Changing to Digital and Audiophile Network Switch

[Suedkiez]

@frenchrooster

So does he really need to read that audiophile switches, at best, are just fancy expensive boxes which will have no or eventually just minimal impact on sound ?

Damn it The problem here is the threshold and that it differs for everyone.

Let’s say someone opens a thread about how Vortex Hifi’s devices, that by magical remote action improve the listener’s blood flow in the ears by unsticking the blood cells that became clumped together by EMI, lifted a veil from the music.

It’s their system, their room, their ears. Can they also expect no contradicting posts and everyone has to congratulate them?

I’m sure you agree that there are limits, but they differ for every person. And so we have this problem.

[Mr.M]

It’s not my job to spend others available funds, what many contributors tend to do is deviate towards an X is better than Y is better than Z discussion where the conclusion reached is you can only make a system sound half decent by adding 10’s of thousands worth of extra boxes and cables to achieve that enjoyment “ceiling” just in time for a manufacturer to bring out a even better version a few short years after you’ve parted with your cash or to only find performance in a product by spending even more money to replace parts it shipped with in the first place.
I’m sure if I had the financial tethers removed I’d also experiment more, that’s down to an individual how they use their time and money.
The fact people have a professional opinion to offer just allows for a wider base for discussion and adds perspective, I’m happy and willing to try these things out, I listened to Melco’s new super duper switch last week, but it was feeding a Statement system and Focal Utopia speakers in a treated room, I’d hope it would sound half decent playing an MP3 file in all honesty but agreed with the Melco chappy it sounded good, I’d never dream of buying one but that doesn’t diminish the value of my opinion either, in part these discussions rarely conclude on one side or the other as the changes they bring are in part a personal change, if someone enjoys the benefits these changes bring as the OP appears to have discovered then kudos to them.
I do work on projects with Dolby for what it’s worth, in the broadcast domain covering Dolby Digital and Atmos in particular as well as regular interactions with streaming providers like Disney and Netflix, also relevant here from a perspective standpoint.

[james_n]

Very true. Unfortunately Ethernet switch design is not my area of expertise so I leave that to the experts !

[frenchrooster]

In that logic you need only a basic amp, basic speakers and source, and you have all the fundamentals you need to enjoy the music. Why bother with a Supernait 3 and Ndx2, you don’t really need such investment to enjoy music. Not ? For 500 euros you can have all you need , if I follow you.

[Mr.M]

Because I can afford to fundamentally, and feel fortunate to be in that position, many aren’t.
I’ve no axe to grind here but it does begin to feel like you’re attempting to moderate others contributions based solely on your own criteria.
I listen to the radio on an Amazon Echo Show in my kitchen and enjoy that, using the power supply it came with I hasten to add.

[frenchrooster]

I don’t expect only congratulations posts on these devices. But more listening impressions, comparisons between different cables, switches or power supplies, or questionnings on how it works, no certitude as those like « I work in the professional network area and I know that audiophile switches and cables are snake oil. And I will prove it to you. And bla-bla-bla, here is my knowledge, listen « . I am more on the ironic side, not speaking of someone in particular.

[frenchrooster]

I liked your post. But for some unknown reason I can’t do it technically. It doesn’t work. I am serious. It’s strange.

[Simon-in-Suffolk]

@garyi

I find it a fascinating area. However in my experience I have not heard any difference between kit or ethernet cables

Fast Ethernet uses less modulated conductors than Gig Ethernet, therefore fast Ethernet when connected to the streamer has the potential to ‘sound’ better compared to GigE.
100 Mbps uses a twisted pair in each direction
1000 Mbps and higher uses two twisted pairs in each direction.

So slower can be advantageous for SQ reasons, no doubt why Naim stick to the relatively old Fast Ethernet standard.

[garyi]

No doubt, I have not personally heard a difference, have you?

[Simon-in-Suffolk]

I have set my system up now where so called network differences are irrelevant.
But professionally yes I have wondered into this space

[garyi]

Well avoided there!

[Simon-in-Suffolk]

Yep… don’t want to antagonise any members. Decoupling DAC from streamer transport is the key to sanity in this space for me.

[garyi]

Well, I dont know if that was my plan, but its certainly my solution!

[ElMarko]

I did a lot of testing with various Cisco GB and fast switches and found I preferred the fast switches in my system. Not sure it’s b/c of the fast ethernet or lack of onboard PS or other. Adding a second switch for POE definitely made a difference though.

[Blackmorec]

Back in the day it was a matter of getting a really outstanding turntable, adding a top class power supply, placing it on an excellent stand, with top class arm and cartridge, optimal arm wiring and phono cable, really great set-up of all parameters like tracking weight, anti-skate, vertical tracking angle, azimuth, suspension, levelling, foot contact, a really good phonostage, optimally matched to the cartridge. Purity, clarity, dynamic impacts, naturalness, recording venue revelation and ability to move you deeply were the rewards. It was a fun time.
Today the kit is completely different but its exactly the same ballgame….
Optimally designed and implemented dedicated mains supplies , complete internal and external vibration control, an optimally designed network (split modem/router, optimised router with Audio-dedicated 5GHz band or optimised Fibre Optics for isolation, exceptional power supplies and vibration control, carefully designed and executed network traffic management, carefully planned and executed cable screening, with a cabling chosen for accuracy and lack of colouration, ideally a loom of the same cable, for wi-fi installations a wi-fi to ethernet bridge, to take wi-fi activity away from the end device instead feeding it with voltage encoded, ‘copper’ ethernet. This is where the best cable goes!
And how does this all sound, when each stage of the network improves the signal and passes it on to the next to add its improvement. What improvement? Better vibration control, better power supplies, better powered vibration protected oscillators resulting in more accurate timing, less jitter and therefore phase noise,
Back in the day, the TT, arm and cartridge was ‘the source’ , Today its the network.
A bad network can have a profoundly detrimental affect on the hi-fi system as a whole, affecting not only remotely screened file replay, due to its effects on the CPU via interrupts, waits, network traffic noise, etc all levels of music are depleted.
A great network source on the other hand, along of course with a great supporting system can sound amazing….basically like the turntable but with way less audible noise, allowing you to hear all the detail and refinement that the noise is hiding.
Basically, quite small improvements to the sound waves in terms of accuracy and lower noise that allow the brain to work more easily to achieve comprehension with less compensation and error correction, resulting in an even more enjoyable, completely immersive experience.
A major benefit in managing the network is in the fact that it is entirely scalable….do a little, do a lot, do everything, using the most economical solutions, using audiophile ‘reported/recommended products, using the finest custom made products. But the key thing about a network is that it should be carefully thought about and designed to provide an interference and interuption free, high response data feed to your server or streamer. There’e nothing wrong with building an excellent network based on all-consumer-grade products. However its important to know that the quality of sound that results from that network, can be very very significantly uplifted in all areas by refining the network to the point the network stream is very close to the ideal spec. with very little deviation.
At the same time we’re doing this, give a thought to how the fixed and mobile devices that are the rest of our network traffic are best served. Personally I dedicate another 5GHz band to video streaming and have all mobile and a few fixed devices on 2.4GHz band

[Mr.M]

I’ll do some more digging on this, I’m a contributor to the Wi-Fi Alliance working groups, one in particular encompasses a Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Home Design, a reference for showing that a product meets the needs of those specifications and with a defined test plan.
There’s nothing in that today that explicitly calls out Hi-Fi audio transport, it mainly focusses on video and VR/AR applications as well as concurrency requirements. There are independently a number of initiatives to implement features in the standards that audio applications would likely benefit from.
There’s certainly a desire to enable the consumer to do a more thorough site survey to optimise efficiency using simple tools and applications and of course there’s the additional 6 GHz channels that can be use to further segregate traffic to balance between range and priority as well as reduce interference whilst increasing capacity / concurrency.
I’ll raise the subject on the working groups and see what I can share here.

[Simon-in-Suffolk]

@Mr.M

There’s nothing in that today that explicitly calls out Hi-Fi audio transport, it mainly focusses on video and VR/AR applications as well as concurrency requirements.

Would be interested in your views for consumer wifi (Home Design profiling) on methods that are used in the commercial / industrial space for wifi - specifically the WMM protocol that maps DSCP markings on ethernet to air time priority on wifi.
To create a more consistent flow on wifi with lower inter frame timing variation one would use a higher WMM value. This is something one would ideally actively support to more reliably provide good wifi performance over a busy WLAN - does Home Design have a a view on WMM for consumers?

I think the wifi alliance adopted WMM (IEEE 802.11e ) back in 2004

I had previously shown inter frame timing consistency on ethernet had made audible differences on the Naim first gen streamers. (The inter frame timing consistency is set by the UPnP media server or equivalent on a layer 2 ethernet network )

[Mr.M]

Looking at this from an end to end perspective including the network core and backbone, access networks and commercial and residential private networks, there’s various working groups and sub committees focussed on specific verticals including residential as well as automotive, manufacturing and industrial with a degree of overlap between them.
My interest and areas of work are primarily at the network edge but with involvement in operators networks as well, particularly concerning encoding and transport protocols as well as managing latency across the core more consistently (a real area of focus for Tier 1’s like Vodafone, Orange, Telefonica and so forth) and complimenting that with real time management tools to provide diagnostics, metrics and analytics.
Furthermore supporting that optimisation with edge compute and machine learning capability in the consumer premises equipment to be able to react to resource demands dynamically and in real time with ultra low latency and based on the needs of an individual client or application session where resource request and allocation is required.
There’s also a lot of ongoing work on improvements that can be made in codecs, considering video streaming as an example you have HESP, VVC, AV1 and XVC, bringing not only compression benefits but also reduced transport latency benefits.
From an applications perspective you have protocols like Matter which aims to provide more seamless interoperability between devices as well as allowing devices to negotiate their needs either based on a predefined data model or by end user decision making.
My readout of the current landscape is there is a desire to focus on a reduction in end to end latency, an establishment of codecs that improve compression ratios and enable further latency improvements from core to edge, creating an open interoperability framework for residential environments using Matter and making the fixed and wireless home networks work more efficiently and with greater autonomy to be able to cope with variables that the predefined standards alone can’t consistently accommodate.

[Roog]

I wonder when some network operator is going to introduce Audiophile grade or AV grade internet?

[Mr.M]

They’ll just categorise service levels by different means other than just downstream line rate as they do today. You’ll likely end up with a general purpose best effort service, a gaming orientated service, an entertainment service and whatever other specialist categories can be conceived of.
The improvements and investments I outlined above will certainly improve the efficiency of the providers network and allow them to scale in a more cost effective manner, the edge technologies will take somewhat longer to trickle down, but I’m working on solutions that are targeted to come to market for consumer markets through 2024 so it’s not that far off.
Importantly the gains are to an extent backwards compatible so any new features or improvements should see gains across a wider footprint.
Regards audio streaming I’m most interested in possible gains in the efficiency and reduced latency of codecs and the features that Wi-Fi 7 supports that help solve a number of constraints that exist today.