I have a Gigafoil and I’m pleased with it’s contribution. There’s a fair amount of buzz about the EtherREGEN. I’m wondering if there’s any point in getting one to use with the Gigafoil. I’m liking where my digital sound is but hey it’s Audiophilia.
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I’ll get my EtherREGEN in February, and will report on it. -No Gigafoil planned.
Please don’t buy an EtherRegen… at least until I can get a second one as a backup in case my first one is ever stolen
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Mine is arriving in January, but it will be a while before I can test it.
Rough neighborhood? 
I’ve got an EtherRegen in my system as of last night. I’ve temporarily retired my Gigafoil.
There’s more layers of detail to the music, better bass and better trebles. This is to the point of almost being bright. I’ve left everything playing overnight to try to break in the EtherRegen to see if this makes any difference. But the device really runs hot. you wonder what the long term health of this will be. Clearly a lot of power supplies running on high bias. Running at 107.8F with an infrared gun.
Mine took a good couple weeks to ‘burn-in’. The initial brightness faded quickly though.
Despite Alex/John saying the parts are spec’d at over twice the nominal temp, I setup a low speed fan to blow across the ER. Brings the temp right to ambient. I’m fortunate in that all my gear is in another room and the ER and other bits are in an half heigh AV cabinet.
Just a little air movement will dramatically reduce the temp and will likely extend the life.
Are you two using the stock power supply?
Yes. I don’t have any linear supplies to try and don’t plan to based on Alex and John saying there is little to nothing to be gained.
I think this speaks highly of them as of course they could have pushed their 1.2 supply.
Mine is sitting on a heatsink with air flow but i might rig a fan under it.
Thanks.
I’m in the Feb shipment, and can’t wait to try different configurations:
-straight into the bridgeII from the B side
-From the B side into an ultrarendu on a LPS.2 to a Matrix on LPS-2 to DSD
-same but leave out the Matrix
I’ve got lots of critical listening ahead.
Well it’s been almost a week, 4 days of 24 hour use with the EtherRegen. This started as a rocky entry into my system with a very harsh and almost brittle presentation has now tamed itself to uncanny detail and range. It’s getting better by the day. It doesn’t help that I have new to me speakers, new speaker cables, new HDMI cable. It’s all worth the wait and it’s a keeper tons of detail and a range of frequencies that isn’t making me want for subwoofers. I just sold my SVS’s and I’m getting REL’s.
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I’m waiting for my shipment in Feb… quoted date is 26th Feb… let see.
I already have optical rendu (OR) hence I think i have to connect from my switch to ER Side-B through regular Ethernet cable and connect using optical module on ER Side-A to OR?
Switch -> (Ethernet cable) -> ER (Side B) -> ER (Side A) -> Fiber optics -> OR?
I have a gigafoil and I’ve removed it as per the Uptone position that it’s redundant. So any optical front or back end is unnecessary. I might try to insert it at some point for “ sh**ts and giggles” if it hasn’t sold.
Yes, this is how I run it but with optical card in my server instead of the OR. I’ve found that single-mode LX 10km SFPs with 12dB attenuators to sound better than multi-mode SX SFPs. LEDs vs. lasers doing the conversion is the main difference but logically it should not be any different.
The attenuators are needed even though a 10km SFP won’t strictly over drive the receiver over 5m cable, it sounds ‘easier’ with the reduced levels.
The advised configuration by Uptone (Switch -> Ethernet cable -> ER (Side A) -> ER (Side B) -> (quality) ethernet cable -> OR)
Per Alex and the manual it’s completely symmetrical. The only caveat of running it ‘backwards’ is one should not use any other A side ports.
He says they went to great lengths to make reversing it an option for those with fiber endpoints.
" The circuitry across the ADIM™ (moat) is designed to eliminate the signal-borne phase-noise from one side to the other. EtherREGEN is mostly symmetrical—there is no “dirty side” or “clean side.” While it works identically in both directions, it is best to have the DAC-attached Ethernet endpoint device (computer/streamer/etc.) alone on one side—typically the ‘B’ side."
The difference being the number of ports on the A side.
Sorry @brett66 you are completely right! My thoughts were based on the original concept before this nice adjustment…
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I am hoping those with a DS Sr or DS Jr with Bridge II will report on their findings using the Ether REGEN. I was very impressed with how Uptone’s ISO Regen improved the sound quality of my prior Oppo Sonica dac, but could not hear any improvement using the ISO connected to my DS Sr. I suspect it is because of the DS Sr superior power supply.
I would be a very happy camper to learn the the Ether REGEN could bring further improvement.
Mine ships this week, will test it directly into the Bridge II.