The USB REGEN takes the digital audio stream from your computer or other music streaming device, and generates a completely new USB data signal to feed to your DAC. It accomplishes this by combining a carefully chosen USB hub chip with an ultra low-noise regulator and low-jitter clock. Importantly, it does so with ideal impedance matching?right at the input of your DAC.
If you are familiar with the variations in sound quality that come from different computer configurations, USB cables, and power supplies (no, "bits are bits" really does not apply when pursuing the audio summit), then you will immediately recognize the often dramatic effect that the REGEN can have on the the connection you feel with the music.
Although the REGEN does not eliminate all sound quality differences between USB cables in a high-end system, it significantly reduces those differences. John Swenson has written about how the PHY chips and processors at the input of every USB DAC (even those with galvanic isolation) are sensitive to "packet noise modulation" and ground-plane noise?caused by poor signal integrity and impedance mis-matching. Every USB audio source (computer or streamer) and cable causes this, every DAC is affected by this?and the REGEN is the cure.
The USB REGEN's secondary function is that it disconnects the computer's noisy 5 volt bus power coming down the USB cable, and provides clean 5VBUS on its output--for DACs that need it?via a second ultra low-noise regulator.
From all the time we have spent listening to the REGEN in our systems we can say that it is exceeding our expectations. Often it sounds like you are listening to a different DAC! Of course the benefit will vary with each computer/DAC system, but we hear positive differences even with very modest systems. The improvement is different than with a power supply or computer optimizations?but perhaps larger.
Regardless of whether you are feeding your USB DAC from a from a stock computer, a fully-optimized music server, or a streamer/renderer (Auralic Aries, Bryston, Moon Audio, SOtM sMS-100, etc.), the REGEN has the potential to carry your music system to a new level.
