EtherREGEN: The long development thread. [Some Gen2 dev. pics and update starting on page 92.]

6 hours ago, R1200CL said:

Personally I rather woukd like to see first number start with the digit 2.

What, so you’d like it to be $2,000? 

Seriously though, $200 would not even cover our parts costs (and that’s with a 250 unit run).

@Superdad Thanks for filling in a few more details on the implementation!  That is a much more positive and thorough take on the features, functions and benefits.  Sounds like there are definite competitive features / advantages.  Now hurry back to the shop and make sure John’s design comes together in the Uptone fashion we’ve come to know.?

I am going to sit on the sidelines and let the product get built. Watching for an order link sometime in the future......

Meanwhile clapping hands and saying ohhh new goodies!!!!

OH and listening to my system with my ISOregen in it...... happy dance!

On 4/2/2018 at 2:50 PM, JohnSwenson said:

The UASMPS provided with the switch already has the DC output grounded so no separate grounding needs to be done. The internal power network in the switch will be extremely good, the result is that there should be no advantage to using an LPS-1.2.

 

John S.

John: are you saying that we don't need to use your ground plug "device" with the new etherRegen?

But we will need to use it if using an LPS-1.2 to power it instead of the UASMPS that comes with it?

Thanks!

@thyname

Yes that’s what John has been saying in another post as well. 

If you decide to use any of ultracaps LPS from Uptone, you will have to do some JSGT in addition.

Either earth the minus barrel or use a special supplied ground point on the chassis. 

Actally I had misunderstood the JSGT myself with those named switches in the other thread. So it turned out in addition to internally do the shunt of the Meanwell supplied withe the LPS-1, I also had to ground the minus of the input voltage of my Cisco SG100D-08. 

In addition it seems that my switch may not be the same John tested, so I may not have any blockages at all ?

Mine has plastic cover. 

15 minutes ago, thyname said:

John: are you saying that we don't need to use your ground plug "device" with the new etherRegen?

But we will need to use it if using an LPS-1.2 to power it instead of the UASMPS that comes with it?

Well, as he and I both indicated, it remains to be seen if a high-quality LPS is even needed for our new switch. (Wow, why should I say that? Don't I want to sell more UltraCap supplies? ).

But in case people do--or if they use some other PS that is not ground-shunted--then yes, one will need to ground the EtherREGEN.  However, as John mentioned, we plan for the unit to have a ground screw (or socket)--so that John's double-barrel-connector doohickey is not required. 

On 4/2/2018 at 11:50 AM, JohnSwenson said:

The UASMPS provided with the switch already has the DC output grounded so no separate grounding needs to be done. The internal power network in the switch will be extremely good, the result is that there should be no advantage to using an LPS-1.2.

1 hour ago, Superdad said:

 

Well, as he and I both indicated, it remains to be seen if a high-quality LPS is even needed for our new switch. (Wow, why should I say that? Don't I want to sell more UltraCap supplies? ).

John’s post seems pretty clear. He thinks there should be no advantage in using an LPS 1.2. 

@JohnSwenson and @Superdad: 

Here is what a guy I know from our local FB group said when I posted a link to this thread:

------------------------------

OK, I work in the computer networking world...I have my hands and finger logged into routers, VPNs, firewalls, and switches every day. And I troubleshoot those devices down to the packet level, yes I know how to read a TCP/IP and/or Ethernet packet. And just my to cents, the idea of speeding $400+ on an eight port copper (CAT5 or CAT6 RJ45 cable) switch which is move a digital packet from device A to device B is a waste of funds. Please understand that I think it is super cool that they are building this super cool switch...both all those ones and zeros will still get to the place they are going. And I understand how to build networks to avoid discards/resend/jitter/too many devices doing... and any $100 8 port switch will do the same job as that super cool $400 ...

-----------------------------

His words. Not mine. 

Thoughts? Could you explain the benefits of an "audiophile" Ethernet Switch in layman's terms?

3 hours ago, R1200CL said:

@thyname

Yes that’s what John has been saying in another post as well. 

 

If you decide to use any of ultracaps LPS from Uptone, you will have to do some JSGT in addition.

 

Either earth the minus barrel or use a special supplied ground point on the chassis. 

 

Actally I had misunderstood the JSGT myself with those named switches in the other thread. So it turned out in addition to internally do the shunt of the Meanwell supplied withe the LPS-1, I also had to ground the minus of the input voltage of my Cisco SG100D-08. 

 

In addition it seems that my switch may not be the same John tested, so I may not have any blockages at all ?

 

Mine has plastic cover. 

 

 

Yeah you want the V02. I just bought one off eBay for $32 to replace my FS105.

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F282885806728

There were a few more listed in that price range that were V02. 

54 minutes ago, oneguy said:

Yeah you want the V02. I just bought one off eBay for $32 to replace my FS105.

 

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F282885806728

 

There were a few more listed in that price range that were V02. 

Thanks. I suppose the 5 port version will do as well ? ?

1 hour ago, JohnSwenson said:

@diecaster is correct, it is not about getting the ones and zeros across, it is all about other things that come along the cable, specifically leakage current, and phase noise of the clocks that produce the data streams.

 

First off note that I have not fully proven all of the below, I am in the process of doing the fundamental research on the details of what is happening, so the details may change, but I have enough information for the overall concepts.

 

Leakage current, this comes from all AC powered power supplies, it travels through cables to other power supplies and back to the AC line. Ethernet devices wired with copper cables contain transformers, most people think that these block leakage, well yes and no. They DO block the low impedance leakage that most people measure when they talk about "leakage". But it turns out that SMPS power supplies generate a different type of leakage I call high impedance leakage, which goes right through these transformers. I've written in great detail about this in other posts. So what is bad about leakage? It travels through the ground plane of your devices, even all the way down to the DAC, and flows through the ground planes of the devices. This creates a noise on the ground plain with the same spectrum as the leakage, which is right in the middle of the audio range. The ground plane noise increases the phase noise of the clocks sitting on it, in particular the clock in your DAC. This added phase noise causes distortions in the audio signals coming out of the DAC. The cheap SMPS supplied with most consumer LAN equipment generates huge amounts of this leakage current.

 

The other is phase noise of clocks in the network. Again consumer LAN equipment does not usually have clocks with very low phase noise. These clocks are used to clock out the data going over the wire, so they too have the same phase noise as the internal clock. When this data stream goes into a receiver it generates noise on the ground plane which in turns generates extra phase noise on any clock connected to the ground plane. This can cascade down through connected devices into the DAC, again increasing the phase noise of the local clock.

 

Leakage and phase noise can interact, the leakage on the Ethernet cable, can go through the motherboard on a renderer, adding phase to the clock that winds up driving a USB port which winds on on the ground plane of the DAC etc. The exact details of how this works is what I'm trying to work out now.

 

And BTW there is a good probability that I was a designer of chips that are in those switches and routers etc that he mentions, so I have some idea of how they work.

 

John S.

 

 

John - I am "thatguy" with that works in the computer networking world that was quoted to this forum. Could you please define or explain in detail this clock you are talking about?

@JohnSwenson 

In laymans terms is it essentially you can't properly hear the 0's & 1's for the other noise contamination?

As a side question, I have an Antipodes CX Music Server (will be getting it next month), and this will feed my Devialet 1000Pro. The Devialet can (now) access Spotify / Airplay / etc. direct via the internet, therefore if I was only going to use the 'Super Clean' port of the new EtherRegen (when it comes out) connected to my equipment, which one would you recommend?

Thanks

John

19 minutes ago, Celts88 said:

 

@JohnSwenson 

 

In laymans terms is it essentially you can't properly hear the 0's & 1's for the other noise contamination?

 

As a side question, I have an Antipodes CX Music Server (will be getting it next month), and this will feed my Devialet 1000Pro. The Devialet can (now) access Spotify / Airplay / etc. direct via the internet, therefore if I was only going to use the 'Super Clean' port of the new EtherRegen (when it comes out) connected to my equipment, which one would you recommend?

 

Thanks

John

The "super clean" port connects to your streamer (Devialet). 

46 minutes ago, thatguy said:

John - I am "thatguy" with that works in the computer networking world that was quoted to this forum. Could you please define or explain in detail this clock you are talking about?

 

I'm not John and certainly not tying to answer for him in any way, but your question is quite vague and puzzling. 

In the post you are reacting to, John mentions the DAC's local clock, and he also mentions network clocks, as well as USB clocks in the renderer stage.

So the question (for me anyway) becomes which clock are you referring to? Your question is so non-specific as to potentially be ignored, reread the post and you'll see what I mean, there isn't just one singular clock being referred to in that post.

2 minutes ago, MikeyFresh said:

 

I'm not John and certainly not tying to answer for him in any way, but your question is quite vague and puzzling. 

 

In the post you are reacting to, John mentions the DAC's local clock, and he also mentions network clocks, as well as USB clocks in the renderer stage.

 

So the question (for me anyway) becomes which clock are you referring to? Your question is so non-specific as to potentially be ignored, reread the post and you'll see what I mean, there isn't just one singular clock being referred to in that post.

Thanks for the reply. I am trying to understand his post and the word clock or clocks was used a number of times in the quoted post. Example: 'phase noise of clocks in the network' and 'These clocks are used to clock out the data going' and 'adding phase to the clock that winds up driving a USB port' and 'increasing the phase noise of the local clock'  

5 minutes ago, thatguy said:

Thanks for the reply. I am trying to understand his post and the word clock or clocks was used a number of times in the quoted post. Example: 'phase noise of clocks in the network' and 'These clocks are used to clock out the data going' and 'adding phase to the clock that winds up driving a USB port' and 'increasing the phase noise of the local clock'  

 

 

Exactly, in other words there are three very different clocks being mentioned in that post, so your question about "this clock..." is too vague, no one knows which clock you are asking about: is it the DAC's local clock, or are you referring to network clock(s), or the USB clock in the renderer stage?

Each of the above was mentioned in the post you questioned.

3 minutes ago, MikeyFresh said:

 

Exactly, in other words there are three very different clocks being mentioned in that post, so your question about "this clock..." is too vague, no one knows which clock you are asking about: is it the DAC's local clock, or are you referring to network clock(s), or the USB clock in the renderer stage?

 

Each of the above was mentioned in the post you questioned.

Thank you for the info, a bit tired. Will reword.

7 minutes ago, JohnSwenson said:

Almost all digital devices have some form of oscillator, the generic term is a "clock" since its "tick" is used to control the flow of data through the device. It may be a separate oscillator which contains a quartz crystal and the electronics or the electronics may be embedded in another chip and just the quartz crystal external.

 

In a common switch the electronics are embedded in the switch chip and an external 25MHz Quartz crystal is connected to the switch chip. Inside the switch chip there is at least one PLL (Phase Locked Loop)  which takes the 25MHz from the oscillator and synthesizes 125MHz which is the symbol rate in both 100Mbit and gigabit Ethernet.

 

A USB receiver chip will have something similar except it is frequently 24 or 12 MHz.

 

A DAC will frequently have two oscillators, one for each sample rate "family" (44.1, 88.2, 176.8, 352.6) , (48, 96, 192, 384). Common frequencies are 22.5792 MHz  and 24.576 MHz. A few use twice those frequencies.

 

A commonly held belief is that the phase noise (ie jitter) of these clocks in the DAC are what is important, so designers spend money to get low phase noise oscillators for DACs. The flip side of this is the belief that no other clock any where in the data chain is important, so cheap high phase noise oscillators are used for the USB receiver, Ethernet chip, etc.

 

Recent study is starting to show that this is not the case, the phase noise from other clocks can overlay the noise from the local clock. Thus phase noise form other clocks can contaminate the local clock. Even if this "bleed through" is small, the phase noise from devices such as consumer switches and routers is many orders of magnitude higher than that of really low phase noise oscillators used in better DACs. The result is that you are not getting what you paid for in that DAC. In order for the DAC to sound as good as it should, this clock contamination needs to be dealt with.

 

That's what this switch does, it has a very low phase noise oscillator to clock out the symbols onto the cable and special circuitry that prevents phase noise on the incoming packets from contaminating THAT clock.

 

John S.

 

 

Thanks for the reply, to confirm: you are saying that any clock that connects to the circuit board of the DAC chip is creating "phase noise" of the DAC's clock.

2 hours ago, ChrisG said:

2 hours ago, Celts88 said:

 

@JohnSwenson 

 

As a side question, I have an Antipodes CX Music Server (will be getting it next month), and this will feed my Devialet 1000Pro. The Devialet can (now) access Spotify / Airplay / etc. direct via the internet, therefore if I was only going to use the 'Super Clean' port of the new EtherRegen (when it comes out) connected to my equipment, which one would you recommend?

 

Thanks

John

The "super clean" port connects to your streamer (Devialet). 

If my music server contained all of my music files then would agree, but 1/2 of the music is stored on my NAS in my study, therefore my thinking behind using the clean port for the music server was to ensure no potential 'noise' getting into the files from my NAS. On the other hand I do realise that as my Devialet can now play Spotify, Airplay, etc. then for it to use the clean port would assist with keeping that data clean.

Appreciate the other answer is "wait until the EtherRegen is out at try either set-up", but was looking for advice form the knowledge people on here.

Thanks

John

55 minutes ago, thatguy said:

Thanks for the reply, to confirm: you are saying that any clock that connects to the circuit board of the DAC chip is creating "phase noise" of the DAC's clock.

Thanks your interest.

I mean no offense, but since you are new around here, and based on the phrasing of your questions, please allow me to suggest you do a bit more reading here at CA on the topic of clocks, phase noise, and DAC architecture.  Some of this stuff may then start to make a bit more sense.

And then you will also see where John is saying we are currently limited in the proofs of how upstream clock signatures can migrate into the workings of the DAC itself.  

This is an area of intense research for us (I speak about it a bit in the very first post of this thread), and if the project (a series of boards, a high-speed 32-bit ADC, a jitter marker injected, etc.) is successful, it will likely call into question a number of conventional assumptions and attract a lot of interest from other digital engineers.

But we really don’t want to get into any of this here and now.  

In fact, I think this thread has run its course in that there really are no more questions to answer until much closer to the release of the EtherREGEN.

And when John’s upstream clock signature/blocking measurement project begins to bear fruit, we will most certainly start a new topic about that.

—Alex C.