UpTone Audio EtherREGEN : Game changer or Hype?

[March Audio]

Its not just the SMPS that needs to be FCC approved.  Note he avoids saying that the switch itself is approved.

 

They are not delusional its just the product of sighted expectation bias and totally faulty auditioning methods. 

 

Now what I find totally comical and hypocritical of the manufacturer is that there was a recent firmware update and some customers were claiming a difference in sound quality making it worse.  Uptone said that people were imagining it !  I will find the link and quote.

 

This product does not do what it claims, as predicted by all who have any technical understanding.

 

 

 

EDIT:  looks like the comment was removed from their self moderated forum, but it was:

 

""I'd say it was amusing how a FEW of you are getting hung up on what you THINK you remember the original sounding like. "

 

So in one breath they say subjective opinion is everything and technical fact is nothing, then in the next totally dismisses subjective opinion.

 

 

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by March Audio

[sir sanders zingmore]

17 minutes ago, awayward said:

They want you to not believe your ears

Au contraire, believing your ears is precisely what they want you to do. 

 

[was_a]

32 minutes ago, March Audio said:

 

 

This product does not do what it claims, as predicted by all who have any technical understanding.

 

 

Spoken like a true God!

 

 

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by was_a

[HumanMedia]

@March Audio - If you had read the actual UpTone thread you would realise that the ASR  quote is completely out of context. And that UpTone stated from the very beginning there was an audible difference with The update with an explanation of how it came about.

Edited December 5, 2019 by HumanMedia

[was_a]

55 minutes ago, HumanMedia said:

If you had read the thread you would realise that the quote is completely out of context. And that UpTone stated from the very beginning there was an audible difference with update with an explanation of how it came about.

 

Even out of context, it seems a weak argument, one that ignores some comprehensive posts on the benefits of the REGEN and its popularity. 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by was_a

[March Audio]

4 hours ago, was_a said:

Spoken like a true God!

 

 

 

There isnt anyone that I have seen on the internet that has technical understanding of ethernet, computing, software, digital audio and electronics in general, that has suggested any possible mechanism by which this product can do what it claims.  In fact the general reaction is to point and laugh.

 

Uptone themselves provide no credible technical explanation and zero technical evidence.  They also have no controlled subjective evidence.

 

They invent problems that dont exist and market a "solution" to audiophiles who are technically ignorant.  Before anyone gets upset about that last comment it is meant entirely in a generic sense and not an offensive critical sense.

Edited December 5, 2019 by March Audio

[March Audio]

6 minutes ago, HumanMedia said:

If you had read the thread you would realise that the quote is completely out of context. And that UpTone stated from the very beginning there was an audible difference with update with an explanation of how it came about.

Really? What was the context and why cant I find the quote now?

[March Audio]

1 hour ago, awayward said:

 They want you to not believe your ears and that you are delusional.

 

 

On this one, did you know Amir challenged Alex to a listening test with their other regen?

 

Funny there that Alex said he would take a blind test with one of his other products at his house, with his music and his setup. But when I said sure, I will fly to his house at my expense to test him, he ran and ran away hard:

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by March Audio

[Guest rmpfyf]

3 hours ago, March Audio said:

There isnt anyone that I have seen on the internet that has technical understanding of ethernet, computing, software, digital audio and electronics in general that has suggested any possible mechanism by which this product can do what it claims.  

 

There's been a few, though you've not paid attention.

 

Can you critique anything in ASRs review of the device? I sure can.

 

Not endorsing the product's performance. Haven't had the chance to test it myself; I'll reserve judgement.

 

Plenty laughable in the test method though, and a technical review is about as good as methods applied.

[March Audio]

22 minutes ago, rmpfyf said:

 

There's been a few, though you've not paid attention.

 

Can you critique anything in ASRs review of the device? I sure can.

 

Not endorsing the product's performance. Haven't had the chance to test it myself; I'll reserve judgement.

 

Plenty laughable in the test method though, and a technical review is about as good as methods applied.

Please provide a link so I can see what they say.

 

No.

 

Please be specific about what you think is wrong with the test method.

 

• Several dacs of varying quality were tested (1 streaming DAC and 1 fed from PC) with a cheap TP-Link switch and with the EtherREGEN
• Roon played multiple test signals.  In and out of band noise levels checked
• Not one jot of difference measured between the 2 switches.
• Listening test performed.  No difference heard.

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by March Audio

[Guest rmpfyf]

2 minutes ago, March Audio said:

Please provide a link so I can see what they say.

 

No.

 

Please be specific about what you think is wrong with the test method.

 

• Several dacs of varying quality were tested (1 streaming DAC and 1 fed from PC) with a cheap TP-Link switch and with the EtherREGEN
• Roon played multiple test signals.  In and out of band noise levels checked
• Not one jot of difference measured between the 2 switches.
• Listening test performed.  No difference heard.

 

 

Alan, some of the critics have been in this very thread.

 

I could write a decent paper on the gaps in the review, though (a) I've not the time and (b) for an introduction to the comedy inherent I'd suggest deferring to high school maths on any notion of statistical confidence concerning what two samples of completely unknown provenance could possibly suggest about any population (let alone a population of highly diverse outcomes).

 

Either Amir is an idiot that needs to state half his resume with every review as some form of self-assurance, or he's plenty smart from which one can draw conclusions around the design of his experiment. 

 

Judging by some of his better work, I'd bet he's smart.

 

I'm just an engineer that passed high school maths pretty well. I know a few things about Ethernet too.

[March Audio]

21 minutes ago, rmpfyf said:

 

Alan, some of the critics have been in this very thread.

 

I could write a decent paper on the gaps in the review, though (a) I've not the time and (b) for an introduction to the comedy inherent I'd suggest deferring to high school maths on any notion of statistical confidence concerning what two samples of completely unknown provenance could possibly suggest about any population (let alone a population of highly diverse outcomes).

 

Either Amir is an idiot that needs to state half his resume with every review as some form of self-assurance, or he's plenty smart from which one can draw conclusions around the design of his experiment. 

 

Judging by some of his better work, I'd bet he's smart.

 

I'm just an engineer that passed high school maths pretty well. I know a few things about Ethernet too.

Critics yes, people that have found a credible mechanism (which was my point) no.

 

In other words you have no salient points about problems with the test.

 

No thats just information.  He is qualified and competent.

 

Well considering your knowledge of ethernet please help me out by describing a credible mechanism by which this product is

 

"capable of producing surprisingly audible sonic improvements in fine music systems"

 

Then specifically what would be the improvement seen in a dac output.

Edited December 5, 2019 by March Audio

[Guest rmpfyf]

1 minute ago, March Audio said:

Critics yes, people that have found a credible mechanism (which was my point) no.

 

In other words you have no salient points about problems with the test.

 

No thats just information.  He is qualified and competent.

 

Well considering your knowledge of ethernet please help me out by describe a credible mechanism by which this product is

 

"capable of producing surprisingly audible sonic improvements in fine music systems"

 

I would offer at a general level that the design of experiment - even from a basic statistical viewpoint - is highly flawed relative to his intended conclusion to the point of fallacy, bias or both. I don't need to substantiate this, it's basic maths - take it up with a high school maths teacher. 

 

Salient points can be found/abstracted further up the thread. No need to repeat and have us both told by mods that we'd be having a p****g contest (again). I have a point of view, you have yours, I am unlikely to change yours, your company makes some very nice equipment and there are more pressing matters in life than trying to change intractable opinions over an internet forum.

 

Amir is not the only qualified or competent person going this or related matters. He is neither the most qualified or competent. As a separate discussion his ability to justify his conclusions in this instance display an amusing amount of bias and some particularly sloppy methods. On a related point if his readers can't make objective criticism of his methods, they implicitly lose the ability to be... objective. The irony of which is that Amir's brand is very much built on this very notion, with a whole forum full of fans essentially going 'raa raa we are objective because we have some data raa raa look at those fools saying they hear music but have no data raa raa'. 

 

Would suggest some credibility lies in understanding how and why it might be an appropriate or useful device (as much as how and why it couldn't). Herd mentality doesn't make for credibility, just a herd. Data doesn't make an argument, it's just data from which there's a long way towards a scientific conclusion of any specificity. 

 

The internet's a playground, enjoy it. There are quite a few EtherREGEN customers that enjoy their kit. There will people people that aren't happy with it. There will be people that get no objective difference with it. There will be people that inevitably discover two blokes in a shed labelled 'Uptone' do not make routers that route packets with as much aplomb or resilience as Cisco. There's a lot worse people can spend $1k on... like spending that much in time (or more) trying to convince others on the internet they're wrong.

 

As stated Alan, you make some fine kit. If your DAC offers zero performance benefit with an EtherREGEN (or any other Ethernet treatment) that's one good reason people should consider your product over others that need a $1k router/LPS/spangly cables to hit their potential. That'd not be a conclusion for the whole market, mind, but I'd support that win.

[sir sanders zingmore]

1 minute ago, rmpfyf said:

I would offer at a general level that the design of experiment - even from a basic statistical viewpoint - is highly flawed relative to his intended conclusion to the point of fallacy, bias or both. I don't need to substantiate this, it's basic maths - take it up with a high school maths teacher. 

do you mean that he hasn't tried it with enough different DACs for his result (of no measurable difference) to be statistically valid?

[Guest rmpfyf]

1 minute ago, sir sanders zingmore said:

do you mean that he hasn't tried it with enough different DACs for his result (of no measurable difference) to be statistically valid?

 

That'd be a start. 

 

If one assumes that no data is lost in Ethernet en route to the DAC IC - and it probably isn't (I don't believe for a second what that WireWorld dude suggests) we're left with jitter. And there's a significant variance in how that's treated within PCs or other endpoints, within transports, even at DAC level.

 

Let alone how a LAN is connected, physically routed, the environment it's in, etc. 

 

I could go on. There are so many possibilities. 

 

A review of what it could do vs performance inherent before speaking of any relevance is far more salient than a review of 'here are two scenarios, ergo I think it's s**t for everything'. That's just poor science, and Amir is capable of considerably better.

[March Audio]

4 minutes ago, rmpfyf said:

 

I would offer at a general level that the design of experiment - even from a basic statistical viewpoint - is highly flawed relative to his intended conclusion to the point of fallacy, bias or both. I don't need to substantiate this, it's basic maths - take it up with a high school maths teacher. 

 

Salient points can be found/abstracted further up the thread. No need to repeat and have us both told by mods that we'd be having a p****g contest (again). I have a point of view, you have yours, I am unlikely to change yours, your company makes some very nice equipment and there are more pressing matters in life than trying to change intractable opinions over an internet forum.

 

Amir is not the only qualified or competent person going this or related matters. He is neither the most qualified or competent. As a separate discussion his ability to justify his conclusions in this instance display an amusing amount of bias and some particularly sloppy methods. On a related point if his readers can't make objective criticism of his methods, they implicitly lose the ability to be... objective. The irony of which is that Amir's brand is very much built on this very notion, with a whole forum full of fans essentially going 'raa raa we are objective because we have some data raa raa look at those fools saying they hear music but have no data raa raa'. 

 

Would suggest some credibility lies in understanding how and why it might be an appropriate or useful device (as much as how and why it couldn't). Herd mentality doesn't make for credibility, just a herd. Data doesn't make an argument, it's just data from which there's a long way towards a scientific conclusion of any specificity. 

 

The internet's a playground, enjoy it. There are quite a few EtherREGEN customers that enjoy their kit. There will people people that aren't happy with it. There will be people that get no objective difference with it. There will be people that inevitably discover two blokes in a shed labelled 'Uptone' do not make routers that route packets with as much aplomb or resilience as Cisco. There's a lot worse people can spend $1k on... like spending that much in time (or more) trying to convince others on the internet they're wrong.

 

As stated Alan, you make some fine kit. If your DAC offers zero performance benefit with an EtherREGEN (or any other Ethernet treatment) that's one good reason people should consider your product over others that need a $1k router/LPS/spangly cables to hit their potential. That'd not be a conclusion for the whole market, mind, but I'd support that win.

 

So you don't actually have any criticism of the test apart from its not been tested with enough dacs.   OK we can fix that

 

You have no credible explanation as to the mechanism by which it might create an audible improvement. 

 

You have no explanation as to how this alleged improvement will manifest itself in the dac output. 

 

My products have nothing to do with this. 

 

Why do you want to defend it? 

[sir sanders zingmore]

2 minutes ago, rmpfyf said:

There are so many possibilities. 

one of which is surely, that the device does nothing?

[March Audio]

11 minutes ago, rmpfyf said:

 

That'd be a start. 

 

If one assumes that no data is lost in Ethernet en route to the DAC IC - and it probably isn't (I don't believe for a second what that WireWorld dude suggests) we're left with jitter. And there's a significant variance in how that's treated within PCs or other endpoints, within transports, even at DAC level.

 

Let alone how a LAN is connected, physically routed, the environment it's in, etc. 

 

I could go on. There are so many possibilities. 

 

A review of what it could do vs performance inherent before speaking of any relevance is far more salient than a review of 'here are two scenarios, ergo I think it's s**t for everything'. That's just poor science, and Amir is capable of considerably better.

If these "possibilities" were in any way credible the Internet wouldn't work, our computers wouldn't work and audio streaming wouldn't work. 

 

So how would these problems manifest in a dac output? 

 

There is another point that you are missing.  We have 2 dacs that show no difference with the switch, so it's clearly possible for ordinary dacs to totally immune to whatever the ethernet switch is doing. So, if you do manage to find a dac that shows some kind of improvement you have to ask yourself what is wrong with it? 

 

It's not a virtue. 

Edited December 5, 2019 by March Audio

[Guest rmpfyf]

14 minutes ago, March Audio said:

If these "possibilities" were in any way credible the Internet wouldn't work, our computers wouldn't work and audio streaming wouldn't work. 

 

Herd argument there - if you want to get high-fived on that one, head over to ASR... they've been doing that for months.

 

Of course these'd work. These are not necessarily time-critical applications in the same context.

 

15 minutes ago, March Audio said:

So how would these problems manifest in a dac output? 

 

Sure, though can you see how your previous contention obviates the possibility of any reasoned discussion around this question?

 

16 minutes ago, March Audio said:

There is another point that you are missing.  We have 2 dacs that show no difference with the switch, so it's clearly possible for ordinary dacs to totally immune to whatever the ethernet switch is doing. So, if you do manage to find a dac that shows some kind of improvement you have to ask yourself what is wrong with it? 

 

Would suggest it's more like:

• We have two DACs
• Evaluated using same methods
• Zero baselines or established/characterised environmental effects of any note
• There is nothing to suggest the evaluation proves the evaluations are 'totally immune'
• There is nothing to suggest these DACs are representative of 'ordinary' examples of type
• There is nothing to suggest something showing sensitivity is wrong

 

Your contention is riddled with poor science. Almost as useful as a detractor of your line of reasoning suggesting:

• A bloke that made a lot of noise about how useless this product would be evaluated it
• He determined it was useless
• This is a groundbreaking and unexpected solution completely free of any bias

 

20 minutes ago, March Audio said:

It's not a virtue. 

 

No more than my daily driver having four wheels and a steering wheel yet not being a Ferrari isn't a virtue. We've another contributor here that believes all amplifiers/pres/DACs/whatever without a perfect power supply capable of nullifying any mains whatever to indiscernible levels is subpar. 

 

You will know in your work that there's cost relative to sale price and compromise therein. You will know practical environmental are variable. You will know that questions around virtue are relative, and broadly relatively useless. One could make a relevant argument about the importance of managing jitter in digital audio and how spending dollars in design and materials towards a good strategy here is money better spend than somewhere else. As stated - if your products are demonstrably so insensitive, I'd support that. I mean that sincerely; I think it's important and something not generally explored in many production designs.

 

Now let's let this go before mods tell us off again. This thread's about the device in question, not about your and my ability to debate how well a guy with an axe to grind against Uptone audio, a signal analyser and dedicated website and forum can (or did) design an impartial test. 

[Guest rmpfyf]

32 minutes ago, sir sanders zingmore said:

one of which is surely, that the device does nothing?

 

Of course, though my own experience with Ethernet and CA would suggest it unlikely. 

 

I wouldn't discount the possibility - I simply haven't evaluated one myself. I'm unlikely to as I don't have $1k to spend on a router, which is not to detract from those that do.

[March Audio]

22 minutes ago, rmpfyf said:

 

Herd argument there - if you want to get high-fived on that one, head over to ASR... they've been doing that for months.

 

Of course these'd work. These are not necessarily time-critical applications in the same context.

 

 

Sure, though can you see how your previous contention obviates the possibility of any reasoned discussion around this question?

 

 

Would suggest it's more like:

• We have two DACs
• Evaluated using same methods
• Zero baselines or established/characterised environmental effects of any note
• There is nothing to suggest the evaluation proves the evaluations are 'totally immune'
• There is nothing to suggest these DACs are representative of 'ordinary' examples of type
• There is nothing to suggest something showing sensitivity is wrong

 

Your contention is riddled with poor science. Almost as useful as a detractor of your line of reasoning suggesting:

• A bloke that made a lot of noise about how useless this product would be evaluated it
• He determined it was useless
• This is a groundbreaking and unexpected solution completely free of any bias

 

 

No more than my daily driver having four wheels and a steering wheel yet not being a Ferrari isn't a virtue. We've another contributor here that believes all amplifiers/pres/DACs/whatever without a perfect power supply capable of nullifying any mains whatever to indiscernible levels is subpar. 

 

You will know in your work that there's cost relative to sale price and compromise therein. You will know practical environmental are variable. You will know that questions around virtue are relative, and broadly relatively useless. One could make a relevant argument about the importance of managing jitter in digital audio and how spending dollars in design and materials towards a good strategy here is money better spend than somewhere else. As stated - if your products are demonstrably so insensitive, I'd support that. I mean that sincerely; I think it's important and something not generally explored in many production designs.

 

Now let's let this go before mods tell us off again. This thread's about the device in question, not about your and my ability to debate how well a guy with an axe to grind against Uptone audio, a signal analyser and dedicated website and forum can (or did) design an impartial test. 

 

Sending data to a dac is NOT in any way a time critical application. 

 

Actually it is demonstrated that its totally immune because there is no difference between:

• TP link switch
• Etherregen
• Pulling the ethernet lead out completely.

You do realise that jitter in the dac output is not the same thing as, or related to, jitter in a data stream supplying the PC don't you? 

 

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by March Audio

[Guest rmpfyf]

2 minutes ago, March Audio said:

Sending data to a dac is NOT in any way a time critical application. 

Mmm hmm.

 

2 minutes ago, March Audio said:

 

Actually it is demonstrated that its totally immune because there is no difference between:

• TP link switch
• Etherregen
• Pulling the ethernet lead out completely.

If there's zero difference to what you have in pulling the cable then no Ethernet anything will be of any benefit. Which is some advice you're welcome to read in.... many of my posts on this very matter.

 

4 minutes ago, March Audio said:

You do realise that jitter in the dac output is not the same thing  or related to jitter in a data stream supplying the PC don't you? 

Mmm hmmm.....

 

22 minutes ago, rmpfyf said:

Now let's let this go before mods tell us off again. 

 

[March Audio]

18 minutes ago, rmpfyf said:

Mmm hmm.

 

If there's zero difference to what you have in pulling the cable then no Ethernet anything will be of any benefit. Which is some advice you're welcome to read in.... many of my posts on this very matter.

 

Mmm hmmm.....

 

 

That's precisely the point. An ethernet device is completely divorced from what comes out the dac. 

 

Mmmm what? 

 

Data is not sent to the dac in a continuous stream and directly  converted in real time,  it is called for in chunks when the dac wants it and buffered. 

 

Mmmm what? 

 

Jitter in a dac output is related to the timing stability of the word clock that's in the dac. 

 

What data timing variations that are in the ethernet data stream before it hits the PC is completely irrelevant.  It's not even vaguely the same thing as jitter in the dac. Not forgetting to mention the data is buffered in the NIC, it's buffered by the OS, its buffered by the playback software, it's buffered by the USB driver, it's buffered in the dac.

 

That's precisely why you can pull the ethernet lead out and it keeps playing! 

 

Edited December 5, 2019 by March Audio

[Ittaku]

41 minutes ago, rmpfyf said:

We've another contributor here that believes all amplifiers/pres/DACs/whatever without a perfect power supply capable of nullifying any mains whatever to indiscernible levels is subpar.

Presumably you're referring to me here, but that's unfair in this circumstance, as I believe the ethergen won't make a difference on a system even worth 1/100th of what mine is worth.

[Guest rmpfyf]

8 minutes ago, Ittaku said:

Presumably you're referring to me here, but that's unfair in this circumstance, as I believe the ethergen won't make a difference on a system even worth 1/100th of what mine is worth.

No, not you