they were in reality comparing the new firmware with what they *thought* the old firmware sounded like, and that was not a valid basis for comparison.  I'll leave you to ponder the irony of that.  Really, you couldn't make it up.

(Needless to say, if anyone thinks I've misunderstood or misconstrued what happened, let me know.)

Is the issue here the fact that some people think the sound changed with the firmware change or that Alex Crespi discounted the reports of a change in the sound by questioning what the claimants said they heard, or both? Throwing stones at reports of listening experience is easy. 

Let's look at Amir's report of his listening test of the ER in his review at https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum...iew.10232/

His process:

1- connect both his generic cheap switch and the ER to the network;

2- connect a cable to the B side of the ER and another cable to a free port on the cheap switch;

3- connect the cable from the cheap switch to the ethernet port on his DAC and start streaming some music;

4- while the music is playing, disconnect the cable from the DAC and connect the cable from the ER to the DAC. The music continues playing without pause because there is a big enough buffer in the DAC to allow time for the cable swap before the buffer empties;

5- after listening to the ER for a while to see if he noticed a difference (he didn't), then repeat the cable swap procedure again disconnecting the ER from the DAC and reconnecting the cheap switch before the buffer empties and keep listening to see if he notices a change on this swap. Again he doesn't.

What can I say when he's reporting this in what's supposed to be an account of a reliable test of the ER? First we have a sighted test, he knows which DAC is connected at all times and sighted tests are always suspect or so we're told. Then he has to break his listening concentration while he manages the cable swap so there's a break in his attention when he makes the cable swap and that can change his perception. Then, he has no idea when the buffer will run out and the sound swaps from coming from the signal from one DAC to the signal from the other DAC so it's possible that he's reaching his decision on whether or not there's a difference while he's still listening to the signal from the previous DAC before the data from it stored in the buffer runs out so he could be comparing the sound of the previous DAC to the sound from that same DAC because he can't be certain when the change in signal occurs. Finally he presents the listening test" data after presenting the dara from the other tests he conducted which suggests that he conducted the listening test after doing measurements in which he found no difference between the ER and the cheap switch when it comes to jitter, noise, distortion, clock speed, or output voltage so he will have an expectation bias that there will be no audible difference.

And then he says that if you hear a difference  you should repeat  his test with someone else swapping the cables behind your back (i.e. conduct a single blind test) and do 10 trials and see if you get it right better than 8 out of 10 times. In other words,he's telling you thatyou can trust him on a sighted test of less than 10 trials when he almost certainly had an expectation bias that there would not be a difference but you can't trust yourself on a similar test and for your results to be reliable you need to do at least a single blind test of at least 10 trials.

Yes, Alex Crespi's response about the the comments from users about hearing a difference in the firmware versions doesn't make sense, especially when he was happy to accept the initial favourable reports from the same owners, but Amirm's listening test and and his assumption that he can be relied upon to get it right on a poorly designed and conducted sighted test but that anyone who doesn't hear the same thing as he did needs to do at least a single blind test over multiple trials, a test he doesn't think he needs to do to get a reliable result, doesn't make sense either.

I'd give them both a fail on this aspect of the discussion.
Roon Nucleus+, Devilalet Expert 140 Pro CI, Focal Sopra 2, PS Audio P12, Keces P8 LPS, Uptone Audio EtherREGEN with optical fibre link to my router, Shunyata Alpha NR and Sigma NR power cables, Shunyata Sigma ethernet cables, Shunyata Alpha V2 speaker cables, Grand Prix Audio Monaco rack, RealTRAPS acoustic treatment.

Brisbane, Qld, Australia
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@David A - We've already discussed the ASR test in enough detail for both of us to understand how we feel about it, I think, so there is no need to re-hash that.

First of all I am not "throwing stones" at the listening reports, as you seem to suggest. As I've said, I have nothing to say about the subjective sound quality offered by ER or whether it might be affected by the firmware update. My point is solely about Alex Crespi's response - it is unreasonable for him to try to make excuses for negative listening reports by pointing fingers at the method which was also used to generate positive listening reports. If he does not trust the method by which the positive reports were obtained he should have said so when they first started coming in. If he does trust it, he should not be making excuses for the negative reports. Simple as that.
Roon (Mac Mini), Wilson Benesch Full Circle, Expert 1000 Pro CI, Kaiser Chiara
Warwickshire, UK
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I do think I understand where most of the skepticism is coming from. Uptone having built a device to tackle a said issue which they as of today cannot measure so how do they know they’ve built a product that tackles that said issue(s).

Thus far the product is still built on a hypothesis, unproven when one doesn’t count anecdotal evidence. John Swenson says he’s still working on building a measurement setup to finish the whitepaper Uptone Audio is planning to release. Perhaps John will prove their working hypothesis, maybe not or maybe just in part.

I do think John Swenson designed and built an ethernet switch the best he can, applying everything he has learned from doing the same for previous products (and from his working life before retiring of course) so a lot of care went into isolation, clean power networks, grounding, clocking etc. These principles are not new and always work well in HiFi when engineered and applied correctly. They’re just creatively applied in a new context here.

I’ve read most of the discussions here, on AS and ASR and they’ve all been conducted many times before for other products so nothing new learned for me personally. I’m still as happy with the ER as I was before I read them. I always consider there could be improvements I hear that are merely in my head. Yet I also know if that was 100% and always the case when the ‘objectivists’ scream ‘scam’, fraud, ‘bias’, ‘impossible’, ‘mass hysteria’ etc. my system would still largely sound the same as a few years back, yet it doesn’t. So I’m convinced the truth must be somewhere in the middle between that and what the ‘fanboys’ yell.

Also I do sincerely believe that the ER (powered by an SR4 in my case) does ‘something’ very well in my system bringing the improvements I reported earlier. Differences bigger than my D250 upgrade to CI specs. Time will tell how much of it is real and caused by which measures/engineering principles and whether that happens explicitly or implicitly (implicitly when we’ll see other manufacturers deploying similar techniques in their ethernet enabled gear, or even chip makers improving their products to better reject noise etc. Same happened with USB.) does not matter to me when it becomes accepted and common engineering practice.
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(08-Dec-2019, 12:34)thumb5 Wrote: While we're swapping incredulity: another interesting story on the AS thread(s) (I can't remember which one exactly) was the debacle about the v2 firmware. 

That can be found here: Smile
https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic...nt=1007914
PS Audio P3, Shunyata ΞTRON Alpha Digital and HC/Furutech power cables, Paul Hynes SR7EHD-MR4, DIY Roon Server & Roon Endpoint running AudioLinux Headless, Phasure Lush^2 USB cable, Audioquest Diamond RJ/E ethernet, Uptone Audio etherREGEN, Mutec MC-3+ USB, Shunyata ΞTRON Anaconda Digital XLR AES/EBU, Devialet Expert 250 Pro CI, Nordost Tyr Reference LS cables, Von Schweikert VR-5 SE Anniversary Edition, Anti-Mode Dual Core 2.0, JL Audio Fathom F112. More detail here.

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