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

7 hours ago, JohnSwenson said:

All oscillators have their own phase noise. The issue here is that the phase noise of the clocks that generate a data stream can wind up increasing the phase noise of a local clock, this is true for all digital devices. Each pass through a device attenuates this influence, so say you have a router, then two switches before the audio system, the phase noise from the clock in the router will significantly less affect on the DAC clock than the clock in the last switch.

 

This happens all the time, even in normal LAN gear, the noise from the upstream device gets attenuated by say an order of magnitude (exactly how much this is I have to determine), then overlayed on the noise from the next device, but since they are all pretty much the same level, you'll never see the very small increase. But in a DAC the clock has so much less noise than what is in common LAN gear this overlaying becomes significant.

 

As an example using completely arbitrary numbers, lets say you have a switch with a clock of 1000units, and a DAC with a clock of 10 units. If you put one of the switches after the other, the phase noise of the second switch will be 1000+(1000/10) = 1100, you'll never notice the difference. But if you feed the data from the switch into the DAC you get the 10+(1000/10) = 100, the local clock has become MUCH worse because of the contamination from the clock in the switch. Even if the attenuation is 1/100 the the local clock noise still doubles.

 

John S.

This almost makes sense to me.  The key point that I do not understand is that the device after the switch will most likely be buffering whatever is fed to it.  How can phase noise in a switch survive buffering in a network end point, for example?  With my own system I can remove the Ethernet feed to the switch, and music plays for one or two seconds, so there is clearly lots of buffering after the switch.

8 hours ago, Celts88 said:

 

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

This is an interesting thought...

While I understand the concept of this switch -- in effect, creating a firewall that blocks all noise from the LAN to streamer -- if this noise is, and has been, present on our networks all this time and we rip files or download files to a NAS or drive somewhere on the network, is this noise now a part of the file itself?  

 

7 minutes ago, ChrisG said:

This is an interesting thought...

 

While I understand the concept of this switch -- in effect, creating a firewall that blocks all noise from the LAN to streamer -- if this noise is, and has been, present on our networks all this time and we rip files or download files to a NAS or drive somewhere on the network, is this noise now a part of the file itself?  

 

No, I believe the files you’ve ripped really do consist of only one’s and zeros from the source. What JS is talking about is electrical noise that is created by devices that the ethernet cables pass through and is then picked up and carried onward alongside the ones and zeros of the actual music. Pretty sure this “noise” isn’t converted to bits, but is part of the analog electrical domain that helps move those bits from server, to renderer and/or dac. That’s how I understand it at least. 

I do know that recently I went from a Netgear FS105 with ground shunt and small linear power supply, to a fanless Trendnet 24 port with internal SMPS (I really wanted to consolidate the whole house) and the lift in sq was noticeable. Like the proverbial veil being lifted. Haven’t tried a Cisco 2960-8tc-L that many rave about over on the Naim forums. Might be similar or better to the Trendnet, but instead of buying yet another hit or miss used switch, I’ll easily wait for reports on the Uptone switch. Next years hifi purchase perhaps? 

Electrical interference on network cables can create issues on rare occasion with data transmission, but that it is immensely rare that it really creates any issue besides flipping a bit here or there. The exceptions are if you are running power and network cables alongside each other, or are running it near some serious power sources. But that's resolvable with a shielded twisted pair cable. If there's any sort of wifi in the mix, that's going to generate it's own mess of possible problems, but I would not expect if you're aiming for the best that you would use wireless. Electrical interference with data integrity within a device is moot, that's not a thing. If the power is poorly shielded within a device, that could create issues with the data coming in or going out, but that's more electrical field issue, not component functionality itself.

The whole clock jitter piece is valid to an extent, clock rates do constantly vary, but the amount they do is measured usually in microseconds (1/1000000th of a second) and even the smallest buffer on the last step would resolve that passing through hundreds of hops. If you have a connection from one side of the earth to the other, as long as there's no interference on the cables, and there's no fighting for bandwidth with anything else, it will come out with the same quality as running across a hall.

That's the point of binary data and digital signals, is that they are resistant to being changed. The same interference that can flip some bits in the right circumstances and change several millionths of the transmission does all sorts of hell to analog quality.

30 minutes ago, thatguysboss said:

Electrical interference on network cables can create issues on rare occasion with data transmission, but that it is immensely rare that it really creates any issue besides flipping a bit here or there. The exceptions are if you are running power and network cables alongside each other, or are running it near some serious power sources. But that's resolvable with a shielded twisted pair cable. If there's any sort of wifi in the mix, that's going to generate it's own mess of possible problems, but I would not expect if you're aiming for the best that you would use wireless. Electrical interference with data integrity within a device is moot, that's not a thing. If the power is poorly shielded within a device, that could create issues with the data coming in or going out, but that's more electrical field issue, not component functionality itself.

The whole clock jitter piece is valid to an extent, clock rates do constantly vary, but the amount they do is measured usually in microseconds (1/1000000th of a second) and even the smallest buffer on the last step would resolve that passing through hundreds of hops. If you have a connection from one side of the earth to the other, as long as there's no interference on the cables, and there's no fighting for bandwidth with anything else, it will come out with the same quality as running across a hall.

That's the point of binary data and digital signals, is that they are resistant to being changed. The same interference that can flip some bits in the right circumstances and change several millionths of the transmission does all sorts of hell to analog quality.

This isn't about bits getting flipped. The bits are arriving properly. STP is not the way to go as it creates more problems than it might solve. Noise that has no impact on data transmission can and does have an effect on audio output.

I am dubious about clock phase noise myself and would like to see test data to show it affects on analog output. If clock phase noise is just a another name for jitter, some DACs are more likely to more affected by it than others.

4 minutes ago, diecaster said:

STP is not the way to go as it creates more problems than it might solve

How so? Besides the only obvious one to me of STP being a right pain in the ass to manually create.

Need more specificity on what you mean by "noise", people use it to mean any number of things. On any DAC device, absolutely it can happen from interference or jitter, that's both/either a processing issue from cheap chips, or an interference on the analog signal portion. But anything in between when it's in all digital form and going between converters, whether processing or just transmitting, would have no impact on the analog output.

I am not going to try and educate you. Believe whatever you want to believe. 

6 hours ago, thatguysboss said:

How so? Besides the only obvious one to me of STP being a right pain in the ass to manually create.

 

Need more specificity on what you mean by "noise", people use it to mean any number of things. On any DAC device, absolutely it can happen from interference or jitter, that's both/either a processing issue from cheap chips, or an interference on the analog signal portion. But anything in between when it's in all digital form and going between converters, whether processing or just transmitting, would have no impact on the analog output.

People are spending big to reduce the electrical noise that goes into a DAC over a wired digital interface.   A good switch just before a renderer is a big help as any noise upstream of the switch will be greatly reduced.

@Superdad

@JohnSwenson

With all due respect, I find it a little odd that you tell us your hypotheses are not yet demonstrated and proven within a thread announcing a product that builds on those very hypotheses. 

Perhaps you should not have deleted the part where I requoted John, explaining my misunderstanding.  I guess I read through the thread too quickly initially.

These topics are not easy to understand for us "laymen". The idea that a clock's phase noise in a network switch could go through a streamer and adversely effect the DAC is far from "intuitive"....

Anyway, the part I am curious about now is how more findings (experimentation) by John will change the solution you design in your products. 

Here is a totally overpriced switch

Spending $5000. No way. 

4 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

Here is a totally overpriced switch

Spending $5000. No way. 

 

I used to think $500 was an overpriced switch.  I still do.

Hey Alex, off thread question (since this thread seems to have mostly run its course for now, perhaps the off topic question is OK), I have an excess LPS-1 here, that is being replaced with LPS-1.2.

It seems that the EtherRegen may not benefit from an upgraded LPS.  Therefore, I no longer have a place for my  LPS-1.  Before I put the LPS-1 up for sale, are you at liberty to say whether there might be some other upcoming Uptone products in the pipeline where the LPS-1 could be used?  If so, I'll keep the LPS-1 rather than sell it.

I am not asking for any details of any upcoming device, simply if any upcoming device will benefit from a quality LPS and if so, if the LPS-1 could be used to power such device? 

Nice try ?

G'day Alex 

Just wondering if the new EtherRegen will be able to be powered by the lps1? I recall reading that it will fit under the lps1.2 threshold of 12v @1.1 amps, but I don't recall reading about it being able to also be powered by the lps1.... Sorry if you have already answered this, I must have missed it ?

I hope discussion of this topic hasn't stopped yet, because I have a question that may not have been covered. 

Is this upcoming switch going to be wireless?

Is this a dumb rookie question? I'm asking because my audio system is not on the same floor as my modem and router. My PS Audio DSJ has a network bridge that has ethernet and i2s input. The only way to use ethernet would be from a wireless bridge. Would I need to have my cable company run a second cable to my audio room?  

9 hours ago, audiojerry said:

I hope discussion of this topic hasn't stopped yet, because I have a question that may not have been covered. 

 

Is this upcoming switch going to be wireless?

 

Is this a dumb rookie question? I'm asking because my audio system is not on the same floor as my modem and router. My PS Audio DSJ has a network bridge that has ethernet and i2s input. The only way to use ethernet would be from a wireless bridge. Would I need to have my cable company run a second cable to my audio room?  

Our new switch will NOT be wireless.

You CAN buy inexpensive wireless bridge boxes that have WiFi and a regular Ethernet jack on the same box. They do not cost very much and should work very well with the new switch. Just plug a regular Ethernet cable between the bridge and the switch.

A bunch of companies make these, I personally have used the TrendNet ones and they work well. They frequently come as multiple use boxes so may not be called a "bridge" but that is one of the modes they can be used in. a lot of these are called a WAP (Wireless Access Point) and the bridge mode may be called "client mode" in some of them.

John S.

Here is the wireless bridge i've been using for a while now.  Rock solid, cheap and handles DSD and high res in my system without any drop outs.

https://www.amazon.com/D-Link-Wireless-Gigabit-Extender-DAP-1650/dp/B00JFOP688