Frankly, this is the first instance of absolute OP-dictatorship I’ve ever encountered…all due to a perfectly harmless word that is used commonly in the French and English languages with valid meaning. Kind of inspires me to start a thread and issue a formal decree that the word “krisprolls” be formally forbidden for the simple reason that I personally dislike that word. But then, it occurred to me that in Western democracies, freedom of speech and choice of vocabulary are founding precepts in our societies even if words as offensive as “krisprolls” are used. So as long as no ad hominem insults are flung about I’ve decided to authorize the use of any vocabulary chosen to express an opinion. Maybe I’ll hit 5000 posts as well…
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Buckle your seatbelts in folks, it could be a bumpy ride…
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To be honest he would last about 10 minutes in our office!!!
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I learned what a krisproll is! 
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@Mike_S, no they’re too busy debating over the use one a dam word, I was hoping if someone would enlighten me, if replacing my bog standard D-Link switches with these would be an improvement…
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Pete, I replied to you. I have 2 Cisco switches in cascade. A white model 2960 8tc and a blue model 2960 8tt. Both are fine.
If you can find the 8tt ( PD model with external ps), it’s a model a bit better vs the 8tc ( with internal ps).
But better take a new unused 8tc vs hardly used 8tt PD.
Better not risk to take POE model, they are sometimes and even often noisy.
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An alternative is a HP Procurve 408…might be cheaper…sounds much better than my netgear switch.
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Yes it could. I also think that I am lucky with my electricity supply - ours is the only house on a transformer at the top of a pole just outside. OTOH I use ethernet over mains, which is supposed to be pretty bad.
It is - heard that demonstrated to me. The guy wanted a neat solution - complained about harsher sound than his Dealer demo - strung a temporary proper Ethernet cable - and the ‘over-mains’ days for the Ethernet were numbered - a low number! 
It works, but the extra noise it puts onto the mains is seen by everything else including the HiFi and it works better without having that to handle.
DB.
@TimOopNorth
It’s an interesting beast. I use to have the Melco N10 direct into the NDX2 but it actually sounds better to my ears via the S100. I’ve been using the optical about 6 weeks it adds added extra depth an clarity when using Roonand it has a similar effect on streamed Qobuz. The Cisco switch is still in the loop for the outputs to Bluenodes, tried it without and missed a little subtlety. Is it worth what it costs, the only way is to test one at home, this is not an at the dealer test. If it fresh out of the box give it 50 hours continuous play for it to start to work some magic, thought optical cable do not change in my experience but I guess the sfp modules do (mine are well run in Cisco GLC-SX-MMD from my works IT dept.). Before anybody asks why the Melco costs more than the Naim, I came to this set up from completely pc based audio on a very high end pc to a DAC, converted to the grandsons gaming pc! So for me this is source first.
(sorry about the dust on the lower shelves, the things at the top are weather stations, everthing below is AV kit.)
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I might try turning the ethernet over mains off. Easy enough to do - the HiFi/Server/switch don’t need it.
I’d go with one of the PD variants so you have an external PS.
I’m currently using:
WS-C2960CPD-8PT-L
WS-C2960CPD-8TT-L
I am using the 8PT-L to send POE to the 8TT-L to avoid needing a power supply. And the 8TT-L is the switch I have my NAS and streamer on.
A big improvement over the older blue 2960 8TL models.
Out of curiosity, what software on the PC, what output to the DAC, and what DAC?
In my experience the DAC is a far more significant as source component than the renderer (though of course latter and connections etc can have an effect, sometimes significant).
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Thanks Peter! Interesting read
For @Peder: Where I spent my day, not thinking about a single switch or cable, skiing moguls forty minutes from the house. Wonderful.
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Indeed, not only are there significant electrical noise issues with powerline adapters, they also don’t offer Ethernet… so it is NOT Ethernet over the mains (and note it is not formally described as that)… and therefore will not perform and behave as duplex Ethernet potentially causing issues for optimised equipment.
At best it’s a network bridge … and worst a desperate consumer kludge when no other method of basic minimalistic connectivity works.
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The word boutique surely is insulting if it’s used to suggest that someone with more money than sense has been ripped off for lots of £ by a shop that portrays itself as ‘high end’ - i.e. selling a pair of shoes or an ethernet cable for thousands of pounds.
This means the person who ‘fell for the trick’ is a sucker.
That’s why Peder finds it insulting.
But taking offense simply encourages people to use the trigger word again.
That’s going to keep the system going ad infinitum, until someone cracks!
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Everything is an autopoietic system.
Those pesky little quanta have a strange ability to “organizize” themselves into rather large assemblages.
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Although certain people might have their own sensibilities for whatever reason, boutique cables is a term in fairly common parlance, just put into google … click images… and you see pictures of many high end boutique cables…
Some high end retailers even seem to ‘catch’ the term in search results to get hits…
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Also for @Peder and tweakers… an afternoon’s walk away from hifi not so far from my brother’s house in Switzerland… wonderful… though I forget how hard walking in snow is over any distance…
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