Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat Ethernet switches

Ethernet switches, the audiophile ones, seem to be hot nowadays. Anyone tried with ID41?

Cheers!

Yes, I think the benefit is dependent, as ever, on the quality of the rest of the system, but they can make a noticeable difference.

In order of those I’ve tried extensively on the ID41: SotM SNH-10G (with all upgrades), Uptone Audio EtherRegen (really close to the SotM for the price), AQVox SE (not to be overlooked as one of the better companies that worked out how switches can make a difference).

But this is the icing on the cake, I don’t think it should precede major upgrades (like the 818v3).

Chord Company is to release an audio network switch under the English Electric brand.

Alternatively, you could take a look at Sonore's 'System Optique', which puts an audiophile stamp on using a fibre optic isolator as a few people once did. Obviously this isolates from noise on the main network, the idea with this implementation that it doesn't re-inject noise at the ethernet/fibre or fibre/ethernet converter stage (especially if you use a decent LPSU).

Never listened to one, though, this is all in theory.

The English Electric Lightning supersonic jet aeroplane to a network switch - I'm struggling to see what exactly has been revived.

English Electric bought Marconi as a foray into consumer electricals and then in turn General Electric merged with it. Sure the Lightning was one of the headline products but it also did much, much more. ICL anyone?

I'm not trying to start a blood war; Just asking out of ignorance and curiosity:

We can assume that a properly healthy ethernet network corrects packet delivery issues, and delivers bit perfect data. Therefore, the only issue I can imagine at stake are timing issues (jitter), and given the huge attention high-quality digital audio companies now pay to minimize all forms of both internally generated and external jitter . . .

How can a router or switch make much difference?

We've seen counterintuitive things in audio turn out to be real in the past, so I'm not denying the possibility, but I can't imagine the mechanism. Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks

There is a thread over on the Roon forum where everything and anything that could ever be said, thought or shouted about this topic has been posted over and over again. If you have a spare 2-3 hours to read it .....

There are some measurements here on one such unit.

Of course, this doesn’t tell us anything about the other designs, nor whether the right things are being measured.

I’m slightly wary of Uptone in particular after Stereophile’s review and measurement of their USB Regen a few years ago. When John Atkinson found it was injecting noise into the system rather than removing it (here). It also caused other issues.

The injected noise itself could, of course, account for the ‘improvements’ in sound people heard, where if the noise had e.g., a slight softening effect it could be perceived subjectively as an improvement ‘taking the edges off’, etc.

Thanks very much. I found the review sufficiently convincing to close the topic in my mind.

Hi,

I was at the Bristol demo and the change to the English Electric switch (from a Netgear one) did make a difference to the sound.

They were also using their own Shawline network cables (mid range £££) between the wall port and the switch and from the switch to the streamer.

Brian

I can’t fully answer why, other than to say that I believe it’s to do with the clock noise entering the system (and being interpreted as part of the signal). I can say that it makes a difference (assuming a system with enough resolution - or, perhaps, insufficient filtering, I’m not qualified to say which).

I’ll try and post a link to an article from someone that designs such things for a living.