Hi Peter:

Thanks for your nice and humorous (to me) reply.  To be clear, I certainly don't think that Gil (our main contact over here from the beginning) was ever nor would ever disclose other clients work or secrets to another.  But you as you too experienced, there a a lot of things they did not at first (and maybe still don't) understand about the real-world use and implementation of their chip.  (At first all they seemed to know was getting their awful-for-audio EVB to function.)  So it became that their clients struggling to make good use of it were teaching them along the way.  That just naturally starts to become part of their application knowledge base--about their own chip!--and inevitably will filter down to other future users. 
You know what they say about pioneers--they are the ones that get the arrows in their backs.
So while nothing we are doing is rocket science, in the past 6 months we stopped sharing too many specifics with them about how we overcame this or that obstacle.



That is all VERY sweet of you, my conculleague! 

--Alex C.

 
Hi Peter:

Alex Crespi of UpTone here.  Just thought I would be friendly and give a brief chime in with some clarifications so that everything remains factual with regards to us.  Hope you don't mind.  I have no time or intention to pop up here regularly--much too busy running the business and keeping up with our clients.

I'll quote only passages that seem to need a little comment and context, and I'll give a little history.  Maybe all your smart forum members will enjoy my recounting. (I promise not to go to far back in time, though John Swenson's long history with USB stuff and DACs is colorful.)


A couple of points here:

a) My reference it "imitators" was entirely with regards our original USB REGEN--a device we began developing about August 2014, with first large shipments in April 2015.  At that time (April 2105) the ONLY other USB hub-chip-based "regenerator" on the market was the near simultaneously announced/released Schitt Wyrd.  Later we discovered that both of us happened to choose the same SMSC USB2412 hub chip (we had reasons for that, I am not sure if Schiit did since they always maintained their device was just to fix connectivity issues and not designed for any sonic performance).
But the success of the USB REGEN (with zero advertising we sold literally thousands), combined with our characteristic openness about what we were doing, painted a target on our backs and soon several other firms were producing variations on the theme (one firm in particular has churned out a bewildering array of USB "decr*pifiers" with lots of marketing-speak.
It was not a big deal to me as our philosophy has always been to keep innovating and staying ahead (witness our somewhat radical UltraCap LPS-1).

b) At midnight last night--after the massive launch day for the ISO REGEN--while catching up on the CA forums where I hang out, for the first time ever I came across the word Phisolator in this post of yours: https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/31284-just-got-a-yggdrasil/?do=findComment&comment=655709
Curious, and knowing your other interesting work here at Phasure, I Googled "Phisolator" and came up this very announcement thread of yours.

So you are correct, I clearly was not thinking of you--or of any galvanic isolation devices in my "imitator" reference. 

Even with regards the use of the Silanna chip and some others using it I could not consider that anyone was mimicking us since we are just now releasing our product with it.  (More on that later.)




There we very much agree!  No copying is taking place or assumed, and yes, we both are smarter than Silanna.
One thing I can tell you, and this is where I have a few regrets regarding the process, is that we first acquired samples of the Silanna isolator chip back in December 2015.

[As an aside, I remember first finding out about the Intona just before our vacation in Hawaii that same month--and I ordered one from the hotel room and received serial #53 in January.  It fascinated me because John Swenson and I had, during the original USB REGEN development at the beginning of 2015, discussed USB galvanic isolation and sketched out what it would take to achieve that.  This was 9 months before the Silanna chip was announced, so the only way to do it was with an FPGA and premium but traditional digital isolators.  Our design would have used just one FPGA, and we would have put the clocking on the "clean" downstream side and separately powered the downstream side, etc.  We even contacted licensors of IP cores to obtain a high-speed USB2.0 hub protocol engine core for FPGA (there were only a couple in the world with that specific core available to license).  Due to expense, and due to the SQ benefit we found from just adding a little resistance to the ground--combined with the great sales we were enjoying--we set aside galvanic isolation.]

It was during our 2015 thinking about ways to improve the USB REGEN--the fabulous LT3042 started shipping about June of that year, and we already were playing with the Crystek 575 and other enhancements--that we thought and wished again for true galvanic isolation.  The Intona was certainly a help, and many people were using a REGEN after the Intona with good results (though the PS most used introduced a leakage loop with the DAC--the leakage from the computer side remained blocked).  So of course we jumped on the Silanna chip--even before it was reality available (no product--industrial or otherwise yet used it;  a few months later, the CoolGear--based on an unsuitable for audio reference design by Silanna--came out, but it is a joke for any audio purpose).

As you know Peter, the Silanna chip has essentially no documentation, its noise performance can be dreadful, and just like with most any other isolator (the type typically used on I2S lines after the USB processor--and hopefully followed by reclocking flops) it adds about 400-600ps of jitter.  So of course it was obvious to put it before a hub chip (and we later chose one far better than the old SMSC part as used in the USB REGEN).  Our explaining to Silanna our intention to do that was our first error with them.  Suddenly their project engineering/sales guy (it's a very small company) saw the path to promoting the chip to audio manufacturers.

Yet the use of the Silanna has other problems (which from reading about your Phisolator efforts Peter I know you encountered also; though the truth and a hint if you have not discovered, is that those problems have nothing to do with data), and I won't get into our solutions here.  But herein came our second mistake (from a competitive standpoint) with Silanna: As we found was to solve the various issues (some also to do with reliable connection and recognition between DACs and computers with various operating systems), we shared that information with them.  Sometimes it was in part to extract other information and facts from them--some of which came much later than they should have.

And while I am not at all trying to imply that our hard-won insights into the chip were directly shared with you Peter, I am pretty sure some of them went to help others, and even now one can see Silanna recommending a reference design with a hub chip on BOTH sides of their isolator (not a particularly good thing, but one that a larger other company we are in a race with has embraced).

Silanna as company is a bit odd.  They recently took down their USB isolator web pages entirely as they have not decided if the market is big enough for them.  And the sales/engineering guy there has been told to just service their existing customers with their current inventory as they don't want to invest in starting up a new fab line.  It does not help that they have changed the price of the part several times because of what they perceive "should" be the retail price of the products it gets incorporated into.  What semiconductor company does that?!
------------

Anyway, I've surely worn out my welcome here with the above.  Just wanted you and your readers to have a few more data points.

This market is big enough for lots of players.  I expect your Resolator will be a fine and worthy product.  After all, it is coming the complex mind of PeterSt!   

I will promise you one thing Peter: Our ISO REGEN is top-to-bottom in a different league than the original USB REGEN you heard.

Thanks for tolerating me here.  I hope we can meet in person some day.

Regards,

--Alex C.

P.S.  This is of course your forum and place, so I won't be posting in here--unless I see something said about us or our product that is patently false or offensive.  We take different approaches which is great, and I won't argue at all on those points.  Peter is such a nice and respectful man anyway--even in his mentions of us thus far--so I truly doubt I'll feel compelled to speak up here further.