How has it changed things in your view, just genuinely curious? As others have said here, Ethernet protocols are self-healing by design—TCP/IP has built-in error checking that automatically sends back dropped packets or errors to be resent, and any failure of this process would not lead to any improved sound quality (ones and zeros don’t have a sound)—they would just cause stuttering or dropouts, which would require an element in the chain to be outright faulty. There’s all sorts of brands capitalizing on this concept of “audiophile networking” and making a fortune, when the principle behind that term literally makes no technological sense (and with all apologies for the cliche, is highly suspicious for meeting the definition of snake oil).
I shelled out cash early on for iFi’s coaxial “purifier” and convinced myself that it made a difference, until a wiser person than myself explained digital audio clearly to me. I’d heard all the raves about how these products lifted veils from their DACs etc, but once I understood that a digital audio stream does not contain any audio elements that could actually influence the resulting sound quality, and really thought about how reading errors among ones and zeroes would manifest, I realized that what I was imagining was impossible.
Correcting “errors” in the reading frame would not make the resulting analog signal more musical, or have any impact on frequency response, imaging, soundstage, timbre, or any of those analog concepts. If such a device did anything, it would just reduce the number of reading frame errors sent to my DAC, which would lead to a reduction in outright gobbledygook (stuttering, clicks, pops, dropouts) coming from my amplifier.
No offense intended to those who have bought these things (I’m one of them) and are happy with the results—just passing along the wisdom offered to me in hopes to save others from parting ways with their hard-earned cash unnecessarily. I’m as obsessive as anyone else about sound quality, and since on some days I think my entire system sounds better than others, I’ve become a true believer in cognitive bias—especially after I’ve made the investment already and my conscience needs these things to overcome buyer’s remorse!
