Uptone EtherRegen and ASR

A side, B side, C side :roll_eyes:, ASR has demonstrated, with measurements, the ER does absolutely nothing to improve the performance of the DAC. Uptone for years has been making excuse after excuse for their delay in providing measurements. Ain’t gonna happen. ASR shot them down.

ASR are their own worst enemies sometimes though. The ‘tests’ are hardly rigorous, and the ‘results’ presented in such a way (‘as expected, it didn’t make any difference’ - I paraphrase) that any dissent is just ridiculed.

It’s not research - it’s entertainment at best, clickbait at worst.

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LOL!! Uptone keep selling the EtherRegen as hot cakes. Every single batch. In addition, many competitors are launching their own, much more expensive switches. Way more expensive. Like Innuos Phoenix NET. And people keep buying them. They must really do nothing :wink:

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Laughing stock. I exactly know what they are going to say every single time they “review” something: there is very little difference in measurements, if any at all, and if there is a difference, is beyond hearing threshold, inaudible, blah blah blah

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“Tests are hardly rigorous”??? [Moderated]

Be that as it may, where are Uptone’s tests, measurements? They’re not forthcoming because ASR has already proved their devices do nothing to improve the sound of the DAC.

Uptone goes on and on about their “engineering smarts” but provide nothing but voodoo speak. All subjective, no measurements. They give ten reasons why their design reduces jitter below that of a non ER data stream. So measure it and show us. It’s easy to do. JA does it every month. HiFi News does it every month. ASR does it every day!

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Measurements are important for me. They are a starting point in search of a new product.
Problems arise when this becomes sort of a religion and some fanatic nerds swarm out and try to crucify everybody who also sees “how does it sound for my ears” as important.

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I have two DACs that measured exceptionally well according to ASR and classed as SOA. Yet one is far superior to listen to the other. Based on his results alone the two DACs should be identical yet they are not. Measurements are just that and for me are no indication of which sounds better or if it measures well makes it a better product. That is down to my ears, brain and mood to decide and no ones going to change that perception wether it’s psychoacoustic or not as in the end that’s what counts. Let people decide what’s important to them and stop preaching the one gospel.

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One needs to be aware of the broader picture of technical circumstances before dismissing measurements as not being able to tell the truth.

It doesn’t have to only be expectation bias, psychoacoustics, moods or anything like that - it could simply be physics in Simon’s case!

Quite likely, his downstream equipment presents a much different electrical load condition than in ASR’s measurement, resulting in clearly audible differences between his DACs.

Stereophile does measure under different load conditions to identify the susceptibility of the respective DUT.

ASR does not include such measurements, unfortunately.
There’s some room for Amir to improve upon…

I’m not explicitly aiming at Simon here, but there are just too many people online that pair inadequate knowledge with a high sense of mission - plain common sense just doesn’t always cut it when discussing complicated technicalities…

We haven’t yet been able to measure the resolution of the human ear. Until we can do that, we should keep our minds open to the possibility that our instruments may not be able to measure everything we hear.

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I’m sure Amir knows exactly what he’s measuring. Audio Precision vs. The Marketing Department. Hardly fair is it?

I think @CrystalGipsy is right here. Devices can sound very different despite the fact that they measure more or less the same.
There is a tendency to believe current measurement methods are complete and can measure “everything”. As far as I can remember this was the situation 40 years ago too. We all know measurements has improved since then and will continue to improve in the future.

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I’m guessing one dac is a SMSL, the other? Topping?

SMSL and RME, I had Ifi Nano BL DAC before the SMSL and I feel I preferred the Ifi SQ wise and that doesn’t measure any where near as well. I only got rid of it due to other issues with it and wanted a main operated DAC.

Talk about measurements, the AQ Cobalt got very bad measurements on ASR. I have one, sounds very good to me.

Since this topic was spawned off a thread I started, I thought it appropriate to reply to some comments, now that this conversation has been moved so that my reply is on topic.

From where I sit the fact that ASR has stated - they position it as “proven” - that the EtherREGEN does nothing is nothing I care about. Their conclusions are not proof to me, or more accurately, not proof that I’m willing to accept. Why?

When I see a tire is flat on my car, I don’t reach for an air pressure gauge to confirm that the air pressure in the tire is too low. I can SEE that it’s flat, and that’s good enough. When I put the EtherREGEN in my system, observing the precautions about where it’s getting its power and A side/B side connection considerations, I could HEAR it was different.

Did I double blind? ABX? No and no. Just like observing a flat tire, when something is so evident, I see no need. In my many decades in this hobby, there are have been very few upgrades where I did not see a need for comparison. But this was one.

Now, is different better? That’s a subjective question, but for me, yes - very much so.

So what can we conclude from this? I see a few options.

  1. ASR is wrong, which implies there is something flawed in their measurement/evaluation process/criterion.
  2. I have fallen for some form of self delusion. Expectation bias would be one good example.
  3. I am lying about my experience.

So which is it? You pick and be happy with your decision. I certainly know I’m happy with mine, and I’m in a sea of good company that has made the same choice.

I would like to conclude with two points. First, that this is one of those upgrades that is NOT likely to be audible in anything less than a highly resolving system, so many people will try it out, and hear nothing. And second, it is an upgrade that fixes network problems. And if there no problem to be fixed, nothing will be heard - even in a highly resolving system.

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Another sycophantic ASR post. I wish they would just leave it over there, where they can all pat themselves on the back for ‘giving it to the audiophiles.’

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Steve, it’s always interesting to hear about other people’s experiences. The fact that you were moved to put an EtherREGEN in your system in the first place says a lot to me about what you might experience, and apparently did.

By the way, I think I might build on your “flat tire” analogy. To me, putting an Ethernet aid of any type into an audio chain is more like fixing a flat tire on the fuel tanker that delivers gasoline to the service station where I fill up my car from the buffer stock held in the service station’s underground tanks.

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Bill, it will always be an analogy of some sort until you actually try one (or similar networking audio ‘tweaks’) and hear the improvement - or not - for yourself.

Bill, truth be told, I was not actually expecting to hear much. I did expect some, but not to the degree that I would have no interest in A/B. So I guess the question this begs is, for those of us that claim big benefit (other than the obvious lying and/or expectation bias), why was the impact so large? Bad network problems that needed to be cleared up? Highly resolving system? Maybe even trained ear (I’ve been in this hobby since the early '80s)? I’m guessing more likely some combination thereof. :slight_smile:

Hard to say for sure.

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