Uptone Audio USB Regen

Lucky you :)
Wasn't too bad for me too. I paid Rs 1300.
Haw much was the declared price? It was $75 in my case.

Did not do anything. Came in via Indian Postal Service.

I had sent info to Larry at HDPlex with info on Indian Customs categories - computer power supply should be 0% duty (max 7.5%).
Not sure if he took the necessary precautions. Either way customs is a total crap shoot.
 
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Very interesting. I have Shiit wyrd. Shiit does not make any claim of improving SQ. What it does is removes the noise in the transport and creates a pitch black background. I use it along with my Geek Out DAC. It just makes the characteristics of the DAC to shine more. There is no change in tonality though. Again, it was not a subtle difference when i used with my PC.
 
Could not help asking if the sound quality could have been bettered by upgrading the DAC itself ? Would'nt that have had a more substantial increase in SQ?
I could not help noticing that the people who could not hear differences had very good DACs and maybe that is why the Regen did not make that much of a difference?

No offense but it is an expensive piece of equipment for what it does and adding a separate power supply only adds to the cost...
 
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Could not help asking if the sound quality could have been bettered by upgrading the DAC itself ? Would'nt that have had a more substantial increase in SQ?
I could not help noticing that the people who could not hear differences had very good DACs and maybe that is why the Regen did not make that much of a difference?

No offense but it is an expensive piece of equipment for what it does and adding a separate power supply only adds to the cost...

Obviously it doesn't make any difference adding a 200$ regen and a 400$ linear PSU to a 500$ dac. However if you do have a higher midfi or hifi dac, then every bit of improvement is warranted for.
 
Obviously it doesn't make any difference adding a 200$ regen and a 400$ linear PSU to a 500$ dac.
Why and how is it so "obvious"? Is the regeneration claimed by the "Regen" built into $500 DAC's as a matter of course? And "better" PSU's do not matter to computers feeding these DAC's? If so, then, to me what you said makes sense else it does not.

However if you do have a higher midfi or hifi dac, then every bit of improvement is warranted for.
So what you are saying is that if one has a $100 [low $ amount taken arbitrarily] DAC it is justified spending an extra $200 + $400 bringing the total cost to $700 all in the quest for improvement. Assume that it is maybe warranted - but then would one not be better off buying a $500 DAC [of course assuming that the $500 DAC/computer would not need the Regen & linear PSU because it would not make a difference as you claim] and save $200?
 
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Why and how is it so "obvious"? Is the regeneration claimed by the "Regen" built into $500 DAC's as a matter of course? And "better" PSU's do not matter to computers feeding these DAC's? If so, then, to me what you said makes sense else it does not.

So what you are saying is that if one has a $100 [low $ amount taken arbitrarily] DAC it is justified spending an extra $200 + $400 bringing the total cost to $700 all in the quest for improvement. Assume that it is maybe warranted - but then would one not be better off buying a $500 DAC [of course assuming that the $500 DAC/computer would not need the Regen & linear PSU because it would not make a difference as you claim] and save $200?

When your budget is 700$ you are better off spending the 700 on the best dac you can find in that budget since every penny counts and putting it on a better dac makes sense rather than associated parnaphelia. The 700$ dac may not have resolution to resolve the improvement brought out by the psu and regen or whatever else.

When you have a 10000 dollar dac, a few hundred here and there are rounding off errors. To better that 10k dac, you might need to spend 50k on a new dac. So a few hundred in tweaks that brings better sound is a bargain.
 
Oh, I misunderstood!!! I thought that you were referring to a $500 DAC as mid/hi-fi. I didn't realize that that DAC's in that range meant lo-fi to you. Actually, I want to dispute that as well - but not here :D
 
My point is this, if the $10,000 DAC can be improved with a few hundred bucks of tweaks, surely the designer would have added the cost of it and incorporated the same and maybe even increase the price by another $1000 since it gives better sound...

Also if the $10,000 DAC can be improved by a few hundred dollars of tweaks, then it is surely not well designed at that price...

To give you a background to my question - I recently bought a Chord 2Qute and there was a substantial increase in sound quality to my previous DAC (Meridian Director)..Now the designer of the Chord DAC says that the USB is galvanically isolated and any external power supply will not increase the sound quality which is what convinced me to buy the DAC in the first place...Hence I ask as to why are external power supplies so popular and if they make so much of a difference, does that mean the DACs have a very average power supply built into them and if that is the case, then why the hell are they so expensive?
 
The results have been positive on various DACs of all kinds of budgets. If you read the writeups on what it does - it addresses signal integrity at the DAC input thus giving the DAC chip a much better signal to work with. No DAC manufacturer has addressed the issue before because they did not recognize this as a problem. But your question is not about how it works.

So then the question is how much would you spend to get any improvement out of your rig? What if I told you that the best DAC you've never heard is the one you already have. (Not my line - it's from Alex Crispi) The Regen costs Rs 12K and like I said earlier you do not get this much improvement for 12K.

But as the saying goes - your mileage may vary.
 
To give you a background to my question - I recently bought a Chord 2Qute and there was a substantial increase in sound quality to my previous DAC (Meridian Director)..Now the designer of the Chord DAC says that the USB is galvanically isolated and any external power supply will not increase the sound quality which is what convinced me to buy the DAC in the first place...Hence I ask as to why are external power supplies so popular and if they make so much of a difference, does that mean the DACs have a very average power supply built into them and if that is the case, then why the hell are they so expensive?

panditji the Chord is a really good DAC. Many Chord users have reported improvements with the Regen. They do however have a problem connecting the Regen due to the close proximity of the RCA outs to the USB port. A right angle adapter is needed and might be one reason why some Chord users can get poor results. This is not on the Regen.

If you read my intro you will get an idea of what the Regen does. Basically all digital gear generate jitter by their very operation - called ground plane noise or packet noise. The clean power is a by product of what the Regen does. The Regen regenerates a high quality signal that is fed to the DAC chip and it makes a significant difference to the sound.
 
Fair enough Nikhil...Let me try and get an FM in Delhi to buy one and then hear it...I did not believe much in the differences in DACs but a DAC shootout changed my opinion completely..I will wait to hear it....

But do post more feedback as you listen to it further...
 
Michael Lavorgna of Audiostream has come out with a write up on the Uptone Audio Regen, Audioquest Jitterbug and the Schiit Wyred.

USB Accessory Roundup: UpTone Audio USB REGEN, AudioQuest JitterBug, Schiit Wyrd | AudioStream

If I Just Want To Buy One, Which One Should I Buy?
In my systems and to my ears, the UpTone Audio REGEN is the device to buy. The improvements offered were greater than the JitterBug and the Wyrd. I found that the REGEN added weight, clarity, and ease to the presentation to a greater degree than the others. For me, this is simply the way it is. No ifs, ands or buts
 
I returned home last night after one of the most difficult weeks of my life to find the regen waiting at the doorstep. The first impressions of using the regen with the meanwell psu were terrible - there was no body to the sound, there was loss of bass impact and on the whole nothing positive. I was all but ready to give up and as a last ditch effort tried connecting the 12v of my HDplex psu to the regen. This is when my jaw dropped on the floor. This was easily the best sound I have heard from a computer by far - it was organic, impactful and had a really rich tone which I missed on a computer when compared to my cd transport. It is as good as upgrading the dac itself

So moral of the story - buy the regen with a high quality linear PSU or do not buy it at all.

One more thing to add - my AMR dac has an indicator for jitter in the display. A "J" symbol blinks when it detects incoming jitter. With most sources it usually blinks once every 20-30 seconds including the direct usb connection. With the regen in the path, it never blinks after the start of the song.
 
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It's been a while since the Regen has been in my setup. On a tip from Prem, I ordered the Array Solutions AC Cable Filter primarily for use with my Audio PCs. While the cable filters are doing a fine job on the PCs (maybe a topic for another review), I had a spare which I decided to try out with the Regen in place of HDPlex LPS.

Array Solutions NQN AC Filters

AC-7B_IEC_SMALL.jpg


The Array Cable AC Filter is designed "for high-level RF interference environments, where computer and monitor power-line noise causes a problem with sensitive receivers, as well as with critical listening and recording environments such as high-end audio studios, home theaters, and audiophile stereo systems"
(From Array Solutions website)

Plugged into my system I have to say there is very little drop off in sound quality over the HDPlex LPS. I have for now just let it stay in my chain for since the weekend. Some might like the sound with the Filter in the chain. The sound seems to shave a little more air with transients like snare drums, upright bass, guitars, etc. Placing the HDPlex LPS back in to the chain gives a denser sound which has a little less shimmer.

Price is $106 for the Cable Filter.
Care is to be taken to specify 230V option while ordering.

Well worth a look for those looking at an alternative to an LPS not only for the Regen but for computer audio PCs as well.
 
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The Array Cable AC Filter is designed "for high-level RF interference environments, where computer and monitor power-line noise causes a problem with sensitive receivers, as well as with critical listening and recording environments such as high-end audio studios, home theaters, and audiophile stereo systems"
(From Array Solutions website)
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Price is $106 for the Cable Filter.
For those of you handy with a soldering iron and who can order components - build this P2P on perfboard. It does exactly what the Array solutions guys claim at probably 1/4th the cost.
 
Nikhil, is the Uptone Regen showing similar benefits with the Lampi as it was with the AP?
 
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