Sad to see you adopt the attitude of the blunt majority Erik. I am not saying that there isn't a lot of snake oil in this business. There is, as in many other areas where money earning is concerned.
The EtherREGEN is developed by a very well respected company (Uptone Audio) and for me it is the best investment I have ever made in this hobby with respect to costs vs. gain. In my opinion this product is nothing less than a break through in digital/streaming audio and it finally reveals what redbook content and higher res material is capable of. Technically, it completely isolates (and re-clocks) the incoming ethernet signal from the outgoing one and by this it eliminates leaking currents and common mode noise coming into ones system.
If I remember well, you DO use an isolation transformer. So somehow you are not completely immune to the merits of electrical isolation. And why did you invest in a 10K costing DAC when you believe all DAC's sound the same?
Hey my friend, don't write me off just because of my Norwegian special humor
Please keep me on your list of the good guys and remove that sad face, it makes me sad too!
I do believe that many things a bit "over the top" affects the sound quality of my systems. But I prefer to spend money on those tweaks that have a clear foundation in engineering. Including heavy duty isolation transformers, they are used for many different purposes even if some of them cost a small fortune. Balanced power is underestimated. It is just like true balanced circuits in general, in dacs, preams, amps: I am a believer because the EE is well understood.
The dCS dac too, it is very well engineered and I understand that all that design effort and improvements over decades can affect performance in a good way. I do not think that the dCS Bartok sounds the same as my other DAC components, and I have many. It sounds better, for sure, otherwise I would have sold it but I definitely don't want to. It is for example very clear to me that it sounds better than the MP50 for stereo sources... The difference is not HUGE but it is definitely there and a worthwhile improvement to my (stereo) system, and worth 10k (better spent on that DAC than on a new 4K projector for example)... Not sure if it measures significantly better than a Chinese DAC for 500 USD, but at some point I just trust my ears.
With regards to EtherRegen or other components: I have seen how some components totally ignore basic engineering principles wrt grounding, shielding etc, so I think it has a place somewhere. This is so clear from all the measurements I've read in ASR showing how leakage current from an SMPS affects a DAC in ways you would not think is possible, etc.. But given the test in ASR:
"Measurements conclusively demonstrate that EtherRegen did not change jitter, noise or distortion of the DAC. It further had no impact on its clock speed, or output voltage." And after all, that nothing costs 665 USD...
But yes, It DOES make a difference to twist wires... Even Alexander Graham Bell understood this in 1885. But 12k for an ethernet switch? Or someone telling you that longer wires are better, because the wires improves the sound? Or paying 250 USD for some guy pumping beeswax into a 1USD fuse.
So there is a limit to the BS, as I have tried to illustrate in the above post, and I really want to fight that nonsense, and for which that Danish company in my previous post is a very good example, IMHO.