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"Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - Printable Version

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RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - David A - 15-Dec-2019

I don't see the difference between our positions on this point as being as big as you think, though there is definitely a difference. I'll try to explain what I think we have in common and where I think we differ.

I think we would both agree that people don't always use language precisely. We can make a statement about what our experience of something is and/or what be believe about that thing, and we can make a statement that isn't about our experience or beliefs but is specifically about the thing. Sometimes it isn't clear from the statement itself just which of those 2 sorts of statements is being made.

Now, if a listener reports "I hear a difference" or "I don 't hear a difference" both of us are going to interpret that as a statement about the listener's experience a not, in your terms, a universal statement.

And if the listener says something like "I do/don't hear a difference" you have said that you would interpret that as "I personally do/don't hear a difference". I would interpret that statement as meaning that there is or is not a genuine difference unless there is an indication elsewhere in their report that they were referring to their personal experience.

So that's where I think we agree, where I think we disagree, and how I think we disagree when we disagree. Basically, when the statement isn't specifically one thing or the other and it's open to interpretation, we each will usually make a different interpretation. Where is no evidence to support only a single interpretation of the statement we each are reporting that we will make a different interpretation to the other but bear in mind that neither of us in such cases have any evidence to support our particular evidence. If there was anything in the report which would support a specific interpretation of the statement I think both of us would come to the same interpretation.


RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - thumb5 - 15-Dec-2019

(15-Dec-2019, 03:15)David A Wrote: ...
And if the listener says something like "I do/don't hear a difference" ... would interpret that statement as meaning that there is or is not a genuine difference unless there is an indication elsewhere in their report that they were referring to their personal experience.
...

That's the part that surprises me, but thanks for being explicit.

(Sorry for having somewhat de-railed the thread.)


RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - David A - 15-Dec-2019

(15-Dec-2019, 09:34)thumb5 Wrote:
(15-Dec-2019, 03:15)David A Wrote: ...
And if the listener says something like "I do/don't hear a difference" ... would interpret that statement as meaning that there is or is not a genuine difference unless there is an indication elsewhere in their report that they were referring to their personal experience.
...

That's the part that surprises me, but thanks for being explicit.

(Sorry for having somewhat de-railed the thread.)

Maybe this will explain it: too much time in the Philosophy department at University including some time on formal logic. The standard approach is pretty much to regard a statement as universally applicable unless there's a qualifying statement present restricting the scope of its operation so if I don't see a qualification, I interpret the statement as having no qualifications.


RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - thumb5 - 15-Dec-2019

Alright, but the statement "I hear X" is very different from both "everybody will hear X" (which I understood to be your interpretation) and "X exists". It is more akin to "I believe X exists", depending on the extent to which the listener is aware of the frailty of their senses.


RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - Confused - 15-Dec-2019

Some very interesting slightly off topic posts recently. I can see the potential for a new thread here, something along the lines of "what is the true value of other peoples listening impressions?", or maybe something specific to listening impressions and the perils of confirmation and expectation bias? Would it be possible to release a product that actually does nothing and yet still gets almost universally good user reports? Could be a good thread, but I shall post no more on this subject here, it might get me into trouble, and anyway, today I have something truly objective to write about.

My EtherRegen arrived on Thursday, slightly ahead of Uptone Audio's promised schedule for "batch 2". The last few days have been very busy for me, so it has been sat in it's box until today.

One slight disappointment this morning, taking the new EtherRegen out of the box I noticed that one edge of the SFP port is damaged. Nothing serious, it is just the left hand edge that is slightly bent. Probably just transportation damage, and maybe could be put right with some careful use of pliers, but I guess I should send it back for replacement. In fact, in normal circumstances, I would just package it up and send it back, but mindful that EtherRegens are in short supply with a waiting list, I will contact the distributor next week and see what they suggest. As I mentioned in a previous post, I was hoping to get the EtherRegen in time for the seasonal holidays. Thanks to Uptone's good work, this has proved to be the case. So it would be disappointing to have to return it, only to get the replacement in the new year.

As a general comment from myself, we live in a world where some people will happily pay hundreds, if not thousands, of Pounds / Euros / Dollars on cables, and yet may products have USB / Ethernet sockets and similar that are flimsy in the extreme. As an example, the USB sockets on my SOtM kit appear to be very flimsy to me.

In my system I do not actually need to use the SFP port, so I thought I would connect up the EtherRegen, and see if it worked OK. It comes with Uptone's customised SMPS, but as I have a SOtM sPS-500 sat on a shelf doing nothing, I thought I would use this for power. It has been plugged in and running for about one hour now, the sPS-500 is set to 7V. I was a little concerned about the reports regarding how hot the EtherRegen runs, but fed with 7V it does not seem too bad to me. I can hold my hand on the top of the case fairly comfortably, yes it is hot, but I would say that it certainly runs cooler than my microRendu did in the past.

Back to the subjective reports, many have claimed the EtherRegen affords an improvement in sound quality straight out of the box, others have claimed improvements after "burn in". I am a little sceptical about burn in, but I take the view that you might as well plug something in, let it run for a few hours (or days) before sitting down for critical listening or A/B tests. The point is, if it has been running a few days before you do the serious listening or A/B experiments, you can simply forget about the issue of burn in being an issue or not. It is hard to resist temptation though.

Anyway, the EtherRegen is now connected and working. Mindful of the above comments, I thought I would try a truly objective test. There has been some speculation that the EtherRegen might cure the Devialet Roon Ready issue as it runs 100Base-T. So initially, I have connected the B side port of the EtherRegen direct to the Devialet's Ethernet port and tried the Roon Ready mode. For the record, I have tried the Roon Ready mode with two different PC's running Roon, and in both cases I have had issues with both 24/176.4 and 24/192 files, stuttering and the dreaded "an audio file (audiophile?) is loading slowly message. Well, some interesting news, I have been playing a mixture of 24/176.4 & 24/192 files for about an hour now, zero issues, zero dropouts, zero error messages.

So this is good news for Devilaet's Roon Ready mode, but it did get me a little worried. SOtM's Euhasu software now has a 100Base-T option, which I could never get to work with either Roon or HQPlayer. (curiously, it works fine with iTunes Shairport) So would the 100Base-T EtherRegen work for me with HQPlayer? So, a quick swap to the sMS-200Ultra's Ethernet cable, I selected HQPlayer mode in Eunhasu, no issues, selected the HQPlayer zone in Roon, selected a track and hit play. OH NO! an error message in Roon. About 3 seconds of panic and disappointment followed, at which point I realised I had not started HQPlayer on the PC. Doh! I think expectation bias had subconsciously given me the expectation that HQPlayer would not work, and this had momentarily fed the expectation that disappointment was inevitble. The good news is that I started HQPlayer, and so far it is working just fine, this is with my normal HQPlayer filters upsampling everything to 24/192. To complete the functionality tests, I tried the sMS-200Ultra in Roon Ready mode, this too seems to work fine all the way up to 24/192, and to complete the set of my normal listening methods, I have tried Shairport mode with iTunes, again no issues.

So, the EtherRegen is installed, it appears to work, and so far I can find no issues with functionality or stability no matter how I use it.

I wonder if it has improved sound quality? That is a question for later.


RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - thumb5 - 15-Dec-2019

No pressure.... Smile


RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - octaviars - 15-Dec-2019

Quote:It has been plugged in and running for about one hour now, the sPS-500 is set to 7V. I was a little concerned about the reports regarding how hot the EtherRegen runs, but fed with 7V it does not seem too bad to me. I can hold my hand on the top of the case fairly comfortably, yes it is hot, but I would say that it certainly runs cooler than my microRendu did in the past.


@Confused I have tried both 7V and 12V (use 12V now) and John Swenson also stated that it will run at the same temperature with any voltage. I have mine in a cabinet with all my other network equipment and this is fan cooled. The cabinet is around 30C and the etherRegen is idle at 46C and when it has been playing for many hours it is around 48C (mu NUC with ROCK in a Akasa case is a couple of centimiters from it so this might heat it up a bit when it has been powered on for many hours).

I have it mounted on the side of the cabinet and plans to mount two heatsinks with heatpads to it, one on the back and one on the front to maximize heat transfer from it and I might add more ventilation to the cabinet to cool things down more.

Looking forward to hear more about your thoughts about the eR and how feeding the Devialet directly with RAAT from it compared to the "spaghetti" solution  Smile


"Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - no32 - 15-Dec-2019

I decided to give it a try and ordered ETHEREGEN based on Guillaume’s report on an overall big improvement adding an audiophile switch.

I’m not a super audiophile and I’m not seeking to make big changes to my wonderful system however I’m find myself more and more listening to Roon and since it doesn’t sound as good as my CD I decided to give it a chance

I’ll be happy to report once I’ll get it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - David A - 15-Dec-2019

(15-Dec-2019, 12:57)Confused Wrote:
Anyway, the EtherRegen is now connected and working.  Mindful of the above comments, I thought I would try a truly objective test.  There has been some speculation that the EtherRegen might cure the Devialet Roon Ready issue as it runs 100Base-T.  So initially, I have connected the B side port of the EtherRegen direct to the Devialet's Ethernet port and tried the Roon Ready mode.  For the record, I have tried the Roon Ready mode with two different PC's running Roon, and in both cases I have had issues with both 24/176.4 and 24/192 files, stuttering and the dreaded "an audio file (audiophile?) is loading slowly message.  Well, some interesting news, I have been playing a mixture of 24/176.4 & 24/192 files for about an hour now, zero issues, zero dropouts, zero error messages. 

I wonder if it has improved sound quality?  That is a question for later.

Objective test? More like a "throw it off the top of a high cliff and see if it survives" test.  :-) I haven't had problems with 24/176.4 but I have had them with 24/192 but it has sometimes taken 2 or 3 hours for the problem to show so you may still run into problems with high res content. I wouldn't rush to judgement quite yet but your experience is promising.

That test, however, is one I was going to definitely try when I get mine next month but I'm probably going to leave that test until after I've got a feel for how it works when I stream everything from Roon at the files' native resolution since that's my normal practice. I hoped that would be no issues with 24/192t but I also hope to hear an improvement in sound quality. It's great if its a fit for the Roon Ready problem but if all it does for us is fix the Roon Ready problem it's a damn expensive fix when simply changing your existing ethernet switch to a 10/100 switch should produce exactly the same result for a lot less outlay.

I'd like to see your listening impressions as soon as you feel comfortable with giving them.


RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - audio_engr - 16-Dec-2019

I am primarily keen on the ER for 2 reasons:

1. To fix the stuttering / audio file loading slowly issue with a promise of its B-Side 100Base-T

2. For better sound quality and lower noise using ethernet

Awaiting for more listening impressions from @Confused