Roon etc

Naturally - but I don’t think this is anything to do with being ‘bit perfect’… its about the side effects of the rendering from data algorithms in a closed system.

I think this is just UPnP implementation, and how the interchange and signalling between Renderer and Streamer is undertaken.

The Roon with SonoreUPnP Bridge approach seems to be that the cache is off-board the streamer, within the Roon server, and this then provides the traffic in a burst approach to the streamer, as it provides the next part of the track, which is then loaded into the streamer buffer.
This is why the bridged Roon solution can effectively work for the smaller buffers in the Gen 1 streamers, as it undertaking this off-board, leaving the streamer to do a lot less. Which I imagine is goodness, if undertaking management of the stream and processing draws current and therefore potential noise into the playback process.

My undergrad project, back in 1990, was a Wireless Security system using the permitted RF band for Car fobs ( 433.92MHz) and using FM to overlap signals to identify the PIR based sensors and status (alarmed, triggered and heartbeat).
Got the basic system working, just, between sensor and base station (could only afford one PIR, so only one sensor :laughing:) at relatively short distance, had to black-box the keypad based alarming side, alarm setting/deactivation, etc.
But I think they were impressed with the RF standards documents enclosed, and a BOM for the unit, plus cost estimates. I was sponsored by a Electronics sub-contractor at the time.
And now, this stuff is churned out of China by the container.
But the RF side was pretty hairy and use of a double input FET, not covered in the course, to overlay the signal on the RF carrier.

Also having fun with a 10MHz OXCO external clock with -134 dBc/Hz at 10-Hz offset, to my EtherREGEN and the improvements this has bought to the streaming playback.

Curious on which clock you use?

I’ve thought about this (also EtherREGEN). What type of improvements are you experiencing? I have looked at a ready-made small board from audiophool (.nl) with these specs:

  • OCXO clock 10MHz, 20MHz or 24.576 MHz
  • Stability 5ppb
  • Phase noise -140dBc/Hz at 1kHz
  • Ultra low noise regulation circuit : noise less than 10uVrms
  • Input : 5Vdc , max 1A
  • Output-impedance: 0 Ohm

They are normally using it modifying Cisco Merakis, 2960’s and Melco N1ZH. Either DIY or ask them to mount it in some box for me. There is not enough DIY in HiFi these days :slight_smile:

Got an AfterDark one, at King level (-134 dBc/Hz at 10-Hz offset, -107 dBc/Hz at 1-Hz offset) with 75ohm output, with matching AD PSU from a Roon forum member, as there is a ‘For Sale’ section on that forum, unlike here.

Not the most expensive selected version, but not the cheapest either. Alex and John at Uptone state that once better than -125 dBc/Hz at 10-Hz offset there is benefit over the internal Crystek CCHD-575.

I have been happy with the ‘bare’ EtherREGEN since it landed back in Nov '19 with improvements made on the PSU from ZeroZero basic 15W to Farad3 with Level2 Silver cable, etc.

So this seemed the less risky approach over a DIY build using a OXCO board bought blind from China, or the other sub $1,000 clocks available.

Came with its original Clock and Power cable, so out of the box operation.

Been 21 days since power on, and the reported settling time is 30-days.
However straight away, there was a difference, for the better.

However I am now into PhoenixNET level spend between the EtherREGEN, Farad3 PSU, OXCO & PSU. And now considering alternate Silver Clock cables and DC power etc. :grin: and the show goes on.

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Hi, I reported here, as it happened Uptone Etherregen 50 or 75 Ohm - #40 by simon.pepper
So improved detailing, transients, almost ‘cleaner’

I was going to go down this approach, as there are DIY components readily available, have a spare 5v power supply, get a SMA to BNC cable and a case for the board etc.
How hard could it be?

And then this one, at King level, came up for Sale and bosh, deal done, for 50% of the cost, including shipping etc. Just had some Brexit tax to pay on goods that have already had VAT paid on them, but that’s just the stupidity of the UK being a 3rd country surrounded by a single market, but we won’t get into that ridiculous situation. :crazy_face:

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I believe it must be a nice improvement. Enjoy. I was tempted to do that too when I had the Etheregen, but the number of little boxes finally discouraged me. I went for PhoenixNet.
I may join you on the second ps you have for Nds. Soon or later. I will ask you how to connect it best when I will get it.
Uptone should produce the ER 2, upgraded. But still no news on it. Will you get it when it will be ready ?

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Don’t know on the ER2. I have no need for Gigabit on the ‘B’ port or a SFP cage, but it depends on the price, whether I can sell on the ER1 and what’s the delta between the ER1 & ER2
Happy with what I have for now. Most of the boxes are hidden behind & underneath the 2 Aavik racks.

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I just get the lp out of its sleeve, put it on the turntable press the power button and lower the arm.

I’d be interested to understand why using BubbleUPnP should sound better than using the Naim app? Is there a technical reason?

To be frank I have always been unimpressed with my EtherRegen… it was I am afraid apathy on my part that meant I didn’t return it, so I keep it in one of my switched segments from a 3750 - but quite honestly using an external DAC on my NDX2 acting as a digital streamer it’s transparent whether its in line or not for me. (that was not the case with my previous NDX … )

However since the next gen streamers and their improved network isolation, my enthusiasm, for investigating here has dwindled, not least lets be honest from an antctual networking perspective some of this stuff is cheaply or simply designed and manufactured dressed up with a good marketing budget for a niche market.

However would be curious to hear if you have any causation measures or quantitative measures you might have of the reduced phase noise power with serialisation clock using your external clock over the inbuilt one (I used to use a bandscope - a poor man’s frequency spectrum analyser - to look for line clock jitter and other HF common mode noise and harmonics on an ethernet lead generated by a switch) … or is it actually other things at play … like the grounding of common mode noise through the external clock cabling? - Or did you separately earth the Regen? The clock scaler/synthesizer is possibly quite a key element. Typical ethernet line speed clocks are 625 MHz, 312.5 MHz, 156.25 MHz, and 125 MHz . I don’t know if the Etherregen uses a quality scaler/synthesizer like the TI CDCM6100x to achieve these. It is the phase noise/jitter output of the clock synthesiser which will be important - rather than solely the input clock…
Also is this external clock used for the internal DC to DC switched mode power supplies (I suspect kind of unlikely) ?
If you have you only assessed through listening then no worries - but you strike me as a chap that likes to go poking around :slight_smile:

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Yes, many of the switch offerings from EE, Ansuz, Silent Angel are just off-the-shelf switch boards repurposed. At least the Uptone products are a dedicated ‘ground-up’ design from a reputable designer (John Swensen)

Unfortunately no access to any Lab equipment anymore. When I worked for ICL Enterprise Systems (i.e. Mainframes) there was a good lab in the Materials Tech Group you could use. And getting decent equipment to performance measurement at this level, would be quite expensive.

Uptone are very transparent into how they are designing & implementing their products, and if you have questions and comments, then both Alex and John monitor their forum and post regularly.

The external clock input on the EtherREGEN v1 is just used for the Port ‘B’ the isolated dedicated output into a streamer/player.

Would love to hook things up to analyser and scopes and get down into the mechanics, but time & this level of equipment is not available. Listening is my common used measurement method now :grin:

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I would be interested to understand how a UPNP controller app has any bearing on anything, the music does not originate from it or go through it.

Naim is always using uniti core as a “transport” for the streamers but here I have a question, Melco has a dedicated eth connection for streaming signal. It is perfectly clocked with no layer 1 arp on it, a totally different approach from the core. Do you think it improves the quality or it is simply a way of complicating a simple connection?

Hi a don’t know what Melco does, but Address Resolution Protocol is a layer 2 function (not layer 1), it effectively binds layers 2 and 3 together and associates network addresses with IPv4 addresses… ie it is a fundamental part of networking where IPv4 addresses are used. Note IPv6 doesn’t use ARP, it instead uses NDP (Network Discovery Protocol)

So ARP will be used if IPv4 addresses are used, but you can off load ARP queries by the following.
If a device acted as an ARP proxy bridge, that network bridge then can handle the ARP queries for an other device on the other side of the network bridge, the Melco could do this task perhaps?
What is the benefit of this for a streamer? Well if a streamer had poor networking interface in terms of noise decoupling, this would off load the occasional ARP queries on the home network, so would avoid possible noises glitches or occasional bursts of less good audio from the streamer … however I think we are clutching at straws of marginality here… and will vary from streamer to streamer and size of network… I suspect for later better streamers this sort of thing would becomes largely irrelevant. Also if IPv6 was used this would also largely become irrelevant… as NDP is more efficient than the old broadcast based ARP.

The serialisation clocking is probably more likely to give a consistent improvement, but again less on later better streamers. Here the phase noise and therefore noise power of the Layer 1 serialisation clock can be reduced by using a more stable clock. This phase noise can otherwise couple into the streamer if the the Ethernet interface is not totally isolated … and in practice there will often be a bit of coupling leakage. A good quality commercial switch or a so called audiophile switch often focuses on this… and I suspect the Melco does too.

The Uniti core is not a network bridge… it’s a regular host on the network.

What switch do you suggest? Did you tried some audiophiles switches?

I would try a quality commercial product like a used Cisco 2960 or 3560 in its default mode. These manage multicast filtering in the same way as an ARP proxy bridge manages ARP.
You might want to try various ‘audiophile’ switches as well as the above, however audiophile switches I am aware of are very simple devices with limited capability, so you might find daisy chaining might be worth trying… with just having the streamer connected to the audiophile switch, and that switch connected to a 2960 or 3560.

In truth however any switch is going to work fine, and unless there is a fault or issue somewhere none is going to be ‘transformative’ but can allow you to subtly ‘tune’ your system.
Regarding so called audiophile switches I own and have used an EtherRegen, I have used between a 3560 and streamer.

To be honest I m electronic engineer as well and I totally second your opinion about audiophile networing. I m out of Europe and I cannot buy second hand I have to buy a new one and I think that something similar to 3560 is now a 9100 am I right?
To be honest I m still convinced that usb or network sensitivity is a matter of dac/streamer implementation and I think that naim, chord and someone else are working closely on it. I knew about horrible experience with bricasti network management but I think that naim 2nd generation streamers are top notch.
Actually for my ndac I m using an iPad connected to a lector usb/spdif converter which is a superbly engineered piece of kit and I m convinced that the best option for hi res local files reproduction with ndac is uniti core

I don’t believe there is an exact replacement for the 3560, the 2960 has been replaced by the 9200. The 9100 I think is a WAP.

Totally agree with you…

Yes, this is what I think, it’s better to invest on a good streamer than spending time & efforts fiddling with some so-called audiophile switches.

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