Audiophile network switches

Your System
104

Without saying you did not get improvement in a more economical way I think it depends what you are looking for in sound. Did it sound better w/o Etherregen or different?

In my setup I did the same comparison and Etherregen with FaradSuperS LPS did improve significantly over a standard switch with smps. It improved on every level of the sound spectrum. I also use better short Ethernet cables between ER and devices connected to it.

You did not specify where and how ER was installed. Possibly some devices have such good isolation that installing ER makes just less difference or improvement.

Also ER installed after the router or the modem or between server and player or DAC could yield different results. Sometimes ER will work better with fibre that is a nice extra option if you want to isolate even more. Maybe a few options to try unless you sold it already?

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105

Hello sorry to bump.
AfterDark got great results for me.
I have yet to try with the Oladra with and without more to follow

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Thanks. For comparison, would you mind sharing what exactly you used from Afterdark and where/how it is connected in your setup? Did you try a different brand before with less or no improvement and that Afterdark improved upon?
And please do share how it will work out with the Oladra.

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107

I will post later next week

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108

In my system the Etherregen with ENO filter together sounded boring and less defined.
I had the etherregen after the ethernet switch and directly feeding my K50. I tried both solutions, placing the ENO between the switch and the etherregen and between etherregen and the K50 (this was the worst solution).

The impact of Etherregen with a standard PSU is very poor. However with a Hi quality PSU does improve (I tried several and the better results were with Ferrum Hypsos).

By removing the etherregen and leaving only the ENO filter (after the switch and feeding the k50) the improvement on my SQ was amazing in every sense.
ENO brought me such an improvement that all I can say is that finally I am getting high-end sound from my Qobuz.

After several weeks of testing multiple solutions I had no doubts that the Etherregen had no place in my system and I sold it. In multiple blind tests my wife did not failed once on choosing the ENO alone as the best sounding solution.

Go and try it. ENO manufacturer offers 30 days return policy. But 30 seconds will be enough. :slight_smile:

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Thank you @LGA ,

Interesting that in your setup ENO filter beats Etherregen switch with Ferrum Hypsos psu while streaming Qobuz with K50.

I was not aware of Network Acoustics’ ENO Ethernet Filter. Apparently it comes with optional Ethernet cable in 2 versions, silver and copper with specific sound signatures (that xtra cable you do not use?). ENO runs at only 100mb/s like the Etherregen which I find inconvenient since I mainly buffer albums from a NAS but with live streaming as in your situation that might not be an issue.

I like that you tried many ways to integrate the ER before swapping with ENO. You mention it works very well with Qobuz. Do you also play local files from SSD with K50 and did you by any chance compare with Qobuz and ENO? And playing Qobuz with K50 is in what player - streamer configuration?
I will definitely explore more.

Just found your other post, indeed you do try many devices apparently.

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In my system, the Melco S100 switch made a big difference - even more after I added a Farad Super3 to power it. The Pink Faun mod improved it further.

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111

Hi Paul
Initially ENO was available on Ag (silver) and Cu (cooper) versions. Both at the same price tag. Then Network Acoustics (the manufacturer) replaced these two by one single ENO version (I think this happened early this year).
Regarding the 100mb/s speed all I can say is that I have a ENO unit connected to the back of my 65" 4K LG Oled tv, to improve the signal on my Netflix streaming. I never had any lag or interruptions problem, even while streaming 4K content.
For music streaming on Qobuz/Tidal I am now using the new filter from Network Acoustics: the MUON.
I have 6700+ albums on my K50 SSD’s. After installing the new MUON and more recently the Paul Pang Quad ethernet switch I tend to always choose Qobuz versions on top of any SSD files for the same album.
I use ROON and AES/EBU configuration (Jorma Digital) to a Devialet 1000pro dac/amp powering Vimberg Mino speakers.

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112

Your experience is interesting and it seems you are willing to try many possibilities.
I have heard many good things about the ENO, Melco, EtherRegen, SoTM and other things you have tried. I have tried many things too, but different to you. I have some suggestions.

I have had excellent results with wifi, despite the stigma that it should be avoided. It seems to me, the ‘noise’ being transmitted via wired ethernet is possibly more problematic than wifi and some manufacturers have optimised that.

Given you have an ENO on your TV, try disconnecting it and connecting to the TV via wifi and see if there is any difference.

Moving onto your Devialet Pro. I have 440 Pro and so far I have found the best connection to it by far is via wifi. But that is assuming the Core Infinity is the roon endpoint (I use Antipodes EX as server/roon core). The only things connected to my my Devialets are power cords, speaker cables, and ground to Synergistic Research Active Ground Block SE. My results may be because my network is also very low noise and jitter as follows.

ISP device > Cat 6a UTP > EtherRegen > fibre > Mikrotik CRS 305 (router) > Cable 1 > EX > Cable 2 > WAP — wifi — Devalet

Cable 1 = Synergsitic Research Atmonshpete X Reference ground via HD ground wire
Cable 2 = Shunyata Sigma
WAP = Mikrotik mAP lite powered by lithium battery.

Every tweak I make to the network is still audible despite ER, fibre and wifi isolations and carefully selected cable shield terminations.

It would be interesting to compare:

  • K50 via AES to Devialet (ie. K50 reclocked output)
  • K50 via ethernet to Wifi access point to Devialet (K50 as server, Devialet as player)

Essentially this is comparing:

  1. the benefits of the K50 player and reclocker and
  2. the benefit of totally isolated signal to Devialet and one less source of noise input into the Devialet.

As an alternative to 2, it would be worth trying toslink from K50 to Devialet.

It is puzzling why, when there is plenty of experience that ethernet transmits noise (eg. the emergence of products like ENO and Waversa LAN Isolator to combat it), that Antipodes has not incorporated fibre SFP or wifi into its machines.

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113

I am also using the Muon into my K50, it replaced my ENO Ag. I tried the EtherRegen with a Keces P8 LPS. I did not like the sound when crossing the moat from A to B side. It was better using the A side but not sufficiently better. I have read those using the ER with an external clock achieve better results. I purchased the EdisCreation Silent Switch and that paired with the Muon is to my liking.

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114

Muon works really well with top class switches.
Like you, my experience with EtherRegen (even with a great PSU) was not as good as when I decided to move to ENO or MUON.
Finally, after this move, my streaming sound turned from boring to high-end quality.

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115

Maybe using Devialet as player is a great options when we use less powerful Antipodes such as EX.
I tried that with the CX and I prefered the initial option of having the CX working as the server and the player.
I confess that I never used the K50 as server and the Devialet as player. I believe I would be using only 50% of K50 potential.
The AES/EBU output to Devialet is amazing. This is the setup I will keep.

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Ah, but did you use a wired connection or wifi.? In my experience wifi is significantly better than wired when connecting to Devialet Pro.

A possibility is to change to a server only K model, sell the K50 and have extra funds.

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Ditto. I was quite surprised by this. Perhaps the SSD I’m using is not optimal?

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Ditto re minimising K50 reboots. Interestingly (or not) one time I thought I was playing music from the SSD while swapping switches but I was actually streaming from Qobuz because the music stopped about one minute after unplugging the switch. Left me wondering about remits of reclocking asynchronous data streams upstream of the K50 as many high end audio grade switches have clocks (though not the Medco switches).

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119

Ie….a fair of buffering happening inside the K50.

120

As I understand it all switches receive data transmissions, store the data packets (while working out where to send it and waiting to send it), and then sent the data in a transmitted analog signal, so they have:

  • clocks, to govern the frequency of transmission of data packets, but they don’t reclock (like the K50 reclocker that outputs a ‘stream’ of data)

  • RAM/memory to store data before sending.

The intent of a ‘better’ clock is to reduce phase noise of the transmission of data packets but does not affect the actual data (eg. audio data) in those packets. There is rafts of chatter about clocks on the likes of Audiophile Style AfterDark Audio pages, mostly about external reference clocks. Uptone Audio webpage about EtherRegen states:

There are two types of sound-degrading influences the EtherREGEN is designed to radically decrease: Leakage—both high-impedance and low-impedance—and clock phase-noise. The clock phase-noise travels on the Ethernet signal itself and on power- and ground-planes. [Every signal edge coming out of any digital device carries the jitter/phase-noise of the clock used to “clock out” that edge; this shows up on the ground-plane and affects the threshold of chips’ clock inputs. This is an oversimplification of a complex subject; here is the link to our ‘white paper’ about the technical mechanisms (to be followed with some measurement proof of the effects).

(Source: EtherREGEN – UpTone Audio)

For some back to basics, these seem good intros to switches and network architecture …

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121

Yep and on many other websites…and to be honest all very confusing/misinformed. What you have laid out very clearly makes good sense…and I can now see why many different issues have been conflated (including in my own head!) in discussions round clocking. Thank you for the thorough explanation.

122

Folks, I’m just going to throw this out there: so much of the performance of an network is how the hardware is handling multi-cast traffic and not the quality of the network hardware itself (controversial, I know :wink:). I have run into conflicting recommended Multi-cast/IGMP settings from different DAC/Server manufacturers but I can attest to much better performance once the Multi-cast settings are working optimally.

The recommendation for most residential users is to use un-managed switches. In this scenario, you have zero control over Multi-cast behavior. I do wonder if the conversation about better network hardware isn’t a bit misguided. At least, the issue may be a combination of hardware and software configurations. But there shouldn’t be anything terribly mystic about networking

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How were you able to arrive at this conclusion? Which are the audiophile network switches you’ve heard that you based this on?

While I have yet to configure this myself, it is my understanding that cutting down on network traffic can benefit sound quality. Mulitcast can be awfully chatty so one would have to block it from reaching one’s server but that can cause discovery problems.

What do you mean by performance? Multicast exists to facilitate discovery. Services announce their existence on the network so that other services can find them. This announcement only gets transmitted on networks that support multicast. It’s been my experience that this either works or it doesn’t as it’s an on/off thing.

It’s the router that offers control over multi-cast behavior.