SOtM dCBL-CAT8M - Is this the new reference in LAN cables?

Hi @in1voice 

I had a very similar setup to yours.  It was:

Netgear Orbi Satellite => ISOCAT7 => Cat7u => Innuos Zenith 3

I was in communication with May Park at SOtM at the time and this was the configuration she advised.  I did also ask her where a decent audiophile switch should go in this chain and she advised it go before the ISOCAT7.  So this seems to agree with your dealer's advice.

There's a big "however" here.

For me, this setup didn't really improve my SQ.  It was brittle, digital, sibilant.  Not at all what I was aiming for.  In desperation I bought an Uptone EtherRegen (not dissimilar to your Paul Pang perhaps), and put it before the ISOCAT.  But no improvement was observed.

I was about to sell the ER on again, when I tried taking the ISOCAT out of the setup, and BOOM:  magic.  The harshness disappeared.  It was day and night.  It appeared that the ISOCAT was undoing the good work of the ER.

I have since significantly upgraded my ER "ecosytem" (see below), each improvement bringing more.  

The ISOCAT was sold on.

Current setup:

Orbi =>  Startech FMC with Finisar FTLX1471D3BTL   =>  Phoenix Contact fiber cable   =>  EtherRegen  with Plixir BDC Elite LPS;  and AfterDark King clock with LPS and Oyaide BNC cable   =>  Cat7u    =>  Zenith

Hi lollipopguild, thanks for the reply. 

It seems from your experience, the ER is better than the IsoCat7.

In fact, I had the dcBL-cat7 cable for a short while, before I managed to get the Cat7u cable and the iso-cat7 as a set.  Comparing the Cat7 cable alone, versus the Cat7u and IsoCat7, there is a big improvement in smoothness and imagining. Things seem more holographic.  I will try to put the IsoCat7 ahead of the cable and see what happens. 

Certainly the ER is a tempting option!  Do the external clock make a big difference to the ER?

@in1voice , by the way, is this the full length CAT7u, or the short filterless version which comes with the red ISOCAT7?

Yes, the clock made an enormous improvement, and continues to do so as it’s only 2 weeks old. It can take up to a month, apparently, for the crystal to fully stabilise.

The EtherRegen is extremely good, and highly scalable. Version 1 can only be found 2nd hand, if you’re lucky. And version 2, when it arrives, will be highly sought after.

Saying all that; what I’ve spent on it, plus the LPS and the clock I could have bought an Innuos PhoenixNet with. I would also have had far fewer cables.

Hi lollipopguild, mine is a 1.2 metre long dcBL-Cat7u cable.

The PhoenixNet is quite costly. I heard that Melco are also quite good.  The ER2 will likely cost a lot more than the ER.

A question on the ER -- I see there is only one output in Port B, and four ports in Port A. Does this mean that the ER can supply only one device, and cannot supply to say a streamer and a smart TV?

@in1voice , regarding the ER's A and B side, the Uptone guys state that the full benefit is only derived from an input on the A side and the main component receiving the B side's output.  The internal "moat" isolates any noise between the two sides.   

They additionally state that two components connected to the A-side will benefit from some degree of mutual isolation, though not as much as A-B.

That said, myself and others have seen benefit in the B side by improving the quality of the A side's input (hence my use of fiber).  So I guess there are no absolutes here.

Personally, I'm not that fussy about the quality of my TV's ethernet signal, so I would always plug my streamer into the B-side.