Amirm has interested review on EtherREGEN Switch with strong opinion on whole Ethernet Regeneration phenomenon, based on measurements and AB tests.
Ethernet - Analog/Digital Signal Clean Up
Curiosity got the better of me recently and I tried a pretty cheap tweak where I used two Fiber Optic converters between the eero access point and my Lumin U1 Mini streamer. Converted from copper Ethernet to fiber optic then back to copper and then into streamer using my Supra Cat8.
I was pleasantly surprised with the improvements this change had brought into my system and now I am wondering if I can do better. One other aspect of the current configuration that I don’t like is the clutter - each unit comes with it’s own power supply and add to that a fiber optic cable. I already have a spider web of wires and am not looking to add to that.
Objective is to have as much noise, RFI and EMI removed before it reaches the streamer.
Seeking opinions on the following units from those who had tried them in their systems:
- English Electric Network Switch 8 (Silent Angel is pretty much the same thing)
- Uptone EtherREGEN (currently out of stock)
- Network Acoustics Eno (box or streaming system)
What is your experience with these units?
Anything else to add to the above list?
Thanks in advance!
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Can you really hear the difference if doing a blind test? I would think having people sit down and listen by not telling them they are listening to with and without would be the true test. Kind of like The Emperors New Cloths Syndrome. It would probably cost $4,000 to buy two power conditioners in my system to find out. What would I hear that is significantly better? |
Much like Amirm, I have over 30 years networking experience. I installed my 1st Ethernet in 1987 , "thicknet" complete with vampire taps. The last 10 years or so I have focused on circuit emulation over packet based networks , primarily for the Power generation and distribution folks. Jitter & latency reduction does play a big role in certain circuit types such as teleprotection. But latency is not a factor in music streaming, and network jitter cannot be a factor , as the I mentioned above , the ethernet frames are long gone by the time the data content is buffered, uncompressed and sent to the DAC.. The DAC clock , has nothing to do with the ethernet network, and vice versa. Unless of course the streamer is doing some type clock recovery via synchronous ethernet , or RFC 1588. And I highly doubt that. Of course this does not even take into account that some streamers are TCP based , and packets are arriving in clumps and are acknowledged. But, if you like the idea, or feel you hear a $600 difference, who am I to argue.
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@larry5729 Let’s not derail this conversation please as I feel it is beneficial for a lot of members of this community who stream and have systems/rooms/ears to not need a blind test to hear the difference. Also, power conditioners are not being discussed here. I would encourage you do your research and do your own testing in your system to hear if there was any improvement and whether or not it’s worth the investment. For me in my system the addition of fibre optic converters gave me a glimpse into what’s possible with the difference (positive) made to the overall sonic presentation. I’d like to stay on topic guys, if we can please. I’m seeking opinions from people who had incorporated changes in their systems to overcome some of these challenges with streaming. |
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