Uptone EtherRegen

I sent mine back asking them to test it as cymbals became splashy and harsh.  Music took on an electronic character.  Perhaps something was wrong with mine? They say 5 out of 1800 units have been returned.  My wife and I could easily hear this negative impact on our music.  Let’s see what Uptone says once they get my unit back. 

Guess I was one of the five.  I,too, found it hardened sound and I definitely preferred music without the Etheregen.

I found mine hardened and made things harsh for a few days, but then it settled in.   Sounds great now and am very happy with the purchase.  I’m still surprised how something like this can make such an impact on sound.

Update.  I unboxed my Regen which was headed back to give it another try.  I changed the power cord in it, plugged it into a conditioner, and changed the order of various ethernet csbles I have. 

I like the sound better now and will give it more days to break in fully. 

I've got maybe ~70hrs on my Regen and overall I'm happy with it and call the purchase a success.   For me it has been incremental changes which all add up to make a nice improvement.   The flexibility it allows in setting things up is a big bonus in my eyes.

1) Just dropping the unit into my system and moving the 5M generic Cat6 cable from my Bricasti M5 to the Regen and adding in another generic Cat6 patch cable to connect to the M5 I heard a small but noticeable improvement.   

2) I then was able to finally use my high quality 1.5M Ethernet Cable for the last run to the M5 and again another small improvement.

3) Lastly I swapped out the 15M Cat6 with 15M of fiber and yet another small improvement.   My audio system is on its own dedicated AC line and now by switching to fiber to the Regen I've cut an electrical connection to my noisy digital equipment all spread throughout the house (e.g. NAS, NUC running Roon Rock, Ethernet Switch, etc...).

I'm using the stock Regen switching power-supply but at least have it plugged into a different AC circuit than the one feeding my other audio equipment.   My last Regen related tweak will be to try a linear power supply sometime in the future.

For fun, try swapping the cables between the A and B ports and see if you hear a difference (e.g. swap the clean and dirty sides of the Regen) :)