James, seriously? You bought one, you like it, you’ve read some reviews that say they like it, yet you have a problem.
Who’s to say it’s a rebadged Nuprime? I’d possibly be inclined to think that whatever Chord may have brought to the table in developing the 8Switch may have appeared in what is, after all, a totally new brand. At least as far as the casework is concerned. But you’ll have compared them, I guess. What did you find?
It’s just sounds better, it’s the most important.
Recently I read a french review which compared some switches like Waversa, Aqvox SE, Cisco Meraki, and Uptone.
I would like to read that the Uptone was the best. But not.
The reviewer found the Etheregen lacking refinement. He preferred the 3 others, and specially the Waversa, then Aqvox.
For my ears, the ER is very refined, and organic sounding.
However the reviewer prefers a softer and leaner sound.
So finally, the reviewers are common persons, with their personal tastes, system…their opinion has no more credibility than us or a common member.
I think it has even less credibility as they are dependent on advertising revenue and even if they don’t have adverts they are dependent on getting equipment to try for free. Moreover, does the manufacturer make sure the one they get is thoroughly tested whereas the consumer has the next one off the production line.
An exception is Which? magazine, which is not a hifi rag, but a consumer champion. They simply buy an appliance from a shop and test it. When they tested sub £1k turntables, the Rega came top as it had the best measured performance and the listening panel consistently identified it as sounding the closest to the master recording. Next best was TEAC and one of the worst was Pro-Ject.
In the end only you can decide if you like the sound of something. Looking a measurements enables you to ascertain whether it is well designed. Build quality, reliability and after sales service are also important.
Very few hifi reviewers seem to understand computer networks and some statements they make are laughable. However, if they measured the basics including in-room response and then used a listening panel they might write more useful accounts.
Yes indeed, excellent stuff! Been a huge fan since @Dave tried to rip the woofers out of Tom Alves’ SBLs with Heirate Mich. I don’t think it’s why dear Tom left for Scotland…
I had a quick read at lunchtime - the EE gets best buy (as seen in the link) and the Melco & RA get recommended. It still looks like you can’t really go wrong with a 2960 and BJC cables. Nothing new there
Oooh its arrived! If I am lucky my copy will be waiting for me at my works office, (currently in lock down, Booo) If I am unlucky, admin will mistake it for junk mail and chuck it in the bin!
I could have asked ‘Critic’ to redirect mine to my home address, unfortunately for me the last three copies never arrived, even though they were sent in a plain envelope! :0(
Exactly, there are no noise issues on switches designed for high clock stability required for PTP and some AoE and other low noise applications. It’s a case of buying what you need. Sure cheap consumer switches are manufactured to a price point… and surfing Facebook doesn’t require a precision physical layer clock.
Actual Ethernet physical line noise mitigation requires other technologies manufactured by people such as TI, but I note not even the audiophile switches have ventured into the true low noise domain yet… but I give it time… and they should appear… and then I think some of these audiophile devices may be more robust and worth considering … too fragile and borderline in approach at the moment for me to take seriously. I have learnt my lesson in using, buying and designing tweaks that are not fully thought out over the last 22 years I have been audio streaming. What can be a short term gain becomes an expensive door stop when underlying approaches change, because the usecase is too borderline/restrictive.
I also would like to see new audiophile proper low noise audiophile switches contain SFP interfaces to allow inter working with the next gen streamers which I think will support fibre as well as twisted pair.
At the moment, audiophile switches appear to be some kind of cobbled together devices.
Of course, one could consider they provide an interesting immediate solution, which is fair enough.
But a rather expensive one: fancy Ethernet cables, one or two audiophile switches, add to it one or two power supplies and we reach the price of a demo 555PS DR.
Designing a proper audiophile switch: low noise, low latency, stable clock, robust SFP interfaces and a proper layer 2 software requires an expertise audio companies clearly don’t have.
I hardly imagine companies like HP, Cisco, NetGear, Alcatel, Hitachi, etc… investing on a niche market like the high end audio market.
That leaves us with the logical solution : somehow make those streamers immune to network noise. Not an easy job…
But I believe Naim did a brilliant work with the NP800.
I do note these days in the pro audio networking space EtherCON is preferred over RJ45, and OpticalCON for fibre connectivity…perhaps that would be more appropriate for the next gen consumer streamers rather than SFP.
They support DANTE yes… which is preferred for high end / pro audio compared low latency transmission to the more simplistic non real-time web Protocol based media transfers that are used in consumer audio. If one wanted to use a defacto standardised approach to multi room high quality streaming, then DANTE would be a consideration.
Low noise is a key requirement for any recording studio environment… to the point that many studios will incorporate TT earthing to lower the noise floor.
Because they are rather expensive and are not aimed at the consumer market… there is a whole world out there with quality audio networking in the professional world some of which is used in the studios that make the recordings we then later listen to… last time I looked the AES had a specialist area simply dedicated on that.
I see on the whole consumer trends lag professional trends but quite a time, sometimes many years, if they ever catch up at all.
Remember this forum is on the whole entirely consumer focussed and has, in my opinion, a relatively narrow view of the world in terms of audio.