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.
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.
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.
The Netherlands
The Netherlands
