rogerdn said
My experience is a bit different, I like my Regen (stock ps) into my Yggy but maybe the difference is my Sonicorbiter SE with an iFi ps playing Roon, one heck of a renderer for $300 btw.....and looking forward to the $640 microRendu.
My friend had a well built CAPs with mostly PPA/JCat h/w, so its possible that could have made a difference.
On the microRendu - Uptone guys said in the CA thread that its going to beat a tricked out CAPs. Not sure what he meant by a “tricked out” CAPs. When asked, someone else replied for him. Looks like a teaser and a marketing promotion to me instead I am not “yet” ready to believe microRendu will beat a carefully and very well built CAPs but time will tell. Btw, does anybody know when the microRendu will be available for purchase ?
It would be interesting to see how microRendu compares to Bridge-II, since they are mostly in the same category and function. Two big advantage of BII over microRendu
Regarding the reign and the DS DAC. In any circumstance I have tried there was an improvement . The improvements were Ina few places .
over details
relaxed sound some cal, it analog
lastly the bass was more neutral
the results varied depending on the source
even my best cap as on pure dc regulated thee us an improvement on oar with the diffenence of using a pail pang USB card or not. Meaning the improvement is about the same using the mobo USB worth REGEn and then USB cArd. But it also improves the card USB as well. Now results are not good for all dacs it most definitely not help my lampi on PCM anyway.
It also improved my msb DAC as well. Using a cost as well. Now what better is becomes a choice lime who likes 121 over Yale . So pic your poison . I think the few who do not like it may be that there system or taist may be Brite and the REGEn just outs it over the top. With both the msb and DS it most definitely make it smoother while still giving me rich tones and weight , never harsh . It does make my lampi get thinner more like the DS Nc much less musical. My observations with the lampi were form a caps and nit a simp,e desktop or laptop. It is also a stock second gen REGEn. Adding a better psu does little to my ears if at all again it from a caps. While the B2 is very good and makes life simple the USB , regs and caps does beat it. But that’s al long way to go for about 10 to 15 percent of improvement . I have to say pauls and team have made a great bridge . If pauls new PWT 2 is this good Paul now has acompkete setup very nice. The network storage is spinning drives except for one dual 1 TB SS drives a synology ds213+. This does sound better than the other nas drives
No I had a few off the shelf servers for a short while. But was not happy with any of them Once I built a couple of servers the show was over. Keep in mind I also own an msb stack witha UMT plus as a server as well. This. Gave me a base to contend with. The one I did want to try but got off the train was the one from Jesus. He is someone I do beleave in. Not saying arrender is bad I just got tired of chasing the dream. An off the shelf does have some merit as it’s simple and reliable for a novice. But like most stuff there is two ways to euphoria one is pay as in msb the other is take the time to learn yourself . If a server that cost me nearly 5 k gets me to a level of my UMT plus with its own signature psu that’s a total of 16K . Then the learning is worth it. I post to help not to show off. but my poor posting skills makes me second rate . It’s Shame if one takes the time to try and understand I Can save them thousands in money and many hours of time.
I posted more than 2 years ago of the gain in USB converters. It’s shame most never took the time . The REGEn is so cheap and does so much it shows how computer audio is getting better and cheaper all the time.
Most of the folks over at CA are reporting the W4S RUR sounds better than the Regen, when it works. There are some compatibility issues with some Dacs but W4S fixed it with the upgraded board.
I got the Intona today and slowly burning in but in a nutshell I think I might have to retire the Regen. Apparently hearing it without the Regen, its way more improvements in every direction than what Regen alone did - my system sounds more natural now with a very articulate bass and bigger soundstage (like where did all these appear suddenly). Never thought any improvements was possible on top of the Regen. With Regen the bass improved but was bloated and sound was on the brighter side (possibly a bit edgy as well). Used Regen both with a 5v linear psu and battery power. Will update more when it settles in.
It would be interesting to see how microRendu compares to Bridge-II, since they are mostly in the same category and function. Two big advantage of BII over microRendu
no need for sophisticated external power supply
no need for expensive USB cable.
One big advantage of the uRendu is that it can be used with any DAC.
I will chime in here… I did just get a W4S RUR… and am having very good results with it… I have it hooked up between a laptop (i3 - win10) - audioquest diamond usb - Directstream… It is obviously quite easy to A/B - and I was very skeptical as I felt the sound coming out of the DS was fantastic… best front end I have ever had. Adding the RUR seems to give a little bit more space between the instruments… a bit more bass detail… and image depth… I also seem to be getting a touch more lower mid - which gives a better sense of presence and a more palpable sound…
I haven’t compared to the regen - but I found this little gizmo to add something real nice… or take away something nasty??? I think the DS can do its job a bit more easily now possibly working with a cleaner signal…
Right out of the box I noted it didn’t do anything negative to the sound… and I didn’t want to A/B it… My hunch was that …‘hey I think the voices have a bit more depth… and things seem to have more attack… things seem to be popping out at me more’… But didn’t want psycho acoustics to get in the way… So after the simple A/B - I found that my initial thoughts were accurate…
I only have about 10 hrs on it… but, had to do an A/B about 4 hrs into it. We will see how it gets after 50 hrs or 100 per W4S suggestion… I had a 100 dollar amazon gift card so - this was a 99 dollar endeavor for me… no brainer!!
Try the same as your doing but a laptop,or desk top win 8 or better but an I 7 processor , you will be surprised . Especially of playing dsd where PCM is less needed. . Borough or try Amy one report back if it does not make you jump .
A question for you 1234… … I see people going in and shutting down the cpu to single core etc… It made me think - possibly that an i3 would actually be better than an i7 given that the i3 is dual core and the i7 is quad core?? I haven’t gone down the path of improving the pc with changes to setup etc…
Without getting into a long post , I can say I have built about 10 servers they all sound a bit different . The main boards have each there own sound . Not so much the SS drives . The memory does matter to the sound too. Given any one setup I played with RAm settings and CPU settings as well. Simple stock settings are best for all around sound . Audio optimizer explains what to do on each bios settings and it’s all about mAking the CPU do more with out the ram . So in general just 4 gigs is best . Paul pang does make his own ram that ram chip has a second part that helps in noise but does not add memory . As ted has stated on Paper more cores makes more noise , how ever how it sounds to me is better with a faster CPU speed and cores do not seem to Matter . Why I stated a faster than I3 is in my own experience not what others say. I had two I 3 and one I 5 . Any I 7 blows them away. My ref server is an I 7 2.5 xion and 4 gig pauls ram and his ver 3 USB with 3 DC power supplies . Given the same setup but one simple HDPlex multi voltage psu and a 3.5 xion psu , it gets very close and in some ways has a more relaxed sound . Making dsd more of what dsd is . Now if I add all the other DAC psu,s it sounds different not really better at times. The ref has a modded main board clock chip too. Any I3 or 5 is no where near this level of performance . In fact an I3 or 5 blurs dsd staging at loud complex music passages. Such as classical . No USB adaptor fixes this . Now PCM is acceptable but still,is greatly improved . I know in theory I 3 dual core makes more sense but it does pan out in sound . Ted have you tried Ny servers with ser 2012 and audio optimizer as a reference to hesr how good the DS DAC can sound. ???
Ted Smith said
some of the things it was designed to do are redundant with some features of the DS, the device does a great job of dealing with noise from the USB and it's power supply which should help.
Hi @tedsmith ,
Sorry to bring back an old quote from 2015 but I’ve been reading the various posts on the forum about the Uptone Regen with the DS.
I wanted to ask what are some of the things that the DS already has/does that the Regen is trying to address?
One thing that I was thinking (which could be wrong) is that the Regen supplies a clean 5V line for DACs that need it - and the DS doesn’t need the 5V, so that is one feature that is redundant with the DS?
Uptone say that the Regen’s high signal integrity on it’s output can mean that a DAC’s USB interface (PHY) has to work less hard, but does the design of the DS make this feature redundant also?
Could you kindly share some details on the DS’s USB design that may cover some of the things the Regen is trying to address.
The Regen is designed to help with a part of the USB peripheral’s PHY that most other USB conditioners don’t address at all. In so far as that helps a given peripheral it’s a unique feature. One of the reasons you want to do this is to lower incoming jitter which isn’t as important with the DS as with other devices. Another thing helping the PHY does is lessen the variances on the power supply load. There the DS may have an advantage over other devices since it has separate power regulators for the USB subsystem from other subsystems. Still the Regen makes a difference for many when used with the DS and IMO it’s worth trying if you are considering spending that much on another USB tweak, e.g. expensive cables.
Ted Smith said
One of the reasons you want to do this is to lower incoming jitter which isn't as important with the DS as with other devices. Another thing helping the PHY does is lessen the variances on the power supply load. ce for many when used with the DS and IMO it's worth trying if you are considering spending that much on another USB tweak, e.g. expensive cables.
Brilliant, thanks Ted. I'll be demo-ing their new version, their ISO REGEN next week, with their new USPCB board adapter.
Upstream will just be a Supra 90 ohm certified USB cable (John Swenson’s favourite USB cable before he made the USPCB).
Is USB isolation another thing that the DS’s USB input also takes care of better than most USB DACs? By RF filtering for example?
Will be interesting to hear if it’s new defeatable isolation switch makes things better or worse or same.
Of course the new isolation feature will also serve to block groundloops and leakage current loops, which will be system dependant of course.
Tho I feel that the DS is better at rejecting input jitter than many other DACs I don’t think I’d claim that other than being less sensitive to jitter and to power issues that the USB is special on the DS. Doing great isolation isn’t cheap and handling excess RF energy isn’t easy. If I were to redesign the DS today I’m not sure that USB isolation would be the highest thing on the priority list given the other things I could do with that amount of budget. (And don’t ask what the other things might be, my point is simply that everything is a tradeoff and I’d need to plan carefully.) I will say that some of the obvious isolation schemes are probably worse than no isolation at all.
Ted Smith said
I will say that some of the obvious isolation schemes are probably worse than no isolation at all.
Thanks Ted. Uptone shared some info, saying the Silanna ICE08USB isolation chip they use caused issues during development and it took a year or so to tame those issues.
I believe iFi Audio will use the same chip in their upcoming iGalvanic3.0. They will re-clock before the isolation chip and again afterwards. Perhaps for similar reasons, to tame the Silanna chip?
Will be interesting to hear the results of the defeatable isolation switch next week with the Uptone unit. Some are already preferring isolation switched off.
My ultrarendu is coming in this week. I will be determining if the isoregen is necessary or redundant in this setup. The LPS1 is amazing with the Regen, especially with the DC4 D.C. cable!
I run my DS without much in the way of tweaks. I do use the Corning 3.Optical cable and at times I have a separate USB hub just before the DS and have it powered from a different circuit than the rest of the system. In general I want to make the DS sound the best it can as delivered, not optimized for whatever tweaks I happen to choose.
In general I don’t have much problem with groundloops. I’ve taken some care setting up my system, I use balanced interconnects, I have 8 20 Amp dedicated power circuits with their own star ground.
). Never thought any improvements was possible on top of the Regen. With Regen the bass improved but was bloated and sound was on the brighter side (possibly a bit edgy as well). Used Regen both with a 5v linear psu and battery power. Will update more when it settles in.