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.
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.
1000 Pro - KEF Blade - iFi Zen Stream - Mutec REF10 - MC3+USB - Pro-Ject Signature 12
