Rather more succint with this one Andy 
I suspect using a wifi end point can be a valid & very effective way isolating from other cabled noisy network components. If you haven’t already, upgrading the power supply on the Deco X20 wifi receiving unit. You could also experiment with a ~US$ 100 passive LAN isolator - Pink Faun, Jcat & iFi make/sell such devices. Burn them in for at least 3 weeks through continuous use before you draw any conclusion.
I hear you!
Yep flavouring (& fine tuning) is part of the joy of the process. I have however had one very costly experience where I flavoured with a tube component, which yielded a very (overall) pleasing euphonic sound but the piano forte ended up sounding like a key board! So now I try and make timbral/tonal authenticity & purity the first hurdle to get over/the one thing not to be compromised with changes!
That is absolutely correct. Period instrument orchestras vs modern instrument orchestras. Full sized orchestra vs reduced size. Large stage &/or large concert hall vs small stage &/or small concert hall. Front row seat, middle or last row seat. Luckily when it comes to how the the different sections of an orchestra are organised, there is almost always a consistent logic which can be clearly heard on good gear.
The point you correctly make doesn’t end there…there are very clear timbral differences between say a Stradivarius violin and a Guarneri. Often times concert musicians don’t have expensive hifi set ups at home because they understand and know what to look for and no music reproduction system can capture the nuances at their level of understanding/ appreciation. Long story short maybe best for us not acquire such deep knowledge so we can continue to enjoy our music reproduced at home
Btw I keep remembering things I look for when doing listening test. What reviewers call “inky black background” is one of them. I never really understood what this phrase meant until I hear an Innuos PhoenixNet and then later an Oladra. Musical details & nuances are allowed to emerge from such a background that one has never heard before. And the space between notes (which I think Beethoven is quoted as saying is an important part of the music) that you hear is an absolute thing of beauty. AMEN!
I didn’t realise Beethoven said this, but I think the space between notes defines their length, which h is a big element of musical timing. It is one thing to properly hear the start a note, another for its attack and decay to be as intended, and to hear the length of notes and changes in the note through its duration accurately completes the equation of the overall timing, energy, emotion etc of each note in the musical passage. Of course multiply that for each instrument in the ensemble.
It seems a key factor is the impulse response of hifi gear. Jitter and ‘noise’ affect impulse. Blackness and ‘calm’ seem to represent the absence of stuff tgat is not part of the music, it is extra ‘pollution’.
I agree blackness is a very important outcome. I use Dual mono Devialet Pro renound for super low distortion and super black noise floor. I connect to it via wifi for total isolation. The wifi access point is dedicated to that connection only, power by battery,connected to my EX dedicated direct out.
The only wired connected to the Devialets are power, speaker and ground. All unused connections a capped.
The Devialet renderer is a purpose designed board rather than repurposed computer main board.
So I fully support the use of wifi to the end point.
Here! here! Butcas you say it might be impossible.
Don’t rush yourself, these things take time to work through such as burn in and settling
You might be better off with no internal SSD. It is another thing that could be detrimental. You couid use externally SSDs galvanically isolated from the server. I know someone who uses Waversa SmartHub 3 for not only ethernet but also to isolate and reclock external drives.
The CRS 305 is a bit if a hassle to set up, but worth it. I can help with that. It is a switch that can be a router, depending on the firmware. I think in hifi terms it delivers value that is multiples of its purchase price. There are other Mikrotik CRSs, but tgexSFP+ / 10G is the important bit. There are also Mikrotik routers, and Ubiquiti Dream Machine which is a gateway so has more functions.
Try to buy from someone who provides support to help set up.
I haven’t gone as far as many others as far as optimizing my network. But the little I’ve done has me wondering if this is really the right place to invest dollars to gain improvements in the areas you mentioned. In my experience, our rooms do the most harm to these things. No single audio upgrade has done more to improve the sound of orchestral music - and I specifically mean every area you mentioned - than placing a stacked pair of 16” ASC Isothermal tube traps in each of my front corners behind the speakers. I can’t think of anything else I could spend $3000 on to get that level of improvement.
Of course doing one doesn’t preclude one from doing the other. I just mention it because the gains were exactly in the areas you mentioned. Plus I can’t imagine our networks even doing a fraction of the harm our rooms do to the music. Just my two cents.
My experience too Kenny. I have Vicoustic bass traps. Room treatment is much more important than any of this stuff. The fist install I had done (which also included diffusers) actually deadened the acoustics in my listening space so some of it had to be wound back. So like everything there is a sweet spot. But absolutely bass traps is a must if at all possible.
The Miles Davis’ quote along these lines is the most famous one. Lots of different musicians/composers have expressed similar thoughts, maybe not Beethoven. It’s good to learn about the science behind what I am hearing. So thanks for sharing that. I am very interested in that side of things/improving my understanding.
Thanks much appreciated. will take you up on that offer once I find one
I think you have discovered some of how much cables matter. i’d say they matter more than switches because:
I’d also say it really depends what function the cables are playing and where abouts in our network they are. As a general observation, the cables closest to the endpoint seem to have the greatest impact, then incrementally each cable further from the endpoint has less impact. Into this equation fibre should be considered, for example over a long distance fibre may perform better than a similar cost copper cable. Over long lengths fibre costs a few dollars that would costs significantly more to achieve similar results using audiophile ethernet cable. It is even possible fibre with quality SFPs competes with some quite high cost audiophile cables, and over 1m audiophile ethernet cable can perform even better.
Each part of the network contributes to the end result, some parts contribute more, and I suggest it is best to consider every part rather than spend a ton of funds on fancy things near the endpoint and ignore the rest. It is likely that careful attention to upstream parts of the network will either reduce the burden on downstream parts to achieve the end result, or will leverage downstream parts quite a lot to achieve an even better end result.
When putting together a network for audio, I think it really is about choosing best value for money for each part and its function. For example my network has:
It is not to say the $5 Cat 6a could be improved upon, but so far the magnitude of improvement does not warrant the expense - which is a personal value judgement. I doubt shift $300 expense to this link rather than the $1000 cable would be worthwhile.
And finally getting to the relative cost benefit of cables, I suspect most hifi cabling (incl ethernet) pricing is based on the amount of impact it has in a sound system relative to its competition in the market place. So a $500 ethernet cable could typically have a similar amount of impact to a $500 interconnect, or $500 ‘audiophile’ switch even though each of these may have different type of impacts (eg. colouration, flavour, tonal balance etc). Of course there are exceptions.
I hope this is helpful.
My experience has been that improving ethernet and other things that reduce system noise and improve accuracy (eg. grounding) has significantly reduced the amount of excess bass energy being output. I don’t have any bass trap type treatment, and the only issue with the ARC MATT test I did was resonating panes in windows. But my room has openings at the back where some energy can escape or dissipate.
No doubt about it, improving the network will bring many important improvements. The problem though is that the room can stomp all over these improvements, and hinder what they can bring to the table.
Ideally the only sounds arriving at our ears should be the sound coming directly from our speakers. Unfortunately what we also hear is the effect of what ASC refers to as “head end ringing”. Sound from the speakers bounces off the walls and arrives at our ears slightly delayed. This throws off our ability to “ easy to discern the difference between say a violin & viola in a complex, say orchestral piece of music”. The more we are able to dry up this ringing, the easier it will be to discern a violin from a viola.
The front corners offer the best position to dry up a lot of this ringing. Even an affordable product like the GIK bass trap can cut down on some of this when mounted in the corners. But the isothermal tube traps take it to another level entirely. They may seem expensive but I think they are one of the best values in audio.
For many years I thought I would need to upgrade to better speakers to get to the next level. No doubt I’d get gains from doing that, but after adding the tube traps I realized that I had yet to hear how good my current speakers were - especially with classical. Most profound was hearing individual instruments emerge and be easily identifiable. Transient response and particularly the stopping and starting of notes improved dramatically as well.
I have come to consider room treatment to be foundational. Along with power distribution and equipment supports, if we don’t properly address these things, we aren’t going to hear what our components are really capable of delivering. That could lead us to always looking for the next upgrade because we aren’t satisfied with what we have.
Everything matters though so I’m not saying that we should just ignore our network or our servers. I’m just saying that if we prioritize the foundation ahead of everything else we’d position ourselves to get even greater gains from everything else we have or will try in the future.
To be honest I have been shocked by the extent of impacts, way beyond what I had thought possible at the outset of my experimentation. Hence starting this thread and being relatively detailed about what I am listening for. The results have been at one end of the continuum…unlistenable… to at the other end…totally switching off my analytical brain and simply enjoying the music…and everything in between.
Damn…I was hoping I wouldn’t need to experiment too much with cables as well.
I posted this in another topic that could help people that read this topic.
I know, it can be tiring. I think you are a good track …
establish a good basic network with good hardware, fibre and well built cables with appropriate shields (either UTP or STP with shield not connected to the ground or head-shell at the downstream end.
evaluate cables that connect to the endpoint - this will be quite informative for the rest
after selecting the cable at 2, then evaluate cables for the next link upstream, and so on.
After choosing cables, which hopefully minimises the noise/interference getting onto the ethernet signal and being passed on (in some cases cable also absorb noise), then review the hardware/switches, starting with the one immediately upstream of the endpoint, and so on upstream.
I’d say it wouldn’t take too long to understand the ‘qualities’ of different cables and degree of diminishing returns with each step upstream. Each bit of kit will have a different tuning so it may be possible find a mix of the flavours of cables and hardware that are complimentary to achieve a desired tuning - which is probably actually tuning the way various noise is minimised.
Just clarifying the “unlistenable” part as it may come across an exaggeration.
I deliberately incorporated some very obviously suboptimal combinations (eg el cheapo FMC+stock SMPS on US/NZ adapted plug feeding directly into my K50) that delivered this result.
Equally & in contrast when I fed the K50 with the best possible network component. I could get my hands on, I forgot that I was doing experiments and simply got lost in the music.
Admittedly way beyond basic hygiene (sorry)…but I had been told a lot of this stuff didn’t matter and by extension of that logic, I deduced the K50 would have to be indifferent to / sound exactly the same regardless of what it was being fed. And that is what/why I tested this way.
Super helpful steer on cables/approachhttps://antipodes.support/u/dbastin2605, thank you!
Awesome. thanks. This certainly will help me feel better about buying a switch with a good clock…ie knowing that its not just a marketing gimmick / superfluous, which is what I had thought previously on the assumption that either my K50 or Roon software was buffering/caching data streams &/or the K50 was itself reclocking before handing off synchronous data feed to the DAC.
The more I learn, the more I realise I don’t know!
This all does happen in the K50, but plugging ethernet into pretty much most things will probably inject unwanted interference/noise. Some things are very good at filtering alot of that out, such as by format conversion/reclocking (eg. usb to SPDIF), sample rate conversion, PCM to DSD, etc. Grimm Audio MU1 claims to do this very well thanks to its code/algorithms.
This is one of the ways to ‘remove veils’ … it’s like differrnt sources of noise, interference, distortion, etc are each veils, and enough are removed it reveals other veils more obviously.
A good clock does not make a good switch, other design factors are also quite influential
Yes, as I understand it ….network noise isolation/filtering, low noise internal chip sets…clean/quiet power….vibration reduction….just need to make sure I don’t end up with something that’s over engineered 
The comments about room interaction etc are also well made. This weekend I attended a retailer event where 2 systems were blind tested. Both were expensive, £50k and £100k, and the £50k system had 40% of the budget on network/system architecture.
It was fascinating on a number of levels but in my opinion the superior performance of the digital front end in the £100k system was undermined/negated by the amplifier-speaker matching and/or the speaker-room interaction which meant the handling of bass by this system left much to be desired. Perhaps as a result the majority of those present preferred the £50k system despite the evident limitations of the digital source in that system.
I haven’t spent anything like £50k on my system and I would say it is superior to either system I heard on Saturday because the upgraded CX/EX is a better digital front end than in the £50k system and because my amp & speakers work pretty well together and in my room. My spend on infrastructure is certainly less than half that in the £50k system, with the most costly single element being the Naim Fraimlite rack. Maybe I could get some further improvements but I don’t feel there is anything like another £10k to spend on infra-structure to hear my system at its maximum potential.
What this experience has taught me is (being slightly arrogant for a moment) I have quite good critical listening skills and that speaker selection (for personal preference and room interaction) and amplifier matching to the speakers are foundational. The streamer and DAC in the £100k system were 80% of the cost of the entire £50k system and clearly superior in terms of resolution and musicality if one listened carefully but most people preferred bass that was “right” ie not over-emphasised and well-controlled.
thanks for sharing that @glos_olly. I can certainly vouch for that…along the way I’ve had …speakers that were too big for my listening space…amplifiers that were not powerful enough to drive the speakers…a set up with all the $s spent on components & cabling with nothing on room treatment…a listening space that was too small with listening chain right up against the back wall…and…and…and…
Armed with this knowledge/experience, if I could start over…my first consideration would be #1 the listening space (dimensions/set up positioning of gear/acoustic treatment etc…), then speakers, then amp selection, then power infrastructure, then (I think) racks/vibration management…I think these allow one to hear what one’s gear is truly capable of/truly sounds like…otherwise a bit like putting 91 unleaded into a Porsche GT3 
True story…I installed a new network switch over the weekend. I’ve hidden away some of my other network components (eg router, WAP etc) behind one of the bass traps behind my left speaker. I was doing some cabling experiments and generally fiddling around at the router end of things and on one occasion rushed hurriedly back to my listening positioning to get back to listening to music…the sound had changed (for the worse) way out of proportion to the changes I had made… I was perplexed…when I got back up to revisit the router end of things I realised that in my haste I hadn’t put the bass traps back properly into place…I did so, sat back down…ahhhh back to blissful listening. The difference was anything but subtle!