Did you also inform her about 4k£ price difference?
It will add perspective to the choice:)
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Thanks. That’s encouraging.
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Is anyone of you using a galvanic network isolator or has experience with them in regards of audio?
Of course there are also some “boutique” models on the market but as always they are based on the industrial standard ones.
I would be happy to hear some thoughts from a professional perspective and also listening experience. Thanks in advance
i had acoustic revive lan isolator before, it worked fine: softer and nicer sound. But when i got my 2 audioquest diamond ethernet cables, the isolator did nothing more. I sold it.
All RJ45 ports in all streamer players, servers, wireless hubs, routers & switch’s are galvanically isolated. Adding another, such as sold by Acoustic Revive claiming to work wonders for SQ, doesn’t work. Search the forum, a few threads on it/them. When I tried one it not do anything positive that I could hear & for sure not the ‘amazing’ improvements that are claimed. I fitted it to both the NDX & NAS ethernet branches, the result was negative. On the wireless hub to switch branch, it didn’t do much that I could hear, save your money & buy more music
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It gives you the choice because they recognise that there’s no single predictably ‘best’ answer.
So with their switch you can try all the options and find out which way works best in your system.
That’s quite a good idea actually. Perhaps I should get a 100Mb Cisco 2960 and try putting that inbetween the 1Gb Cisco and the streamer? That would be functionally similar to the Melco but with the two halves separated.
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As @Mike-B says, UTP Ethernet is galvanically isolated anyway, so for our use there’s no advantage unless
1 you have screened cables and you’re not using them properly.
2 your equipment is malfunctioning.
3 your equipment isn’t designed properly.
The purpose of galvanic isolators for Ethernet is where an entire environment must be entirely galvanically isolated (e.g. some operating theatres). For this situation an Ethernet cable can be run to the periphery of the environment, but not even the cable itself can be allowed to cross the peripheral galvanic barrier to the inside of the protected environment (even if the equipment inside the environment provides galvanic isolation at its interface). In this case galvanic isolation must be provided where the cable physically crosses the peripheral galvanic barrier, hence needing a discrete physical isolator at this location.
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Yep one born every minute. It’s all a bit Emporers new clothes if you ask me.
Someone tested recently 3 different switches with a naim system.
HP Pro Curve 2530. ( 250 euros). Bonn N8 ( 800 euros) . Aqvox SE ( < 2k ).
The best was aqvox, then Bonn , then Hp. same range as the prices.
…the difference an S100 can bring to non-Melco systems is quite surprising, especially for the heavy traffic created in a Roon environment, as well as for streaming services such as TIDAL and Qobuz, where the data has been seriously compromised on its journey from the distant servers into the user’s home. The S100 restores the magic of the source stream as no IT device can possibly do.
Emphasis is mine.
.sjb
Hmmm… Reminds me a lot of the Naim ripping engine that ripped better than anything else.
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So is your emphasis suggesting that you’ve tried a Melco S100 in a non-Melco system and it worked particularly well to restore the ‘magic’ (whatever that means) of Tidal or Qobuz streams?
Does magic here mean musical coherence, timing, enjoyability?
How does the Melco do this, and say a Naim streamer not do this, when both of them can reconstruct the same digital data from the packets that stream across the internet like any normal packet transfer?
If problems wth digital transmission occur on the journey from distant Tidal servers to one’s house they are corrected by resending the data.
If there is electromagnetic noise in the home system, what has that got to do with the distance that the signals travelled?
Marketing Jim. Melco do like to do things differently so ii’ll reserve judgement. I’d take Melco with a ground up engineered solution more seriously over the tweak and repackage a standard switch brigade. I’m sure my Nucleus and 2960 is more than adequate for dealing with those pesky distant Tidal servers though 
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Question. But if you all affirm that for the music a Cisco Catalyst 2960 10/100 is enough and in fact Melco has built a new one both 10/100 and 10/100/1000. I wonder if a user buys a Cisco Catalyst 2960 CG and uses it for Hi Res music streaming is not the same thing? In fact the music files use what they need, that is 10/100, and they use only one tenth of the power of the gb RJ 45 ports?
It it’s just for music then a 100mb switch is enough but I use my switch for other devices not just music as otherwise it’s a waste of electronics so I have a CG. It’s not any different in SQ to the 100mb as I have both or if it’s used solely for music or other devices as well. There.is too much fear around about isolating your Audi network, it’s really not needed if you ask me and my experience. I want GB so I get full use of my internet bandwidth where I need it.
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I also think so, for this reason it is necessary to have a Gigabite at home and do everything, including music
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Jim,
I was juxtaposing “sensible” against the emphasised nonsense.
.sjb
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Have you read the ETHERregen blurb it’s just as bad.
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Why does a specialist manufacturer allow this stuff to be printed in their name?
I would think it harms their reputation more than it helps short term sales…