Etheregen - doesn't seem right that it gets so hot, dangerous? Unpredictable?

Are you using the stock power supply or an aftermarket linear power supply? When I owned one I ended up using a 7V Farad Super3 power supply, which actually improved the sound at an even greater margin vs the EtherRegen by itself. It also stabilized the heat, I found, though it was still warm to the touch. I sold both for the Synergistic Research UEF Switch which is not hot at all and sounds much more organic, but of course at a much higher price. 

I was using fiber into the EtherRegen with an LPS 1.2 and was very happy with the results and I didn't have any issues with it,  but I ended up selling it for a much cheaper StarTech MCM1110MMLC Gigabit Ethernet Fiber converter along with a iFi Power supply.   The StarTech doesn't run hot and I didn't really notice a drop off in performance.

The EtherRegen does get very hot. It actually was extremely disappointing with my Krell K-300i integrated when used with the built-in RJ45 streaming. The KRELL has the very best ROON READY implementation I have ever used.

I was about to ditch the EtherRegen when I came across John Swenson’s posts or white paper on the best way to do streaming. I was under the impression fibre optical directly out of a network switch into my Sonore OpticalRendu was the best way. However, Swenson, who designed the EtherRegen and OpticalRendu recommended using a fibre conversion just before the OpticalRendu.

There are many devices that can do this such as the Sonore OpticalModule. However, since I had the EtherRegen handy I tried that, in reverse order B > A, and I noticed a slight improvement in sound, as predicted in Swensons writings. So, the EtherRegen has stuck around running hot. There are other cheaper ways to do this conversion.

I have heat issues with another LPS I bought used with my 3rd OpticalRendu. That thing runs like fire, and I no longer use it due to concerns about fire. The EtherRegen in comparison is like air conditioning.