EtherRegen vs EE?

Based on what?

I suppose you have tiny little headphones to conduct this test?

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No. They’re real feisty headbangers… :star_struck:

I went with the EE simply because my dealer has them and not the ER, and I use Chord Ethernet cables - so like to keep some consistency there. But if I had the ER I’d surely be happy with that too. What I’m not doing is trying both, I’d be happy with either, made my choice and it’s done.

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On reading the impressions from others. The Cisco was already a big jump from the Netgear and the ER a big step vs the Cisco alone.
I have not read that the EE was a big step vs the Cisco, just a nice uplift.
As I said, it’s only my intuition. @Michaelb had shared the same recently.
But we will see, perhaps some will compare.

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But they would never fit on guinea pigs…

(Suffering from extreme humour failure tonight, apologies).

Ok - took a punt on the EE for the greater good today.
Suffice it to say I returned the EtherRegen when I bought it several months ago but this is staying.

Lower noise floor, a lot more texture, and the something that was annoying the heck out of me since the last 8 years or so has finally been put to rest.

That something was a certain amount of glare or sharpness in the upper frequencies, like a spike at some high frequency band - something constant that just didnt go away. It was reduced to a large degree by moving away from the Netgear to anything else - and I now have a fully unifi/UbiQuiti home and this was the last step to totally fix the issue.

Not that the switch is magical - EE probably did a good job of identitfying an issue and fixing it.

The EtherRegen was also probably doing something positive but it was way more subtle and I certainly did not detect the change in texture and total lowering of that annoying band.

God! This sounds like real hifi now.

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If I’m not mistaken (I could be, but I don’t think so :thinking:) the EE8 has improved the timing with my NDX2.

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Certainly has!

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I’ve a second EE8 on order for my media room (Nova, Core and TV).

Not surprised…I’m getting one for my second system too.

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And Roon sounds way better too!

EE somehow eliminates occasional glare/sharpness from sound in my case. Used with full loom Meicord.

Exactly! Only in my system that was always present. EE fixed it.

So it took a £500 switch to make a £80,000 system sound ok? I’m wondering if people are getting a little carried away with themselves. I don’t want my system to sound like real hifi. I want my music to sound like real music. Which it does. Having a real piano in the house is perhaps a better reference.

Some say the EE makes little difference and the ER is much better, yet others say the opposite. How can this be? What are people looking for? Impressive hifi? Piano that sounds like piano? Who knows? What will happen when the new switch of the day appears on the menu?

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Some people say the same about dedicated mains…

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The Cure are one of my favourite bands, and Jumping Someone Else’s Train is one of their early singles. It obviously wasn’t written about them but it’s most apposite in these switch discussions I feel. This is the last verse.

It’s the latest wave
That you’ve been craving for
The old ideal
Was getting such a bore
Now you’re back in line
Going not quite quite as far
But in half the time
Everyone’s happy
They’re finally all the same
Cause everyone’s jumping
Everybody else’s train

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Have you actually tried one in your system HH? You never know, it might even do the impossible and make a 272 sound better.

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No, I haven’t. I’d rather spend the £500 plus on more music. Everything is fine with the stereo exactly as it is. It sounds lovely and I feel no need to try new things.

These X v Y threads are largely pointless and there will never be a conclusion, as the comments I referred to above demonstrate. However, knowing some of the individuals involved and what they look for in music it would be the ER I tried if I tried either, which I’m not going to do. I’ve had my Cisco nearly four years and it’s just sat under the sideboard doing its switchy thing.

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It still seems that all these audiophile switches are still in the same position as Ethernet cables - i.e. yes an improvement on cheap consumer level switches (which present relatively higher jitter levels), but there is still no consistency.

This indicates that the effect they have is an indirect one (for instance, performing noise shaping in the same way as Ethernet cables do) rather than a direct solution to well established issues, and therefore it’s only ever possible to say that switch ‘A’ worked better than switches ‘B’ and ‘C’ in the specific system and at the specific location. Even changing one of the Eternet cables in the system might actually reverse the result!

I’m happy to spend a few pounds changing over Ethernet cables to try to find one that randomly happens to give a better noise shaping in my system in my house; but spend £500 to £2000 on a random chance… no… well at least not with the current amount of knowledge of the issues they are attempting to solve and the unpredictable effectiveness. Not that I’m against improved switches, but I’ll wait until someone really sorts the problems (if indeed this happens, or is indeed actually possible).

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