Test Driving the Uptone Audio ISO REGEN

[jimtranr]

Short-and-Sweet Summary for the TMI-averse: Bozhe moi!

Background: If you’ve followed the nearly year-long morphing of my laptop-based bedroom audio system from “secondary” to for-all-practical-purposes primary listening venue, you know that I’ve employed what amounts to a nickel-and-dime approach to tweaking it since treating its walls and corners with a bevy of GIK bass-trap and scatter-plate panels that have rendered it a visual Stonehenge.

It’s an approach appropriate to a fixed-income-retiree’s budget, and each successive baby-step investment (in Wireworld Electra 7 power cords, a Walker-modded Luminous Audio passive line stage, and an Uptone Audio LPS-1 power supply for the REGEN USB-stream regenerator affixed to my TEAC digital-to-analog converter) has kicked the system’s perceived-to-these-ears sonic performance up several notches.

I’d already achieved big performance gains with two enhancements to the entry-level purchased-in-2015 REGEN—the $35 USPCB A>B Adapter (far superior in sonic terms to a six-inch USB cable), followed late last year with Uptone’s LPS-1 linear power supply. The improvement evident with the latter was so huge (comparable to what I’d experienced with the upgraded-connector Electra 7s) that I wondered if the ISO REGEN with its upgraded hub chip and galvanic isolation could achieve a near-comparable performance bump. And you know what happens when an audiophile begins to “wonder”.

Here’s Uptone’s plain-English description of the ISO’s galvanic isolation function: The ISO REGEN creates a “moat” to isolate the power and signal grounds from computer/stream USB sources before your DAC. This “moat” blocks leakage currents and other low level interference from the source. What you should hear, Uptone adds, is more accurate bass, the unmasking of microdynamics, and more air and space around instruments and performers.

Only one way to find out if this was true, so I ordered one. It arrived a couple of days later via Two-Day Priority Mail.

Hookup:

As is suggested by the comparative size of its USB ports, the ISO REGEN is as diminutive as its entry-level sibling. The dip switch in the red area on the input side allows the user to switch galvanic isolation “on” or “off”. The default “down” position is “on”, and that’s how I leave it configured for normal operation.



A semi-rigid USPCB A>B adapter is included as standard with the ISO REGEN. The “A” connector is inserted into the the regenerator’s output, the “B” into the TEAC DAC’s input (circled in red).





Installing the ISO REGEN leaves its chassis bottom suspended about 1.25” above the shelf top, with its only support the semi-rigid USB adapter inserted in the DAC. Not a good idea, in my view, given the downward force gravity and the ISO’s power supply and USB input cables exert on the device’s rear. So, as I’d done with the original REGEN, I cut a 1.25”-high piece of .75”-thick oak to support the ISO.

Listening:

Right off the no-settling-time bat, the ISO REGEN demonstrated that it had earned its keep. And, with galvanic isolation enabled, a whole lot more.

I added the “galvanic isolation enabled” qualifier because I hear a distinctly audible difference between the “on” and “off” modes. Don’t get me wrong. Even with the isolation function disabled, the sonic presentation with the ISO REGEN installed is more open and more transparent than what I hear with the original REGEN. I’d call it an incremental improvement. But enable galvanic isolation, and, with anything resembling a halfway-decent recording…

To begin the audition, I loaded Leonard Bernstein’s reading with the New York Philharmonic of the fourth movement of Bela Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra (Columbia/Sony 16/44 rip, recorded 1959 at Brooklyn’s St. George Hotel) into JRiver and clicked “Play”. And shook my head almost immediately. (I also let fly with a juicy exclamation at that point, but since this is polite company…)

Yes, the soundstage widened more than a tad to extend itself fully wall-to-wall, it deepened considerably farther behind the front wall boundary, the overall spatial sensation was even “airier”—by a considerable margin--than it had been following the Walker-mod Luminous Audio passive line stage upgrade, bass was tauter, and instrumental tonality struck me as purer—or, if you’d like, more accurate. But that was just for starters.

If you’ve glanced at my last couple of reviews, you know that I’ve alluded to the progressively increased sensation of being able to “reach in and touch someone” in the soundstage. Well, in listening to the Bartok with the ISO in place, that paradigm flipped. The performers—or rather their instruments--were reaching out and touching me. It’s not that their physical locations had moved forward. Their now more fully-fleshed-out images remained firmly rooted in the more expansive space they occupied. But the output of their instruments was, for want of a better word, energizing the listening room space (including, I suspect from the enhanced sense of in-room ambience, the scatter plates fronting my rear-corner GIK traps) in a manner that communicated “live” in spades.

A couple of months ago, Serge initiated a thread asking if any of us had experienced a sensation tantamount to room pressurization initiated by a recording. If what hit me with the Bartok was not quite measurable in isobars, it was nonetheless way ahead of whatever’s in second place.

A one-off? I next put on a rip of the Buddha Records CD reissue of Henry Mancini’s score for “Peter Gunn”, with Mancini conducting a not inconsiderable array of jazz talent. Originally released by RCA in 1959, this is a “Living Stereo” recording in the best sense. With the ISO REGEN installed I could feel Dick Nash’s trombone, Pete Candoli’s trumpet, and the key strikes of pianist Johnny Williams to a far greater degree than what I’d heard pre-ISO. More than that, I was darned near sitting in with them.

A round of now-more-dimensionally-layered choral embedded in the Emil Tchakarov-conducted “Polovtsian Dances with Choir” from Borodin’s Prince Igor (Sony 16/44 rip) continued the “good grief, they’re in the room” hot streak. And it’s kept rolling since during more than 100 hours of listening to rips and hi-rez downloads of classical, filmscores, jazz, opera, and vocals. Not that the ISO will render pan-potted-to-death studio recordings, Phase 4s, and the like step-into-them holograms, though in every one of those instances where I’ve listened to such the output is noticeably more resolved top-to-bottom across the frequency spectrum.

I’d read a review of the ISO REGEN on another website where the reviewer stated that while he heard greater clarity and a more silent background with the unit in the loop, he sensed a diminution of pace, rhythm, and timing. That’s not the case here, as I haven’t detected a single PRaTfall from a recording fed through the ISO. Quite the opposite. The ISO delivers on its promise of unmasking microdynamics, and in my listening that achievement--and the concurrent unmasking of previously under-the-radar inner voicing, a sharper delineation of attack, sustain, and decay, and the fleshing out of instruments and voices energizing the space around them--facilitates a more enhanced perception of PRaT.

Conclusion: The ISO REGEN is enough of a transformative game-changer in the bedroom system that I don’t expect to muck around with any more upgrades there. But I have started to save my pennies for an ISO REGEN to install in the living-dining-room system.

[PHC1]

Jim, thanks for the detailed write-up on the ISO REGEN. Amazing what an improvement can be had with these devices that isolate and re-clock the USB digital stream. I've also been amazed a few times when implementing similar devices just how much better everything sounded. Sounds like you are having a blast with your system and that's what it's all about! Enjoy and thanks for sharing.

[jimtranr]

Originally Posted by PHC1

Sounds like you are having a blast with your system and that's what it's all about!

"Blast" puts it mildly, Serge.

[4N6]

Decided to give this product a try. Bought it with the LPS-1.2. We shall see...

[jimtranr]

Originally Posted by 4N6

Decided to give this product a try. Bought it with the LPS-1.2. We shall see...

I'll be interested in your listening impressions. As soon as I put a few more pennies together, I'll order an LPS 1.2 and see how much, if any difference, it makes vis-a-vis the LPS 1/IR combination.

[4N6]

I have the Iso-Regen with the LPS 1.2 hooked up now. The sound is definitely improved...smoother, more "organic" if you will. Hard to exactly state what I'm hearing but it simply sounds more "right".

However...it does not like to consistently play well with my laptop and Benchmark DAC. It will be making beautiful music then suddenly the computer will lose connection with the DAC. Rebooting oftentimes does not help and Roon or JRiver cannot even see that the DAC is attached. Remove the Iso-Regen and all is well...except for the reduced sound quality.

Very frustrating. I am looking at -E- making a Silenzio for me which includes the JCAT USB Femto card that both filters noise and reclocks the signal. This would ideally do all the things the Iso-Regen is doing but would be done at the source. Hopefully this would be the best of both worlds as I would no longer need a USB "doo-dad" attached that could muck up the connection between the computer and DAC.

[jimtranr]

Kevin, if you haven't already, try this:

1. Snug a foam or wood block between the ISO REGEN chassis bottom and the top of the shelf on which it's mounted so the ISO isn't left hanging unsupported above the shelf (and the input-cable and ISO-to-DAC connections subject to movement).

2. Keep the LPS-1.2 well separated from the ISO. In my setup, my LPS-1 sits on a shelf above the shelf housing the DAC and its ISO. (I've also mounted the LPS-1 on two Stillpoints Ultra Mini footers--yes, the LPS balances without a hitch on just two.)

3. If the stream-disconnect issue persists after you've done the above, then contact Uptone's Alex Crespi (crespi@sti.net) and give him the problem particulars. The galvanic-isolation mode (red switch down) appears sensitive to a given audio system's overall grounding setup (not an issue with GI disabled), so it's likely he'll want to discuss the specifics of yours with you.

I hope this helps.

[4N6]

Jim,

Thanks. I'll try to contact Alex and see if this can be easily resolved.

[johndoe21ro]

I too am an UpTone fan and an owner of ISORegen and LPS1.2! I don't have words to describe what marvelous equipment these toys are and what wonders they do...
__________________
Amp: BAT VK-655SE
Pre-amp/Digital: exaSound e32 w UpTone JS-2 Power Supply; SOtM tX-USBultra w UpTone LPS1.2; Apple Mac Mini w UpTone DC Conversion Kit & UpTone JS-2 Power Supply; Squeezelite w Logitech Media Server 7.9.0
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