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

[JohnSwenson]

On the SFP modules, it is gigabit only. Most of the optical modules  are already gigabit only, but the Ethernet interface SFP modules come in two flavors, gigabit only OR 10/100/1000. The 10/100/1000 will not work with this switch. The protocol is different, I chose to use the protocol that works with the optical SFP modules since most people want to use it that way.

 

The devices with SFP cages from some companies will only work with "compatible" SFP modules. There is no electrical difference, the modules come encoded with the name of the company (Cisco etc) and the device checks that name and if it doesn't match it refuses to connect.

 

I refuse to play such games so I don't check for the name at all, so you can use any module that meets the protocol.

 

John S.

 

 

[diecaster]

18 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

If someone were to use a pair of EtherREGEN's as a pair of FMC's... with an LPS-1.2 on the most downstream FMC... 

 

...How does this leakage compare with someone using a single EtherREGEN + Uptone grounded SMPS, in your own personal 'preliminary' measurements so far... I'm not asking for published measurements yet, but I'm sure you've compared in your own personal measurements?

 

i.e. is the isolation as good as optical, in your early findings?

 

 

@JohnSwenson Please tell us that stacking EtherREGEN switches won't improve things...please!

[JohnSwenson]

5 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

 

Hi John

 

If someone were to use a pair of EtherREGEN's as a pair of FMC's... with an LPS-1.2 on the most downstream FMC... 

 

...How does this leakage compare with someone using a single EtherREGEN + Uptone grounded SMPS, in your own personal 'preliminary' measurements so far... I'm not asking for published measurements yet, but I'm sure you've compared in your own personal measurements?

 

i.e. is the isolation as good as optical, in your early findings?

 

I don't quite understand the question.

 

The high impedance leakage comes in from an electrical connection network connection. With optical there is none.

 

At this point we don't know how much high impedance leakage attenuation occurs through the EtherRegen circuits. There will be some, but it will not be absolute, the high impedance leakage is very difficult to block. The low impedance leakage attenuation will be very high (I don't know for sure what it will be, but it will be quite high, I expect over 100dB)

 

Since you are talking about an optical connection, there is none coming over the network connection, so the only leakage is coming in over the power supply. So your question is really about, "what is the leakage difference between the UA SMPS and an LPS-1.2".

 

The ground shunt on the UA SMPS drops the high impedance leakage a lot, about 80 dB but does not touch the low impedance leakage. The LPS1-2 attenuates the low impedance leakage by about 120dB (factor of a million) and significantly less than that for high impedance leakage. The combination of the shunted SMPS and the LPS-1.2 attenuates BOTH high and low impedance leakage by at least 120dB.

 

So for an optical network connection, the total leakage attenuation through the EteherRegen (including network and PS) is going to be very large for both supplies, at least 120dB attenuation for both types of leakage. With the LPS-1.2 there is theoretically higher attenuation, but in practice there will always be enough "sneak paths" in any electronic circuit that there will probably not be that much difference.

 

i hope that answers the question.

 

John S.

 

 

[JohnSwenson]

7 minutes ago, diecaster said:

 

@JohnSwenson Please tell us that stacking EtherREGEN switches won't improve things...please!

I hope not. The purpose of this switch is that it attenuates both leakage and clocking issues by such a large amount that there is no audible influence from anything upstream of the switch, period.

 

Time will tell whether that is actually achieved, but that is what I am working towards, and quite confident that will happen.

 

John S.

[asdf1000]

8 minutes ago, JohnSwenson said:

I don't quite understand the question.

 

The high impedance leakage comes in from an electrical connection network connection. With optical there is none.

 

At this point we don't know how much high impedance leakage attenuation occurs through the EtherRegen circuits. There will be some, but it will not be absolute, the high impedance leakage is very difficult to block. The low impedance leakage attenuation will be very high (I don't know for sure what it will be, but it will be quite high, I expect over 100dB)

 

Hi John, this answers my question (I think).

 

So the isolation method of the EtherREGEN (looking at the 'clean' output) won't be quite as good as optical?

 

I guess the next question is did you consider optical isolation inside the EtherRegen itself, to isolate the upstream electrical network connections? As this totally blocks the leakage of the upstream electrical network connection (the same way an expensive pair of EtherRegen's + fibre optic cable connection would). 

[bobfa]

Do you folks have a “generic” network diagram for implementation?    I assume that the NAA / Renderer go on the clean port.  Past that I do not understand where things like Roon Servers, etc. end up..

 

In my case I am using a stand alone server running Roon with all of the music stored on the server.  My NAA is the UltraRendu.

 

 

[JohnSwenson]

50 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

 

Hi John, this answers my question (I think).

 

So the isolation method of the EtherREGEN (looking at the 'clean' output) won't be quite as good as optical?

 

I guess the next question is did you consider optical isolation inside the EtherRegen itself, to isolate the upstream electrical network connections? As this totally blocks the leakage of the upstream electrical network connection (the same way an expensive pair of EtherRegen's + fibre optic cable connection would). 

The problem is not the signal isolators, they are extremely good, it is the power supplies. We didn't really want to build two LPS-1.2s into every switch, this would make it SO expensive, large, power hungry etc that it wouldn't be a viable product.

 

We are working on a separate isolating supply between the two sides. This has not been finalized at this point, there is a lot of work to go on this. We can get extremely high isolation for low impedance leakage, but the high impedance leakage is tough to block in a power supply. That is why we are using the shunted supply, to shunt the high impedance leakage before it gets to circuits.

 

John S.

[JohnSwenson]

52 minutes ago, bobfa said:

Do you folks have a “generic” network diagram for implementation?    I assume that the NAA / Renderer go on the clean port.  Past that I do not understand where things like Roon Servers, etc. end up..

 

In my case I am using a stand alone server running Roon with all of the music stored on the server.  My NAA is the UltraRendu.

 

 

Its very simple,

the clean port goes to the ultraRendu,

one of the network ports goes to the network that you have your Roon server on.

 

We have multiple ports on the network side so you can be as flexible as you want. There is an SFP cage so you can connect optically if you want. There are 4 Ethernet jacks, you can connect one of them to a port on an existing switch or router. We have more than one so you can replace an existing switch if you want to. You don't have to.

 

For example if you had a small switch near the audio system you could replace it with this switch and plug the other devices into the 4 ports on the EtherRegen.

 

So ultraRendu into clean port, a connection to the network with the server into a network side port. Use other network ports if you want to.

 

The network side ports are extremely clean as well, just not AS clean as the "clean port".

 

John S.

 

 

[asdf1000]

26 minutes ago, JohnSwenson said:

The problem is not the signal isolators, they are extremely good, it is the power supplies. We didn't really want to build two LPS-1.2s into every switch, this would make it SO expensive, large, power hungry etc that it wouldn't be a viable product.

 

We are working on a separate isolating supply between the two sides. This has not been finalized at this point, there is a lot of work to go on this. We can get extremely high isolation for low impedance leakage, but the high impedance leakage is tough to block in a power supply. That is why we are using the shunted supply, to shunt the high impedance leakage before it gets to circuits.

 

John S.

 

Got it. Thanks for taking the time to share some details John. Always appreciated.

[bobfa]

I sort of figured that would be one way.  I think I would change my main switch at home to one with an SFP port and setup the network switch as the “audio” “subnet”  

 

Love it!

[jjraffin]

3 hours ago, JohnSwenson said:

 

The ground shunt on the UA SMPS drops the high impedance leakage a lot, about 80 dB but does not touch the low impedance leakage. The LPS1-2 attenuates the low impedance leakage by about 120dB (factor of a million) and significantly less than that for high impedance leakage. The combination of the shunted SMPS and the LPS-1.2 attenuates BOTH high and low impedance leakage by at least 120dB.

 

 

So John, just to be clear a LPS-1.2 with included UA SMPS is the ideal.

[JohnSwenson]

 

1 hour ago, jjraffin said:

So John, just to be clear a LPS-1.2 with included UA SMPS is the ideal.

I'm working hard so there is no "ideal" supply. If I get it right it won't make any difference. We'll have to see how well that goes.

 

John S.

[Superdad]

3 hours ago, bobfa said:

I sort of figured that would be one way.  I think I would change my main switch at home to one with an SFP port...

 

I really don’t want our inclusion of an SFP port to give people the impression that they need to run optical into the EtherREGEN to get great results. Copper is just fine.  The cable combination of John’s choice if magnetics and PHYs plus the active full isolation will deliver outstanding performance—beyond what is available in any other switch that we are aware of. 

[davide256]

5 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

I really don’t want our inclusion of an SFP port to give people the impression that they need to run optical into the EtherREGEN to get great results. Copper is just fine.  The cable combination of John’s choice if magnetics and PHYs plus the active full isolation will deliver outstanding performance—beyond what is available in any other switch that we are aware of. 

Not aware of any streamers with built in SFP's... look forward to your effort to give us the best behaved layer 2 Ethernet connection possible.

[lmitche]

5 hours ago, Superdad said:

 

I really don’t want our inclusion of an SFP port to give people the impression that they need to run optical into the EtherREGEN to get great results. Copper is just fine.  The cable combination of John’s choice if magnetics and PHYs plus the active full isolation will deliver outstanding performance—beyond what is available in any other switch that we are aware of. 

Yes but, use of an optical SFP on the clean side implies a second optical SFP and power supply on the streamer side to convert to copper media as few streamer's have SFP based nics. Another conversion to copper demands a fiber media converter, so it is a reasonable question to ask if a second EtherRegen can be used in this role.

 

Or is the SFP on the dirty side and the clean side is copper only? This is not stated directly in John's post above.

 

 

 

[pl_svn]

12 minutes ago, davide256 said:

Not aware of any streamers with built in SFP's

 

first one that comes to (my) mind: http://www.luminmusic.com/lumin-x1.html

(not just because of the banner here above ? )

[Blake]

15 hours ago, JohnSwenson said:

The purpose of this switch is that it attenuates both leakage and clocking issues by such a large amount that there is no audible influence from anything upstream of the switch, period.

 

 

That would be terrific.  Chris would also be happy because there will be lots of upstream gear and related accessories for sale on Superphonica if the Etheregen accomplishes this goal!

[barrows]

14 minutes ago, Blake said:

 

That would be terrific.  Chris would also be happy because there will be lots of upstream gear and related accessories for sale on Superphonica if the Etheregen accomplishes this goal!

I am sure that the UpTone switch will accomplish this goal (certainly with optical input).  Of course there will still be those who "hear" differences when they use a ridiculously expensive "audiophile" server on the upstream side (hahaha).  Once I see who these people are, I will know which peoples' subjective reporting to ignore.

[Blake]

11 minutes ago, barrows said:

Of course there will still be those who "hear" differences when they use a ridiculously expensive "audiophile" server on the upstream side (hahaha).  

 

If I owned an expensive server I would think about selling now, before the used market value tanks.

[diecaster]

With an endpoint like an ultraRendu, and a switch that blocks high impedance leakage to a certain degree, I don’t see how expensive servers make a difference now. 

 

My my interest in the EtherREGEN is that it should block the noise on the outgoing copper Ethernet port to my ultraRendu to such a low level as to be completely inconsequential. 

[R1200CL]

5 hours ago, lmitche said:

Or is the SFP on the dirty side and the clean side is copper only? This is not stated directly in John's post above.

 

 

If you read the whole thread, the SFP is on same side as the 1GB interface RJ45 ports. There is only one superclean port and it’s 10/100 only.

 

If John develops a UltraRendu with SFP, which I’m not sure make any sence, then you may request a superclean SFP. However that may not be straightforward. 

 

Technical it’s nothing stopping John developing a Rendu with the network cleaning technology included in the Rendu. Commercial it may be a challenge. 

 

As is he could make a Rendu with a LPS-1.2 inside, with or without SMPS integrated as well, but as the Signature Rendu SE already has proven, a normal PS is probably better. 

[barrows]

Ummm...  By definition an optical interface is already super clean, only data travels on it, no noise.

[Cxp]

11 minutes ago, diecaster said:

With an endpoint like an ultraRendu, and a switch that blocks high impedance leakage to a certain degree, I don’t see how expensive servers make a difference now. 

 

My my interest in the EtherREGEN is that it should block the noise on the outgoing copper Ethernet port to my ultraRendu to such a low level as to be completely inconsequential. 

The expensive servers have multiple internal power supplies for the different components. The Ultrarendu uses the same external power supply to power the cpu/ram/usb output. By using dedicated power supplies you can isolate these pieces from each other. 

 

 

[barrows]

7 minutes ago, Cxp said:

The expensive servers have multiple internal power supplies for the different components. The Ultrarendu uses the same external power supply to power the cpu/ram/usb output. By using dedicated power supplies you can isolate these pieces from each other. 

This is an UpTone thread, so let's not get too far away here, but you are wrong.  The ultraRendu has individual power supplies for the different internal sections using ultra low noise regulators.

There is way less noise on the ultraRendu USB output than there is from any complete music server.  In addition, a Renderer requires way less processor power, has no big noisy internal drives, and has requires much less power to run (less power equals less noise) than any full feature server.  

[R1200CL]

6 hours ago, pl_svn said:

 

first one that comes to (my) mind: http://www.luminmusic.com/lumin-x1.html

(not just because of the banner here above ? )

 

$14000 !!!

 

And you don’t know how that optical signal is treated. In addition you are allowed to use the RJ45 port simultaneously. 

Anyway a discussion for another tread.