[Sleepow]

Thanks for the details.
Actually what I meant is: I use Roon through my PC directly to my DAC. I can add the uR in the middle, but functionality wise, it does not add anything.
If I ever got a dedicated Roon server, I could use the uR as a Roon endpoint and then get done features, as in, not turn on the PC to play music. But adding the uR in my current chain would only be for SQ, not functionalities. Do I make sense?
So just for SQ, is it worth it is addition to the IR?

 

[auricgoldfinger]

I had my rendu long before the IR became available, and it was one of my best upgrades. I have never felt a need to test whether it became redundant after adding the IR. I believe the devices perform somewhat different roles, so I expect having both in the chain is superior to having the IR alone.

@TheAttorney is planning to conduct that experiment once he receives his IR, so if you are patient, you can wait to hear his impressions.

 

[514077]

I had my rendu long before the IR became available, and it was one of my best upgrades. I have never felt a need to test whether it became redundant after adding the IR. I believe the devices perform somewhat different roles, so I expect having both in the chain is superior to having the IR alone.

@TheAttorney is planning to conduct that experiment once he receives his IR, so if you are patient, you can wait to hear his impressions.

It's been a month. Any new impressions? Has @TheAttorney received his, yet?

 

[auricgoldfinger]

It's been a month. Any new impressions? Has @TheAttorney received his, yet?

Nothing new here. Everyone over at CA seems to think that the ISO Regen is a worthwhile addition to their system regardless of the other devices in use. Some of those guys have pretty sophisticated setups, and they still find the ISO Regen + LPS-1 to be an excellent proposition. However, none of them have chucked their other devices to run only the ISO Regen.

 

[514077]

Nothing new here. Everyone over at CA seems to think that the ISO Regen is a worthwhile addition to their system regardless of the other devices in use. Some of those guys have pretty sophisticated setups, and they still find the ISO Regen + LPS-1 to be an excellent proposition. However, none of them have chucked their other devices to run only the ISO Regen.

Thanks. I might just get it anyway, since the Regen did improve my Hugo1. Just can't afford the LPS yet.

 

[TheAttorney]

I still haven't received my ISO Regen yet (or my Paul Hynes SR7). From what I hear at CA, at least the IR production is moving again, so hopefully not too many days now.

 

[TheAttorney]

My ISO Regen arrived a couple of days ago. Still no sign of the Paul Hynes SR7 p/s, so I initially made do with the stock Meanwell that came earlier with my mR - Vortex UK doesn't supply a p/s with the IR by default.

My current system is Roon on W10 laptop running on battery > Supra CAT 8 cable > mR+LPS-1 > TQ Black Diamond USB cable > DAVE DAC.

As my ultra thin laptop doesn't have an ethernet socket, I use a low cost Anker USB-> ethernet dongle. Despite all these extra little boxes/cables in the chain, this mR-based setup sounds considerably better than direct USB connection. I'm generally very pleased with the sound, but no part of the chain adds any artificial euphonic "warmth", so it can sound a touch lean on poor recordings. So, whilst still pondering on what to do about dedicated servers, I thought the ISO Regen may help in the meantime.

I simply inserted the IR > USPCB in between TQ cable and DAC.

On the first day, it took just a few seconds to demonstrate that the IR did indeed give a smoother, more "organic" sound. Although the change was immediately obvious, I couldn't tell at this early stage if all of the changes were improvements, rather than just differences - as it also seemed a touch quieter and maybe not as dynamic as before.

On the second day, the IR had the benefit of 24 hours further burn-in, plus I replaced the Meanwell p/s with an MCRU from the spares box. I consider the MCRU to be a very good p/s for the price, with a performance level very roughly mid-way between my iFi 9v and the Uptone LPS-1. Now, I don't know what proportion was due to the extra burn-in or the MCRU, but the sound had opened up since the day before. More open and dynamic, but still smooth and natural, with reduced glare on bright recordings.

So, early days yet, but already the IR has proven its worth, being incredible VFM. For example, the improvements were more obvious than I had noticed with most £k DAC comparisons I've done in the past.

Next step is to live with this combination for a few days.
Then try removing the mR/ethernet out of the chain, i.e. a direct USB connection including the IR.
And add the Paul Hynes SR7 when it arrives.
Hopefully the resuts of that will help point me towards the steps to take towards a dedicated server, or maybe an mR v1.4 or uR ugrade.

 

[Emerald Core]

Interested to read your findings once everything is setup.

 

[NHSkier]

I've been comparing the ISO Regen with the Bryston BUC-1 USB converter and am not sure which I like best yet. My chain is: HP Elite Desk>>>ISO Regen (or Bryston BUC-1 USB>>>coaxial) >>>Schiit magni/modi mb stack>>>Sennheiser HD600. Initial reaction is that there's more weight to the sound with the Bryston in the mix. I'm using run of the mill power supplies for both so I don't think that's the difference.

 

[TheAttorney]

Interested to read your findings once everything is setup.

My tests got completely disrupted when I moved my hifi rack to a different room (mostly for WAF kind of reasons).
The key difference was that the orginal location had a dedicated mains line with high quality off-the-reel fat Furutech cable - and the new location had just the regular mains ring that goes round the whole floor of the house. But in both cases, I had a high quality power line conditioner (Audience TSS), so I reckoned the move wouldn't make much difference.

But I was wrong. one aspect of SQ seemed to go back 2 years of careful progression. Detail and dynamics were fine, but the problem was the re-introduction of some mid/HF glare and brightness from my laptop that I had previously managed to reduce. I tried various tweaks to see if I could find the problem, which maybe changed things subtly, but the change that made the big difference was swapping the mains cable to the ISO Regen:

In the old location, the IR was powered by MCRU connected to my Audience PLC via a (2 generations old) Transparent cord. In the new location I used an Audience Powerchord e (that I had considered to be slightly better than the Transparent based on a test in a different situation long ago). When I swapped the Transparent cord back to the MCRU, the glare seemed to be tamed again. Phew! Because of the above setback, I had now lost my previous reference point, so I can't reliably say if the sound was exactly as good as in the old location, but at least it was in the same ballpark.

So, with getting back to approximately a good place again, and showing how important power supplies are to this situation, I tried another swap: Give the MCRU to my mR and give the higher quality LPS-1 to my IR. Result was mixed: Possibly the best clarity/detail yet, but also leaner and with some of that glare re-appearing. So I'll swap this back again and then try taking the mR and network out completely, using USB direct with the IR. Sadly, there's still no sign of the Paul Hynes SR7 - now over 2 months later than Paul's ETA estimate and he didn't reply to my last email. Grrrr!

The moral of this story is that seemingly irrelevent changes can skew any result. I'm not surprised that there are so many different reactions to the IR or any other component.

 

[TheAttorney]

Interested to read your findings once everything is setup.

My tests got completely disrupted when I moved my hifi rack to a different room (mostly for WAF kind of reasons).
The key difference was that the orginal location had a dedicated mains line with high quality off-the-reel fat Furutech cable - and the new location had just the regular mains ring that goes round the whole floor of the house. But in both cases, I had a high quality power line conditioner (Audience TSS), so I reckoned the move wouldn't make much difference.

But I was wrong. one aspect of SQ seemed to go back 2 years of careful progression. Detail and dynamics were fine, but the problem was the re-introduction of some mid/HF glare and brightness from my laptop that I had previously managed to reduce. I tried various tweaks to see if I could find the problem, which maybe changed things subtly, but the change that made the big difference was swapping the mains cable to the ISO Regen:

In the old location, the IR was powered by MCRU connected to my Audience PLC via a (2 generations old) Transparent cord. In the new location I used an Audience Powerchord e (that I had considered to be slightly better than the Transparent based on a test in a different situation long ago). When I swapped the Transparent cord back to the MCRU, the glare seemed to be tamed again. Phew! Because of the above setback, I had now lost my previous reference point, so I can't reliably say if the sound was exactly as good as in the old location, but at least it was in the same ballpark.

So, with getting back to approximately a good place again, and showing how important power supplies are to this situation, I tried another swap: Give the MCRU to my mR and give the higher quality LPS-1 to my IR. Result was mixed: Possibly the best clarity/detail yet, but also leaner and with some of that glare re-appearing. So I'll swap this back again and then try taking the mR and network out completely, using USB direct with the IR. Sadly, there's still no sign of the Paul Hynes SR7 - now over 2 months later than Paul's ETA estimate and he didn't reply to my last email. Grrrr!

The moral of this story is that seemingly irrelevent changes can skew any result. I'm not surprised that there are so many different reactions to the IR or any other component.

 

[auricgoldfinger]

My tests got completely disrupted when I moved my hifi rack to a different room (mostly for WAF kind of reasons).
The key difference was that the orginal location had a dedicated mains line with high quality off-the-reel fat Furutech cable - and the new location had just the regular mains ring that goes round the whole floor of the house. But in both cases, I had a high quality power line conditioner (Audience TSS), so I reckoned the move wouldn't make much difference.

But I was wrong. one aspect of SQ seemed to go back 2 years of careful progression. Detail and dynamics were fine, but the problem was the re-introduction of some mid/HF glare and brightness from my laptop that I had previously managed to reduce. I tried various tweaks to see if I could find the problem, which maybe changed things subtly, but the change that made the big difference was swapping the mains cable to the ISO Regen:

In the old location, the IR was powered by MCRU connected to my Audience PLC via a (2 generations old) Transparent cord. In the new location I used an Audience Powerchord e (that I had considered to be slightly better than the Transparent based on a test in a different situation long ago). When I swapped the Transparent cord back to the MCRU, the glare seemed to be tamed again. Phew! Because of the above setback, I had now lost my previous reference point, so I can't reliably say if the sound was exactly as good as in the old location, but at least it was in the same ballpark.

So, with getting back to approximately a good place again, and showing how important power supplies are to this situation, I tried another swap: Give the MCRU to my mR and give the higher quality LPS-1 to my IR. Result was mixed: Possibly the best clarity/detail yet, but also leaner and with some of that glare re-appearing. So I'll swap this back again and then try taking the mR and network out completely, using USB direct with the IR. Sadly, there's still no sign of the Paul Hynes SR7 - now over 2 months later than Paul's ETA estimate and he didn't reply to my last email. Grrrr!

The moral of this story is that seemingly irrelevent changes can skew any result. I'm not surprised that there are so many different reactions to the IR or any other component.

I have found the Meanwell SMPS that comes with the LPS-1 to be of poor quality. The LPS-1 improves considerably if you replace the Meanwell with a better power source. SQ improved noticeably when I plugged it directly into my JS-2, and now it is considerably better plugged into a DC power supply with a floating secondary, which is in turn plugged into an isolating transformer with a floating secondary. I am much happier with the LPS-1 now as previously I had found it compared unfavorably to the SOtM sPS-500 (with an upgraded ac cable).

 

[sahmen]

^^^Wait : Are you saying that, in order to perform optimally, one power supply unit (the LPS-1), must itself be fed by another power Supply unit? Doesn't a power supply which requires another, before it can work optimally almost call for its own disqualification? In a situation like this, will it not be more beneficial to get another--more independently functioning, all-in-one--power supply unit, which can perform its power supplying duties adequately, and independently (by depending on its own default stock power supply unit), without the support of another additional power supply box?

 

[auricgoldfinger]

^^^Wait : Are you saying that, in order to perform optimally, one power supply unit (the LPS-1), must itself be fed by another power Supply unit? Doesn't a power supply which requires another, before it can work optimally almost call for its own disqualification? In a situation like this, will it not be more beneficial to get another--more independently functioning, all-in-one--power supply unit, which can perform its power supplying duties adequately, and independently (by depending on its own default stock power supply unit), without the support of another additional power supply box?

The LPS-1 with the stock power supply should be a noticeable improvement for everyone. If you want to power a low voltage device, the LPS-1 is probably the best value available. What I am saying is that someone like @TheAttorney with a high-end, transparent system should consider upgrading the power supply to fully realize the potential of the LPS-1. I am not a linear power supply expert, but so far I have found that the 3 different models I own have all been significantly improved by paying attention to the power that is supplying them.

 

[sahmen]

The LPS-1 with the stock power supply should be a noticeable improvement for everyone. If you want to power a low voltage device, the LPS-1 is probably the best value available. What I am saying is that someone like @TheAttorney with a high-end, transparent system should consider upgrading the power supply to fully realize the potential of the LPS-1. I am not a linear power supply expert, but so far I have found that the 3 different models I own have all been significantly improved by paying attention to the power that is supplying them.

Okay, understood. What you have said is giving me some ideas, though. I currently use an LPS-1 with the Ultrarendu, and it seems to be doing quite well in that role. I also have an unused power supply unit currently lying idle, called the "TeraDak DC-30W-TOUCH DC9V 2.5A Hi Fi For Audio Linear Power Supply." I have been wondering what would happen if I were to power LPS-1 with it, instead of the stock Meanwell SMPS that normally comes with it... The right voltage/current ratings for the Meanwell SMPS are 12V/1.5A, 9V/2A, or 7.5V/2.5A... The TeraDak is spec'ed at 9V/2.5A, and I do not have enough technical expertise to determine whether it can successfully replace the Meanwell SMPS, in powering the LPS-1

Still, I have been wondering whether replacing the Meanwell might improve the already great sound quality of the Ultrarendu as powered by the LPS-1...

Any thoughts?