An Inexpensive Upgrade For Streaming Systems

Some recently and very kindly gave me an ifi LAN isilencer:

I’m not a techie so I would rather let the company explain what it is and what it does.

It costs £89 so won’t break the bank. I have it plugged into my Paul Pang network switch and was surprised by the improvement that it brought about in my dual PC streaming setup.

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Interesting…

Can you describe the improvement?

And, did you plug the Ifi into the switch end or the ‘streamer’ end of the ethernet cable?

I plugged the ifi LAN iSilencer into the switch end. I found that the sound is more detailed with less digital glare. The sound seems more musical. While I enjoy the convenience of streaming, it doesn’t stack up against my LP12/Armageddon/ARO/Troika in terms of sound quality and musical enjoyment. I am a member of an online computer audio forum and the feedback on this gadget has been very positive. Given its price, you haven’t lost too much if it doesn’t bring significant improvements in your system. I’ll leave you to decide whether it’s worth a punt.

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And if you ever wanted to try something a little more exotic (expensive :grin:), both the English Electric EE1 and Stack SmoothLAN are available on 30-day returns, so no real risk in trying.

I have used a couple of EE1’s on separate Ethernet circuits to an acceptably good effect, YMMV of course.

ATB, J

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For what it’s worth, I found that the Stack SmoothLAN that Osiris mentioned was an improvement over the ifi LAN isilencer. It took the improvements of the ifi a step further.

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I guess that one might expect it to sound better Chris as it’s double the price of the ifi LAN iSilencer. I was fortunate as I received my LAN iSilencer as a gift. :grinning:

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No wonder you called it inexpensive. :joy:

My experience: I’ve bought the ifi LAN isilencer and tried it in my Naim setup both on the streamer end (ND5 XS - 1st gen) and router end for 1 week. Unfortunately I did not observe any SQ improvement, although something was feeling different, in the sense of a very subtle smoothing of sound which did not impress me so I returned it back to the store. In my setup a bigger difference was made when I added a switch (cheap one, 4 ports, no management) between the router and ND5 XS streamer.

Didn’t try the iFi LAN Silencer, but I do have a Stack Audio SmoothLAN, between cheap unmanaged switch and 222 it made a remarkable difference/improvement. There was a definite reduction in ‘noise’ that I wasn’t aware of before and it helped you listen in to aspects of music I seemed to be missing before. Whether you consider £230 inexpensive is a personal thing, but for me this was one of those odd occasions I wasn’t expecting much ( and would have returned it) but ended up keeping.

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