When I first listened to the Etheregen, not run in, I preferred to have the Cisco in the chain.
But after maybe 100 hours, the sound was better with just the Etheregen connected to the router, without the Cisco.
Michael made the same experience and removed the Cisco, keeping only the ER.
Ah ok, thatās interesting FR. Maybe Dave can comment here?
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What has that* got to do with someone telling you they choose their equipment based on listening, and that they select the equipment to audition based on information from people they trust such as their dealer, friends and people with relevant experience?
I would have thought that is a very common way of choosing what to hear, some people using reviewersā opinions as an additional source, particularly if past experience showing they have the same tastes in equipment has led them to trust the reviewer.
Some people go on manufacturersā claims - but that can give an awful lot to have to audition, as I have never yet come across a manufacturer saying their gear is not good, rather they all try to make it sound as good as they can get away with, some sometimes being caught out by (in the UK) the Advertising Standards Authority, or in extreme cases Trading Standards authorities.
This, and similar, threads could be very useful to people for shortlisting purposes if it those posting their experiences try to ensure as much objectivity as possible, blind testing or blind confirmation being a good way, and clarify exactly what streamer or renderer and DAC are involved, and give as much clarity as they can regarding the rest of their network.
[*post edited to remove more detailed reference to a post that some time later was deleted]
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If you have knowledge,.and a proven test and installation-methodology,there is absolutely no problem.
But it takes years to learn,.and you have to be pedantic with all the details of each evaluation.
This is where most people make mistakes,.because they lack knowledge in this area.
And this you must learn in practice,.forget theoretical reasoning.
/Pederš
Whatever you do, your opinion is always subjective as it has been seen by the āmoreā savvy members,
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I choose not to comment on your statement anything more than to say.
With what basic knowledge do you make this statementā¦??
It doesnāt seem to be really accepted to say this,.for some here,but sorry to disappoint youā¦
But if you havenāt quite understood it yet,.I Definitely belong to one of the āmore savvy members hereā that you wrote.
This in optimizing,.creating synergy and installing music-system,and the knowledge and experience needed,.to be able to carry out this work.
I share this knowledge here,.with some that I find confidence in,and trust.
And,.I have zero interest in participating in debates like this.
Stay safeā¦
/Peder
This is a very interesting thread and I look forward to reading more feedback from actual users of the switch.
The Cisco 2960 seems to have become a benchmark against which other switches are evaluated. Simon-in-Suffolk has established himself as the authority on the Cisco. Could I ask him to kindly outline in simple terms what it is about the Cisco that makes it so suitable for domestic hi-fi use? Why is it better than a basic Netgear switch? I am sure you must have provided this answer many times on the old forum but I cannot find it. Sorry to put you to the bother.
@Nemo,ā¦Welcome to the forum 
.
Look for Simon-in-Suffolkās statements in the threadā¦
āEthernet Switch and Cables Maniaā,.on this forum,where you have lots of information about this
Stay safeā¦
/Pederš
Cats, Nags, Roosters - this thread has suddenly got interesting.
I worked at English Electric during my summer holidays - it was the same year that The Who released āWonāt Get Fooled Againā. They were a great company and merged with GEC. If only we could turn back time.
It seems that in the context of the audiophile, FRās Cheshire Cat may be apt as Britanica says
The Cheshire Cat is a member of the Duchessās household. When it appears before Alice, it assures her that everyone in Wonderland is mad and that it doesnāt much matter which path she follows if she doesnāt care where sheās going. The catās ability to vanish slowly by sections disconcerts Alice, who at one point finds herself in the presence of only the catās grin.
Yes short list by objective measurements and make the final decision by personal audition - works for me. Beware of external influences. Once you have found something good stick with it even if there is something better just around the corner.
I canāt see anything wrong with these switches and as they are made on a small scale then they will be expensive. So let the lamb lay down with the lion.
So we will have ā¦whatās for dinner ( thread ) photoā¦ 
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@Peder, I of course always respect your expertise, I just used the words āmore savvyā to invoke the young spirit of the single-mindedness of a Viking!!!.
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Iām curious which Auralic streamer you have and if youāve ever compared it Wired vs WiFi ?
Hi the Cisco Catalyst devices main benefit for home audio for connected audio devices on a normal home LAN is its support for IGMP snooping as default. This keeps unrequited group data away from streamers on your LAN thereby reducing unnecessary processing overhead by your streamer and reducing the noise floor in the streamer. For many people reducing the noise floor relates to better or at least different SQ.
The Catalyst devices appear also designed to an EMC standard and PHYsical media layer termination standard that offers a better noise performance and thereby for some better SQ compared to some other switches. Certainly the former is what I would expect for commercial devices more likely to work in more sensitive environments compared to the domestic environment.
Finally for UPnP and possibly Roon, (and some home automation apps) the Catalyst devices can be configured to act as an IGMP querier. This helps home networks where the router is not running IGMP, and help keeps device multicast group memberships fully maintained without relying on less reliable application querying. This helps responsiveness and speed of discovery (almost instant) on the Naim app for example. This does require the user to log into the switch to configure.
Outside of audio there are two other main benefits for the home user ā¦ the Catalyst switches offer loop protection, thereby preventing you taking your network down by accident if you have created a loop, this can also be used for resilience uses. The switches also offer full diagnostic capability and can test connected Ethernet cables or fibres. This requires the user to log into the switch.
There are many other benefits such as configurable support of trunk, VLANs, port QoS, Ether-channel, SNMP and port security ā¦ but these are less relevant perhaps for the home user.
BTW I am not really an authority on things Ciscoā¦ I just happen to engage with the company and design with some of their products in my professional world.
For me the health and configuration of my home network is important as I rely on it for many things, including work, home audio, IPTV etc. Devices like these Catalysts give me the control and visibility I need to help maintain my home network as optimum as I can make it for the purposes I need it for. Many standard consumer devices give no visibility or control here giving no no real status of the health of the underlying network. By design TCP/IP will try and work as the network gets less and less healthy until it stops all togetherā¦ this is often invisible to the user with many consumer devices.
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I wrote this yesterday and then the thread disappeared.
Anyway, Stephen and anyone else whoās interested, Iāve had a few days now with the EE switch. Hereās what iāve found.
Present setup ā
Roon Nucleus (internal SSD for local music storage) + Qobuz (formerly Tidal) streaming service. Cisco 2960 8TC (blue).
25m CAT5e to lounge (Devialet 220 Pro)
20m CAT5e to bedroom (Project Streambox S2 / Mytek Brooklyn DAC+)
The Nucleus and the two systems connect to the 2960. The uplink port on the 2960 connects to my TP Link Deco Mesh router for internet and wireless connectivity. The 2960, Nucleus, Router and Virgin modem live in the āofficeā along with a Sonos Bridge for the various Sonos devices around our house.
Iād previously been using a Melco N1A as my UPnP server and had been very happy with this setup for a few years. At the start of 2019 Iād tried Roon, found it was the control point Iād been looking for all along to make the most of my library after many years of playing with computer audio. Suitably impressed, i bought a lifetime subscription along with a Roon Nucleus. To make all this work I needed an additional switch so ordered a used 2960 based upon advice on this forum. Tidal soon followed and having access to not only my library, but a vast streaming library with no loss of quality between local and streaming sources was extremely liberating.
Wanting to cut down the number of boxes now occupying the rack, I experimented by comparing the player port output on the Melco to using one of the ports on the 2960. I found a slight preference when using the 2960 direct which meant I could move the Melco on (I was now only using it for its player port, music storage having moved to the Nucleus). I still had a Netgear Switch (a GS105 with the older linear supply) feeding the lounge from the office where my router / modem is also situated.
A few months on, I added a bedroom headphone system initially based on my Sony 1Z Walkman but wanting access to Roon meant adding a USB endpoint ā I chose a Project Streambox. Initially I used the wireless connection but drop outs playing hi-res material meant adding a hardwired connection. I ran a new cable in (standard CAT5e) terminating at the Netgear switch in the office. When I tried out the new connection, I found it sounded worse than the wireless connection Iād initially used the Streambox with. Having been very careful about the new cable routing (avoiding mains cables or crossing at 90ā where unavoidable) and having checked and rechecked the terminations were correct, this was obviously rather disappointing after the effort to put the cable in. As a final sanity check, I borrowed the 2960 from the lounge and slotted it in place of the office Netgear. What a difference ā the Streambox really worked well with the 2960. As a bonus I found my lounge system took a step up too with the 2960 sat at the end of 25m of CAT5e rather than the 1.5m of CAT6 (a standard patch lead from Farnell) so the 2960 made a full time move to the office.
This new setup worked very well and to be honest, apart from some Roon updates, Iād not touched anything until a few weeks ago when a couple of changes (non Hi-Fi) in the lounge required a few more Ethernet ports to be available. Routing more cables in would have been a pain (I did the original run which is still in good condition 10 years ago when I first put in a Linn Akurate DS, my first network player) so I thought Iād try putting in a switch instead. My original Netgear GS105 (with linear PS) made things worse and I didnāt really want to put in another 2960 with a short cable to the Devialet . As I mentioned earlier in the thread, I have no illusions that the EE is just a tricked up āoff the shelfā switch in a nice box but with a generous return policy, a tiny footprint and a more lounge friendly appearance, I purchased one and have had it in my system for the last 4 daysā¦
Iād like to say itās taken my system to a whole new level but itās more subtle than that ā The start of Stimela (Hugh Masekela) where the drums grow in intensity, I now find the individual drums easier to hear as the drumming reaches its climax. The Unthanks harmonising on Magpie, their voices are clearer and easier to differentiate. These are just a few examples where I think itās adding something good. The main thing for me is the EE switch doesnāt degrade the sound. Putting the Netgear in the same place introduces a harshness to music playback that initially sounds like more detail but very quickly becomes tiring. Iām not that good at describing musical differences, so for me the main sign that something is working well is that Iāll find excuses to spend more time listening, itās as simple as that.
Again Iām under no illusion that these differences (or lack of effect) are down to some unique property of an āAudio Gradeā switch but are down to subtle electrical interactions further down the chain as digital signals convert to analogue and I just find these interactions more agreeable in the final musical result. I suspect that with a bit of time and effort I could find a combination of switch and cables that does the same but I donāt really have the time or urge to fiddle around trying to do this. For this reason the EE switch (even at Ā£450) will be staying as will my existing 2960. When I get more time Iāll try the EE switch in front of my Streambox which seems to be more sensitive to network switch changes just to see if the effect is more pronounced but Iām in no rush to do this.
So there you go ā my opinion, my system, my ears. If youāre looking for a new switch then itās certainly worth a go and Iām sure mileage will vary.
Iāll be interested in what others find.
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Thanks James, nice write upš
I know with the Melco switch my dealer found a linear power supply by Plixir, really made a difference. I am sure MCRU will specify a PS for the EE switch at some point which might be worth trying.
Thanks Simon for such a generous and comprehensive reply. I use a Cisco myself and wondered why it gave me an improvement in sound quality, most notably in presence. The management facilities of the switch are beyond my ability and understanding: for me it is plug and play. As far as I am concerned, you are a valued authority on Cisco.
Someone elsewhere wrote: "Has anyone worked out how a fancier switch can make any improvement in sound quality yet, especially when data is packetised and trasmitted using TCP (rather than a streamed serial interface like SPDIF), requiring extensive reclocking and multi-layer decoupled FIFO buffering at both ends, and all Cat5 Ethernet being differential, balanced, echo cancelled, and galvanically isolated?
I would have thought if there was a difference it would be because of inconsistency of processing time of packets in the switch and the receiving end being tightly integrated in the software sense (i.e. a tiny operating system with application statically linked to it) such that playback clock was derived from audio sample packet data arriving: a complicated managed switch with many features would sound worse due to the inconstancy in packet processing time compared to a wire-speed dumb switch which will have constant latency."
I do not have the technical knowledge to comment on this but would welcome your thoughts. It certainly seems to fly in the face of many userās experience here.
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That was a very thoughtful and helpful write-up, particularly since you provided such a full account of the context, both geographical and over time.
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How about using practice and theory in harness togetherā¦
That approach works better than eitter one standing alone.
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NO,.Not In This Case,let me explainā¦
If you shall understand this,.then you should be with someone who are knowledgeable,and can performs this.
This so that you can see and understand different contexts,.in the process.
Of course Xanthe,.it is very good,to also have read the written instructions available about this method.
This,.before you start to practice this practically with someone knowledgeable.
These instructions can be found on Lejonklou Hifiās forum.
Previously there were also instructions on Linnās now defunct forum.
If the instructions are on the new WAM (Linn) forum I do not know.
But if Iām to be honest,.when Iāve read these instructions,then I donāt understand how to do,.and I am very knowledgeable in this method.
ā¢ Fredrik Lejonklou (Lejonklou HiFi),.one of Swedenās three most knowledgeable on this method has said.
That he has throughout his career,.only met two people who have managed to learn the method,.just by reading the instructions and practicing himself.
In my case,.I have not encountered anyone who understood to perform the method to 100% without help.
So the best is,.like I said in the beginningā¦
āIf you shall understand this,.then you should be with someone who are knowledgeable,and can performs this.
This so that you can see and understand different contexts,.in the processā.
Stay safe out thereā¦
/Pederš