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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 - baconbrain - 06-Jan-2020

(05-Jan-2020, 22:08)David A Wrote: @baconbrain and @K4680 ,

Yes, this is a Devialet forum but every one of us uses components from other manufacturers as well and we mention those products. This is a thread about ethernet switches and saying that manufacturer responses in this thread should be limited to responses from Devialet is a little too restrictive in my view since the last time I checked Devialet wasn't making an ethernet switch.

I think it's quite appropriate for manufacturers of products discussed in this thread to respond to comments on their product, just as I would think it appropriate for Devialet to respond to comments about their products in forums related to products from other manufacturers. I don't think it's appropriate for one manufacturer to criticise another manufacturer's products, there could be more than a bit of bias and prejudice in that, but that didn't happen here and I think Alex's post was more than acceptable given the large number of comments, both for and against, made about his product in this thread.

Frankly, given the topic under discussion in this thread, I'd rather see comments from manufacturers of ethernet switches discussed in this thread than comments from Devialet who haven't bothered to fix a bug that's been affecting their ethernet input for almost a year. The only comment I would like to see from Devialet about an ethernet related topic at the moment is "We've fixed it!" and they seem unwilling to do that.

David,

Being a previous Devialet owner, I can really understand the frustration around the challenges with their communication strategy (or lack thereof). I also understand that Devialet does not have an Ethernet Switch in their product portfolio, so any contribution to this thread which could be made from their side would be limited. Still, they could (and should) address the issues around the ethernet input in support of their customer base

Personally I do not see any merit in manufactures commenting on subjective listening impressions of users (which is really what this thread is primarily about) other than to channel those discussions in a direction which really only supports one thing, generating revenue. (therefor bias) If they want to host those discussions from a clearly identified sponsored site, fine with me but I appreciate having forums (such as this one) where that is not the case.

Respectfully,
BB


RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - Johnnydev - 06-Jan-2020

(06-Jan-2020, 09:07)Snoopy8 Wrote: Dit wordt belachelijk, ik wil niet dat een fabrikant een bericht plaatst als het toevallig Uptone is!  

We zijn een forum geweest dat altijd constructieve  berichten van iedereen heeft aangemoedigd , en dat is hoe we leren. Laten we het zo houden ...

+1


RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - David A - 06-Jan-2020

@baconbrain

OK, I can understand you not wanting to see manufacturers commenting on listening impressions but I just reread @Superdad's p[ost and there were no comments on listening impressions. There were comments made in response to statements some of us here, including me, had made about sales, marketing, and a certain review. I saw nothing which would support the generation of revenue.

There is a post in the Information, Rules & FAQ area which sets out the rules for Dealers/trade and advertising https://devialetchat.com/Thread-Dealers-trade-and-advertising

I think @Superdad's post is within those guidelines and I would support the current guidelines as they stand. Given that there are rules on this matter, I would suggest that the appropriate response would be to raise a request with the moderators for a change of rules, preferably with a vote by forum members, rather than raising complaints in individual threads in which a manufacturer has responded and stayed within the guidelines.


RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - baconbrain - 06-Jan-2020

(06-Jan-2020, 09:56)David A Wrote: @baconbrain

OK, I can understand you not wanting to see manufacturers commenting on listening impressions but I just reread @Superdad's p[ost and there were no comments on listening impressions. There were comments made in response to statements some of us here, including me, had made about sales, marketing, and a certain review. I saw nothing which would support the generation of revenue.

There is a post in the Information, Rules & FAQ area which sets out the rules for Dealers/trade and advertising  https://devialetchat.com/Thread-Dealers-trade-and-advertising

I think @Superdad's post is within those guidelines and I would support the current guidelines as they stand. Given that there are rules on this matter, I would suggest that the appropriate response would be to raise a request with the moderators for a change of rules, preferably with a vote  by forum members, rather than raising complaints in individual threads in which a manufacturer has responded and stayed within the guidelines.

Fair enough, let‘s see how it develops.


RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - baconbrain - 06-Jan-2020

(06-Jan-2020, 09:07)Snoopy8 Wrote: This is getting silly, not wanting a manufacturer to post when it happens to be Uptone!  

We have been a forum which has always encouraged constructive posts from everyone, and that is how we learn.  Let's keep it that way...

Hi Snoopy8,

In principle, I am not singling out Uptone. My opinion (and we don‘t have to agree on this) is directed towards any manufacturer who influences subjective perception through purely subjective comments.

I am a big supporter of learning if the material is factual and contains a limited and known amount of bias.

Hope this helps.


RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - Antoine - 06-Jan-2020

We’ve had Nuno Vitorino (Innuos) and Paul Hynes here active on the forum in the past (perhaps other manufacturers as well) and nobody ever complained. As there are no specific forum rules broken, the rules “positively encourage dealers (and I suspect all members of the trade) to actively participate in discussions” and Confused who started this very thread gave Alex a warm welcome, I’d say he’s more than welcome to post here. Smile


RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - Snoopy8 - 06-Jan-2020

(06-Jan-2020, 11:05)baconbrain Wrote: In principle, I am not singling out Uptone.
But you have in a number of earlier posts

(06-Dec-2019, 14:58)baconbrain Wrote: One additional note from my side, I did not voice my thoughts in this thread with the intent of bashing a specific product or company. As mentioned previously, I believe the lack of data points to support various manufactures' claims (in particular with switchs) is not limited to Uptone.
(30-Dec-2019, 20:43)baconbrain Wrote: Being also one of the more critical voices in this thread, my skepticism is purely limited to UpTone's lack of supporting evidence to reinforce THEIR claim of what the product is supposed to improve / reduce.

Many (imo respected) members of this forum have expressed positive experiences with the product and I have no reason to doubt / question such. Pleasure cannot always be explained through science...

So why not give the EtherREGEN a try?  It has a 30 day money back guarantee.  You posted earlier that you use your personal subjective perception...
(06-Dec-2019, 09:22)baconbrain Wrote: Personally, I have always tried to base audio purchasing decisions on MY personal subjective perception of the SQ contribution to MY system verses cost.
If you have tried it and found no differences, then you have a valid & personal basis for disputing Uptone's claims.


RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - K4680 - 06-Jan-2020

Hello everyone, you can read the different views of the forum members (thank god)! And so it is with the listening habits, some like it, the other don't!
That's life! Big Grin


RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - David A - 14-Jan-2020

I’ve now had an EtherREGEN in my system for a bit over 4 and a half days. It’s been powered on for almost all of that time, the exception being around 8 hours when I disconnected the whole system including it and a lot of other electronics around the house because of thunderstorm activity. I’ve got around hours playing time on it.

As @Confused has said, it isn’t easy to do A/B comparisons. He’s got a more complex system than I have but having a simpler system doesn’t necessarily make things simple. Anyone who says that all you have to do is quickly unplug an ethernet cable from something and connect it to the EtherREGEN and music will keep playing without a pause is living in a different world to me. I didn’t even try to do that. I had to disconnect 3 ethernet cables from my Cisco switch, connect them to the EtherREGEN which also involved a major rearrangement of one cable because all cables went into one side of the Cisco switch while 2 had to go into one side of the EtherREGEN and one into the opposite side so it had to be rearranged to travel in a different direction to the one it had previously been arranged in, and then there’s a bit of a time lag after every connection while the router and the EtherREGEN communicate about DHCP addresses. What I did to make the change was to have the EtherREGEN powered up for half an hour or so while I played a familiar disc via the Cisco, paused playback, made the swap over, and then restarted playback. There was a several minute gap in playback while the changeover was happening. Not ideal but the best I could do.

So, what are my impressions? This is about the 3rd time I’ve tried to write something in the last couple of days and every time I’ve tried my impressions have changed in some ways. There are a lot of comments on the Uptone Audio forums about break-in and there does seem to be a break-in. Part of it is definitely a change in the overall sound over time and part of it is changes in me and how I’m relating to what I’m hearing. The general trend is for things to improve over time but I had a brief period where I thought things sounded a little aggressive and a longer period where I thought things were sounding overly polite. Both of those passed. I don’t know if I still have any more of those surprises in store for me.

What it’s supposed to do is to reduce/eliminate leakage currents and clock phase noise, in other words to remove things which supposedly negatively impact the sound. I don’t have a good handle on just what impact leakage currents and clock phase noise are supposed to have on the sound but basically I think everything I’m noticing comes down to a “cleaner” and/or “clearer” sound that affects different aspects of the sound in different ways. I hear more variety and gradation in tonal colours, especially in transitions from one tonal colour to another. I hear more variety and gradation in micro dynamics, the note to note dynamic variations that help delineate rhythm on the one hand and in the way musicians shape phrases for purposes of expression, and I have a sense of a larger soundstage, the space within which images of voices and instruments are placed and also a sense of more realistic and solid images of those voices and instruments.

That’s looking at things at a detail level, how the differences reveal themselves. There’s the issue of how these things work together and their effect on my impression of the music and one of the difficulties I’ve had is that they seem to work together a bit differently depending on the recording and music. In general things sound more natural with less harshness tonally, often a little sweeter than I’m used to while things like pace and rhythm are slightly enhanced. That can mean that the music seems to move forward a bit more insistently but I’ve been surprised on occasion by more relaxed sounding music actually sounding more laid back but in a way which enhanced things. All of that seems to happen in a more enveloping space and overall the music seems to hang together in a more cohesive and coherent way, I get a feel that groups are more of a single unit and less of an assemblage of several people doing different things. All of that is to the good in my view.

Have there been any negatives? I felt there was an increase in sibilance on the first album I played and I found that very distracting. I haven’t heard that sibilance on any other album and replaying the problem album a couple of days later I didn’t notice it anywhere near as much. One album i played has a kind of “radio static” sound added to some tracks as an effect that has always sounded a little artificial to me. It sounded a lot more artificial. The EtherREGEN is revealing, usually not in a way that exaggerates or makes things sound worse but while it reveals a lot of things that make music enjoyable for me, it occasionally shows up something that comes across as artificial as a bit more artificial. I don’t think it makes bad albums sound worse, I played some early CD remasters of 60’s vintage LPs that I don’t think were brilliantly remastered and they sounded quite nice but it seems some “effects trickery” doesn’t seem to benefit from it.

Basically the improvements in sound that impress me are in the subtleties. Some of them do reveal themselves strongly at times depending on the music but a lot of the time I’ve just found myself thinking that things sounded nicer and more natural, and often a fair bit more interesting. I’ve found myself being more engaged in what I’ve been listening to with the EtherREGEN in the system than I was before.

@Confused mentioned trying some high res content with his EtherREGEN and not running into problems with Roon/RAAT. I had Roon upsample one album to 192/24 and didn’t run into any problems and usually doing that in the past has been problematic. I swapped back to streaming at the original bit rate because I didn’t hear any improvement in sound with Roon doing the upsampling rather than leaving it to the Devialet to do it.


RE: "Audiophile Grade" Ethernet Switches - The new generation - salk61 - 16-Jan-2020

Yes, thank you indeed for sharing. I do have the AQVox and quite like it, no complaints so far. As for the $5000 unit, the company has got to be kidding us. My take on the situation: since streaming music is the new rage these days, some companies think this is the new snake oil to make money.

(01-Apr-2018, 11:23)Confused Wrote: This is a controversial area I know, but many have reported improvements from using "Audiophile Grade" such as the AQVOX and similar.  I have noticed recently that there are some interesting new products arriving in this category, in particular, new products from UptoneAudio and SOtM.

First the SOtM switch:

The SOtM switch will have 8 LAN ports and 2 SFP ports, the sCLK-EX clock board will be an option.  Due to be released at this years Munich high end show, not many details yet but we do have some pictures.




Next the UptoneAudio switch, still a work in progress with the release planned for this summer:

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/38968-etherregen-early-general-details-please-dont-ask-too-many-questions-yet/

Last but not least, the JCAT M12 Switch Gold.  Although it may be last and least interesting, or should I say last but most expensive.  $5000 anyone?  (4165 Euros)  As a warning, the link below includes a "Buy Now" button, be careful where you are clicking!  

https://jcat.eu/featured/m12-switch-gold/

My bet, the Uptone switch is expected to be under $500 and I think it might just prove to be the best of the bunch.  Time will tell.