Good afternoon all, I’ve finally got around fitting an, EE8 which I’ve connected direct from my VM router via the supplied Chord cable.
During the faff of sorting out all the Ethernet cables and the fact I’ve got another Tp Link switch, I finally got the ER8 connected but I’d forgotten I already have an EE+ and and a Ifi noise control device going straight into my NDX2.
Is this ok for synergy? Not that I’m that bothered, as the EE8 has definitely improved sound quality, but I thought maybe there’s too many bits in the way if you know what I mean?
All the posts on this EE8 I can definitely agree with. Wow, a bloody router of all things improves my streamers performance I can hardly believe it.
I have an EE8 switch and an EE1 plus and they work really well. I’m not sure I’d have the ifi thing between the switch and the streamer, given that you have the EE1 plus there as well. Maybe try it between the router and the EE8.
I’d consider stripping this back to router>streamer if possible and installing one “cleanser” at a time.
Having said that, my bets would be on the EE8 here. As reported elsewhere, I’ve never enjoyed what passive filters like the EE1 do - so my recipe, FWIW, would be EE8 > UNshielded cable > streamer. “UN” because the noise stopped by the switch can travel down the shield and undo the good work of the switch - and yes, this includes Chord’s own cable.
For your next step, adding anything else in before the EE8 is more likely to sound better than adding it in after it, but the answer may well be that the additions detract rather than improve.
Enjoy, whatever; most people end up being gobsmacked by what “just a switch” (properly installed!) can do for sound quality.
or totally underwhelmed by what many switches do - especially cheap consumer or many audiophile switches. Don’t want to sound antagonistic - and I have sampled a fair share of such switches ever since I was one of the first to notice the effects of out of switch noise on consumer audio devices back in the early 2010s where I write about it on hifi forums at the time (any way I have mentioned this before on this forum ) - but I have found in my experience the biggest analogue noise mitigation effect with network switches is when you use a properly mains earthed switch (as opposed to a device just using a little DC tether lead) connected to streamers that are main also earthed and you are using their analogue as opposed to digital audio outputs. The key thing is to isolate common mode AC voltages flowing through cables such as ethernet cables to the lowest impedance point to ground - which often can be a streamer - and such voltages can couple and effect ground planes and clocks. Similar effects can occur when connecting SPDIF leads directly from TVs into an earthed streamer. Many often use TOSLINK now to avoid this common mode noise coupling issue.
Certain consumer switches around 2010 also had master clocks with relatively high phase noise which could cause coupled intermodulation noise in streamers, tuners etc, but again in my experience this has improved in products over the last 15 years or so.
But address common mode voltages/currents by using correctly earthed network devices that directly link to your streamer is often going to make a worthwhile difference.
You can use the SW AM radio test as well to hear if your network segment to your streamer is noisy… often a fantastic method to identify sources and determine if there is actually any RF noise.
Clearly you and I know different people! I’ve had literally hundreds of conversations about switches for audio and a great number of these start with someone telling me about their early positive experiences with any-old-switch simply installed in the right position and connected with an unshielded cable. I’ve had many more reports of similar one step removed. I can count on the fingers of one foot the number of people who heard no meaningful difference. Ok, there has been just one!
Again, our experiences differ profoundly here. The most effective devices I know are DC-powered and therefore connected to their power source via a “little DC tether lead”.
Yes, almost all the streamers I know are AC powered.
There are no analog(ue) outputs on a streamer; there are on a streamer/DAC.
TOSLINK is the work of the devil!
Yes, it’s improved, but intermodulation noise does not arise only from switches.
This is certainly a valid approach, though not the only one.
Or you could just listen to music with and without a properly installed switch and see if it sounds different. It most likely will.
At the end of the day, I guess how we get there is less important than that we do. It’s important that folk hear the options for themselves as every system/room/environment/pair of ears is different.
Some of your points are at variance with several conversations and measurements I had at the dawn of development of audiophile switches and subsequent sessions I had volunteered with Naim (my philanthropic side whilst they were developing the second gen streamers) . Intermodulation distortions (ie warbles on Tuners, or clocks) was the key aspect focussed in on in 2011. Not all mains powered devices are earthed are they - so I didn’t understand what you were wanting to try and explain here?
BTW my Naim streamer produces analogue and digital audio. I do feed the digital audio output into a separate DAC.
A streamer transport is usually the front end module that acts as a hub for differencing input transports that are then subsequently processed and clocked for feeding the streamer DAC or external via digital audio - often USB or SPDIF - to an external DAC
This separate DAC helps at decoupling power, ground panes as well as EM.. and all these aspects go away.
I do agree what thing sound like is the most important.
Some systems - sound better with certain types of noise
Some get sucked into marketing collateral and get cause and effects conflated when differences are heard.
I’m not sure that’s entirely fair on poor old TOSLINK. Yes, it’s cheap, and in my experience there does seem to be a performance ceiling compared to coaxial done well, but it’s generally reliable and it does have its uses when connecting up cheap consumer devices (in particular TV and AV kit) to mains earthed systems such as Naim.
The devil was kept busy though, developing HDMI (together with all his lawyers)…
Thanks for all your comments.. I have a basic cheapo Ethernet cable from the EE8 to my streamer and NAS but I’m not sure if they’re Unshielded. I’ll have look online and see what’s available.
And indeed I have discussed one to one with Rob on this a few years ago now. He does like TOSLINK as it offers common mode interference advantages - but ultimately he uses electrical where he can control the source - such as using coax between his M Scaler product and his flag ship DAC - DAVE.
But to be clear both TOSLINK and SPDIF are consumer standards - which are loose and tolerant and designed for cheap manufacture for consumers.
Your EE8 switch floats - and is not earthed (this is never sensible with high end audio ) - and is a potential source of common mode noise.
You might be able to mitigate this by using an end to end earth shielded ethernet lead between your EE8 and and another mains earthed switch = say between your EE8 and router.
You may be able to solder an earth tag onto the EE8 and attach that to mains earth.
Common mode noise really is the work of the devil… and blights many hifi setups to my ears at least.
absolutely - by definition. That is what it is intended for - but because of the tolerances it is only really suitable for short distances as opposed to the tighter commercial standards of AES for example
I can hardly believe it.
