I wasn’t trying to get you to give up, but to recognise that as well as the revealing nature of a system making a difference, there has to be something for it to reveal, and that will depend on the streamer/DAC’s susceptibility, and on the network, and the electrical environment, the latter two I understood you to have dismissed, and the first you seemed not to recognise as a factor. But no matter, it of course is of no consequence, and we will have to agree not to understand what the other is on about.
With Christmas eve now here, the tree up, my house full of people, a health scare affecting a relation found to be a false alarm making an excellent present for her and her family, network foibles are a trivial matter! i wish you a very good Christmas: Wesołych Świąt / Joyeux Noël!
The big majority of owners of the Nd555 observed very clear differences among switches.
Baihill, who uses top Meridian Dac, observed the same.
However some users with an Atom or Superuniti didn’t observed differences among switches.
Nd555 and top Meridian Dac are more immune to RFI than Atom or Superuniti. However they reveal more differences in switches.
I don’t know how tell it differently.
These differences are also observed in Upnp mode .
In your case, the switch has less importance because you are not streaming in Upnp mode. The Mac mini is connected to your Dac in usb mode. So you can’t compare.
Perhaps we should report this discussion after Christmas, to leave us stressful and enjoy this family time…
Well just when I thought things were settling down, Santa arrives with my sub-woofers. This is going to put a serious crimp in my ER/Cisco/Cables eval. And I was just settling down to a couple of days of music listening. I will need help getting them up to the second floor, so its going to allow a couple more days of enjoying the music. Happy Holidays to all.
I should have drawn a sketch. Basically, I’m speculating that for any given streamer, it will only reveal benefits of a quieter switch if the noise floor of the streamer is lower than the noise introduced by the switch.
My Apple Time Capsule is about to die, so I need to sort out a switch to the NDX2 plus Apple TV and TV.
I have this “old” Fast Ethernet Switch, an Allied Telesis AT-FSW708, which is quite solid and has a meaty power lead. It can also be side mounted to the back of my cabinet. It’s described as supporting 8 X 10/100TX auto-negotiation Ethernet ports with support for MAC self -taught function of addressing (??). You can choose any port to switch apparently. Will this be worth trying?
Thanks, will do. Hopefully it’s just plug and go. I’ll need to get another Time Machine back up, hopefully a thunderbolt plug in direct to my main Mac. My IP router wireless is okay in most of the house, may look at a single booster. It’s a pity Apple stopped making the Time Capsules and Airports, they were a great solution.
Finally able to read through the full thread. Since I still have my Cisco 2960 and now also a Silent Angel, I wanted to test myself how two switches - connected serial - could improve sound quality.
What is not clear to me is what sources are connected to “switch 1” and what to “switch 2”. Am I correct that I should connect all my sources (like Internet (coming from router), NAS, Nuc (with Roon), TV Box etc) to “Switch 1”, and that I only have my NDX2 and switch 1 connected to “switch 2”?
Sorry for the clumsy sentence, but couldn’t find a better way to write up
I also have both the 2960 and Bonn 8. I have tried connecting the 2 switches in serial (2960-Bonn8 & Bonn8-2960). My source is NDX2. At the end of the day, based of my own personal preference, I have retired the 2960.
Yes - try one switch to gather all together - connect that switch output to the next switch - and then onward to the final rendering device, your NDX2.
Something to try - play with different cables if you have them - decide if it does anything for you then you know. For some reason it does alter presentation in a way I like in my system, faster more immediate and detailed lower noise - why - no idea!
I’ll have to agree with 
.
