Hi Ian

Thanks very much for your comments, and raising an interesting point re switch>ID40 vs Time capsule>ID40.

When I originally replaced the 10m CAT 5 UTP cable between the Netgear switch and the ID40 with this CAT 7 S-STP cable, the gains were immediate. More body and colour to the sound, if you will. The CAT 5 UTP was flat sounding by comparison.

I then ordered additional shorter runs for Mac>time capsule>switch, but having read here previously that it may be best to have no switch (!) I wired the 10m CAT 7 run directly to the Time Capsule as described in my earlier post. Based on the experience of replacing the initial long run, I had high expectations, but actually found the sound to be quite 'Meh". Flat again.

Based on your comments here, I've put the long CAT 7 run back into the switch, and have another shorter CAT 7 cable between the Time Capsule and switch. And guess what? It sounds better again, like it did with the first cable swap.

I hadn't even noticed that the Netgear switch has a grounding lug until you mentioned, so I'll explore that further. I'll also look at the fixed IP arrangement to run the ID40 from the Mac directly. In the meantime, thanks for the immediate boost to sound quality!

Cheers

George