Uptone EtherRegen

And that’s perfectly fine. Your money, your decision. I realize six hundred buck may be a lot of money for some. All good.

There is definitely clock involved in network digital transmission. And there is also definitely clock involved with a USB connection. I don't think people realize that the USB and network signal does not get reclocked by the DAC. What they reclock on the DAC is the audio signal that is transported via Ethernet then USB. This has also independent of the isolation of the DAC.

Then there is also leakage current. Low impedance and high impedance. All the crap that goes on in your network leaks into your audio.

Wifi on the other hand introduces other issues. There in an antenna to get that signal, and that antenna, along with its (likely) crap PSU, May introduce its own electrical noise / interfere/ leakage current. 

@mapman 

All is good here, listening to a lot of music these days. Since I’m not an engineer, I won’t be giving any satisfactory reasons for the better sound except those indispensable tools, my ears. Like you say perhaps reclocking, reduced jitter, noise, I don’t exactly know for sure. I hope you and your family are safe. 

Jitter and clock phase noise are different ways of quantifying the same phenomenon. Jitter is measurement in time, phase noise is in frequency.
Mathematically the relationship is quantified so engineers designing digital components, DACs, ADCs can filter the jitter/phase noise. Modern DACs even cheap ones do a good job of this.  Of course this is information in the packets it has nothing to do with the clock in the ethernet wire, once the packet arrives that timing is gone the packets are then in memory. Only the clock embedded in the signal works with the DACs clock. 

this is not about "jitter reduction". It is about reducing leakage (both high-impedance and low-impedance) and reducing clock phase-noise.

Dow Jones: Your Google Machine works! But that’s about the extent of your knowledge.

I cannot help but observe: have you counted the number of your posts in this thread, on a product that you have zero interest in trying for yourself? Like that other thread. And the one before that. And on so on. Why? Nothing to do sunshine? Dude! Get a hobby. Take up sewing for example 😂🤦‍♂️

No, clock only comes into play at the DAC where the bits must be converted at the right time to make an analog signal that represents the music.

All bits on the network are the same and protocols ensure all bits get transmittted 100% correctly. If not then there is a defect. No network based application like your browser accessing a remote website could work at all otherwise.

My understanding is that noise introduced in the Signal to the DAC can affect the timing needed to convert to analog ie make sure the bits get converted to analog and transmitted downstream at the right time. Jitter is the measurement used to quantify that error. Noise might be introduced anywhere upstream on the device,network, or other devices in the circuit. and make its way to the signal input to the DAC. But the point is wired or wireless the bits make it 100% correctly across the network always unless there is a defect in the chain somewhere. Its the D/A process where normal noise levels can have an effect by not converting the right things at the right time which results in audible effects if beyond a certain magnitude. Dacs like Benchmark that reclock address that problem in exactly the right place immediately prior to conversion.

So I am not saying this device cannot make a difference. Rather, that results likely vary case to case and there are ways to address any negative effects optimally by reclocking properly in the DAC prior to conversion. Also wireless connections do not suffer from the same noise issues as devices in a wired circuit. Not to say anything is perfect though.

I mention Benchmark mainly as a vendor that has blazed trails and implemented a widely acclaimed reference model for getting things right ie addressing jitter where it matters most, when the digital signal is comverted to analog. Many DACS even for modest cost do a very good job of this these days whereas this was not the case say 5-10 years ago.