[BaTou069]

Did some one try the Regen with the LH Labs Geek Out/Pulse? (without LPS)

 

[Superdad]

  I sent an email to Matthew of Forza requesting an adapter be made for the Regen. I asked for a male to male usb 'A'>'B'. I will use it with the one he had previously made me for the micro idsd. I will use the new adapter by itself when I connect the Regen to the future idsd pro.
 
The Audioquest Jitter Bug looks like an interesting device. I already have an ifi ipurifier in line with the Regen. I suppose the Jitter bug might be overkill but at $49.....??
 
I started using the micro in battery mode with the Regen and improved SQ even more. The Regen rocks!!
 
EDIT: Kritikal, I just digested what you said about using the Jitter bug. I would get rid of the ForzA adapter and the adapter sent with the Regen and put the Jitter Bug directly between the micro and the Regen............SWEET! I'm going to try that.

No, that is not a good idea.  Please do not put anything between your DAC and the REGEN.  Signal integrity and impedance match are bed right our the REGEN.  Anything else will mess with that. 

 

[Franatic]

  No, that is not a good idea.  Please do not put anything between your DAC and the REGEN.  Signal integrity and impedance match are bed right our the REGEN.  Anything else will mess with that. 

Thanks for monitoring our ideas and giving us good feedback. I will scrap that Jitter Bug idea.
 
I will proceed with the Forza made adapter to replace the the stock 'A' to 'B' adapter supplied.
 
For Kritikal:
I retested the battery mode vs usb power for the micro. I found battery mode gave a slightly blacker background. Both ways sound superb.

 

[Jerryfan]

Is it "Mid August" yet?

 

[Superdad]

  Thanks for monitoring our ideas and giving us good feedback. I will scrap that Jitter Bug idea.
 
I will proceed with the Forza made adapter to replace the the stock 'A' to 'B' adapter supplied.

 
I am not saying you shouldn't use the Jitterbug--it may prove complementary to the REGEN.  I am just saying to be sure not to use it AFTER the REGEN.  The REGEN and some short adaptor or really good short USB cable should be things closest to the DAC.

 

[doctorjazz]

Did some one try the Regen with the LH Labs Geek Out/Pulse? (without LPS)

I use the Geek Out Special Edition, have ordered the Regen, can let you know when I get it. I'm sure I'll post here.

 

[Superdad]

Is it "Mid August" yet?

As of Monday, August 10, one could almost officially say it is mid-August.  In celebration of that, 150 REGENs are going to the post office tomorrow!  

 
Another 150, the balance of orders with "mid-August" promise dates will leave either Friday, the 14th, or Monday, the 17th.  
Not sure because we are also shipping 16 JS-2 choke-filtered LPS units this week.  That is a record-size batch of those and a LOT of time is involved.  They are all built, but even the shipping logistics for packing and sending around the world gets pretty involved.
 
Remember, you will always receive a tracking number on the afternoon of shipment (2:00 California time is when those notices go out).  So if your order number is lower than 1915 and you don't get a notice tomorrow, it means you are in the next batch later in the week/following Monday.  Order numbers 1915 and above are all promised (at the time you ordered and in the acknowledgement e-mail) for September delivery and we are on track to build and have those ready to go quite early in September.
 
Thanks and regards,
ALEX C.

 

[Franatic]

   
I am not saying you shouldn't use the Jitterbug--it may prove complementary to the REGEN.  I am just saying to be sure not to use it AFTER the REGEN.  The REGEN and some short adaptor or really good short USB cable should be things closest to the DAC.

Hey SD,
No worries, I completely understood your concerns placing it after the Regen. At $50, I will try it other places. I have 2 places I want to audition it. The first being the usb output port to the Regen on the PPA card of my audio pc. The 2nd one is the intriguing option, I want to put it on the PPA usb card input port on my Control pc where I input music from a 4tb Lacie external hard drive.
I have sent an email to Matthew of Forza Audio requesting him to make an adapter between the Regen and the micro idsd.

 

[Chikolad]

 
In celebration of that, 150 REGENs are going to the post office tomorrow!  

So if your order number is lower than 1915 and you don't get a notice tomorrow, it means you are in the next batch later in the week/following Monday.  

 
Being with order #1656, I feel quite happy now 

 

[Chikolad]

  Did some one try the Regen with the LH Labs Geek Out/Pulse? (without LPS)

 
Perhaps I'm responsible for a future lightening of your wallet? 

 
To answer your question, it looks like this guy did: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f6-dac-digital-analog-conversion/uptone-audio-regen-listening-impressions-24078/index8.html#post419976

 

[doctorjazz]

The CA quote is for a Pulse WITH LPS, with the 2G usb cable, not sure how much you can generalize (though, if it helps that set up, odds are it will help a more bare bones set up).

 

[leeperry]

 
 
Joy!  

 
Mike

 
Hi Mike, great pic thanks for sharing and I don't mean to break it or anything like that but you might be quite surprised by what's in those neat little $1 USB adapters of yours:
 

 
Yes, steel wires of the cheapest kind they could source.

 

[Superdad]

   
Hi Mike, great pic thanks for sharing and I don't mean to break it or anything like that but you might be quite surprised by what's in those neat little $1 USB adapters of yours:
 
 
 
Yes, steel wires of the cheapest kind they could source.

 
Sorry to disappoint you Lee, but before I made the selection for what to include with the REGEN I cut open 5 versions of USB A>B adapters, and they ALL had copper wire in them.  Here is a pic of the exact one that comes with the REGEN (I have 900 on the shelf so I can sacrifice a few to science 

)  I think you need to find a new source for adapters.
 


By the way, you mentioned a page or two back about a nice LPS for the REGEN.  We have been working on something crazy-cool, affordable, and ENTIRELY different than anything that has come before it, and someone prematurely started a thread about on CA: http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f6-dac-digital-analog-conversion/uptone-audio-regen-power-supply-add-24963/index2.html#post440357
Won't be released for about another 90 days.
 
You also mentioned LM317 regs for an LPS.  We would never want to use that ancient device as their performance is vastly worse than the 1A TI TPS7A4700 we use inside the REGEN.  Take a look at this comparison chart: https://hifiduino.wordpress.com/2011/03/29/new-breed-of-ultra-low-noise-regulators/
 
Your friend in Texas did contact me by the way.
 
Best regards,
 
ALEX

 

[leeperry]

Hi Alex,
 
Thanks for the swift reply, it's not very often that you see gear manufacturers take the time to pretty much instantly reply in public threads discussing their equipment so major kudos for that

 
Right, I didn't know that you do provide them with the unit and I forgot that there are indeed better adapters than the $1 chinese ebay ones. Conductors still aren't quite as thick as decent USB cables and nowhere near as shielded but I'll give you that those adapters are short so it might not matter nearly as much, this said they can put a lot of strain on USB connectors and I did kill a small USB DAC input like this once hooked up onto an ADuM4160 dongle.
 
I'm no engineer and I do realize that for instance Benchmark claimed that they used a low-noise SMPS in their DAC-2 because it provided higher performance than a LPS, but IME the latter always sound more natural and less digitis-ridden than the former. I would love to be proven wrong and will be eagerly looking forward my friend's findings regarding a Wyrd Vs Regen shoot-out for sure.
 
Noise is one thing, but at the end of the day one of the main factors that would matter the most to SQ would be ripple and these figures seem really really low: http://www.diyforums.org/MiniMAX/MiniMAXhistory3.php

With the LM317, TO-220 rectifiers and 4000uf onboard capacitance, it was certainly designed and constructed to the same standards. (..) Tangent's TREAD power supply measures 0.060mVAC, with the STEPS very slightly better at 0.058mVAC. I confirmed for Colin that (..) the newly constructed miniature MAX with board surgery measured 0.0mVAC on the Fluke.

 
Zero ripple basically, using LM317 as far as I understand. How can it get any better than that? Can a switched mode PS or regulator provide zero ripple?
 
BTW, great blog you linked here(I spent more time than I would admit reading it ^^) and I see that he mentions WaveIO, which reminds me that it doesn't work with Wyrd. Lucian gave me a technical explanation to it: http://www.head-fi.org/t/724519/schiit-decrapifier-released-usb-power-isolator/390#post_11355378
 
Would Regen suffer from the same issue?

 

[Superdad]

  Hi Alex,
 
Thanks for the swift reply, it's not very often that you see gear manufacturers take the time to pretty much instantly reply in public threads discussing their equipment so major kudos for that

 
Right, I didn't know that you do provide them with the unit and I forgot that there are indeed better adapters than the $1 chinese ebay ones. Conductors still aren't quite as thick as decent USB cables and nowhere near as shielded but I'll give you that those adapters are short so it might not matter nearly as much, this said they can put a lot of strain on USB connectors and I did kill a small USB DAC input like this once hooked up onto an ADuM4160 dongle.
 
I'm no enginner and I do realize that for instance Benchmark claimed that they used a low-noise SMPS in their DAC-2 because it provided higher performance than a LPS, but IME the former always sound more natural and less digitis-ridden than the former. I would love to be proven wrong and will be eagerly looking forward my friend's findings regarding a Wyrd Vs Regen shoot-out for sure.
 
Noise is one thing, but at the end of the day one of the main factors that would matter the most to SQ would be ripple and these figures seem really really low: http://www.diyforums.org/MiniMAX/MiniMAXhistory3.php
 
Zero ripple basically, using LM317 as far as I understand. How can it get any better than that? Can a switched mode PS or regulator provide zero ripple?
 
BTW, great blog you linked here(I spent more time than I would admit reading it ^^) and I see that he mentions WaveIO, which reminds me that it doesn't work with Wyrd. Lucian gave me a technical explanation to it: http://www.head-fi.org/t/724519/schiit-decrapifier-released-usb-power-isolator/390#post_11355378
 
Would Regen suffer from the same issue?

Hi Lee:
 
I am always happy to reply, even though I don't always have the time.  But I do like to correct mis-information, and while I know it is not intentional, your post has a lot of it.  Please do not take offense in any of the following.
1) I pay $0.45 a piece for the Chinese adaptors (that's where the are ALL made) with stranded, copper wire; USB spec calls for 28awg wire for the signal pair and that is what these have. (BTW, those ADuM4160s, aside from not offering 480Mbps high-speed, are major jitter sources.  In a ranking of isolator chips and technologies, they own the bottom.)
 
2) Sonic differences between the Wyrd and the REGEN have virtually nothing to do with power supplies.  Schitt choses to run 6V AC from an unregulated wall transformer and put the diodes and all PS caps on the board with the rest of the device.  That's their choice and one could speculate about if the diode noise swamps their nice low noise regulator their clock--but the Schitt guys are smart, and I'm not the engineer here.  The REGEN has two of the TI TPS ultra-low-noise linear regulators and does fine from the SMPS.  People can add a nice LPS (or our forthcoming piece) if their system is allergic.
The differences between the Wyrd and REGEN are all about how the data is handled in and out of the hub chip (and the networks around it).  John Swenson focused on signal integrity (rise/fall times of the signal edges, amplitude of the signal, noise sitting on top of the signal and jitter of the edges) and on providing a near perfect 90ohm output impedance (using a 4-layer board was required to accomplish that).  With its two-layer board and a cable required on its output, it does not seem like those were priorities for the Wyrd (though again, my greatest respect for the company and people of Schiit--they do terrific things there and I admire their business practices and acumen immensely.)
 
3) You quoted 0.06mV and 0.058mV noise figures.  Aside from needing to know over what bandwidth and at what output current those were taken at for them to have meaning, 0.06mV is 60µV, and that is still 15 times the 4µV noise of the regulators we use in the REGEN.
 
4) I use a WaveIO in my DAC and it works fine with both the Wyrd and the REGEN.  Sorry, but the post you linked to has a lot of mis-information as well.  With over 1,000 REGENs sold, over 99.7% of users have been able to get it to work in their system. 
 
Feel free to ask any other questions, and I'll try to get John on to answer as well.
 
Thanks and regards,
Alex C.