bfreedma
The Hornet!
- Joined
- Feb 3, 2012
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For what it’s worth, I have used the etheregen and about dozen other “audiophile” and “generic” switches varying in cost from £20 to £5,000. They all alter the sound of my system, some for better and others not so much. A switch is pretty vital part of improving the performance of streaming based system. It eliminates some of the noise picked up and emitted by the router, which without the switch, would otherwise piggy the data stream transmitted via the network cable acting as an aerial, directly into your highly sensitive streamer and on into the digital to analogue conversion. The switch will also emit noise of its own picked up via its power supply, so a quiet psu will improve things further.
From our listening tests a £20 d-link dgs105 with an ifi ipower was as effective as the etheregen, and in fact sounded more open with wider stage. The good news for skeptics is you can buy this pair from Amazon for less than $70, try it, if you hear a difference then it’s worth trying out a good cable and or a filter running between your switch and streamer. Of course if it doesn’t improve things just return it and move on.
I know I’m a member of the trade, but I don’t make or sell switches, but as i say I have listened to lot in my system and others. The switch isn’t the cure but it’s an important foundation in any streaming system.
I‘ve asked you in other sections to validate these claims and you haven’t responded. Since you’re now making these in Sound Science, feel free to post that now.
The reality is, there is no possibility within the 802 standard that a switch is identifying packets containing audio data and consistently applying changes within the packet that act in a predictable and repeatable manner. Ethernet is also galvanically isolated, so the claims of transmission of non data noise across ports is also not technically possible.
If “picking up noise emitted by a router on a cable” was an issue, we would have massive evidence in high density data centers And would use “special” cables there. But we don’t, because it simply isn’t an issue - this is an entirely fabricated problem intended to allow charlatans to ”solve” nonexistent problems with expensive but useless hardware and cables.
For anyone with a decent background in Ethernet/802, these claims are absurd. There is no other way to state it.