One step forward: ER +lpsu

@Darkebear am I imagining things or did you state you use different or modified feet on your ER to good effect? The design means the supplied feet have lots of pressure on one side but the other side is very light/just touching the glass. Probably the fall of the cables not helping here. I try to keep the Ethernet cables free from the Fraim shelves etc. If they touch/lay on the shelves then this would sort it out! Anyway just a Sunday morning thought as the kids have woken me up!

These are joys. I remember when I experienced the same. My kids are 40 years old now. Same joys when grandkids come stay with us.

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@bailyhill this morning it was my 2 year old!! I am the same age as your kids though! Days like this I wish I had had them sooner!!

Yes. I have found that HiFi equipment rubber feet, even on items away from where you think it would matter at all, still matters.

Placing three hard plastic spacers loose under the ER in three spots (against the case and not the existing feet) that seem to best balance the weight load on the glass shelf it sits when the cables are connected were very worthwhile; a bass ā€˜lumpā€™ or slowness went away so I just decided to use these extra spacers.
It also allowed a bit more space underneath the ER and it seemed to help heat dissipation a little too.

Experiment - try it. Use some music with a fast low bass riff and see if you think it matters.
In my system with my speaker bass response it is obvious, but it may be system dependent.

ā€¦remember - I always try free possible upgrades first! :bear:
To me it seems reasonable to try something free ahead of purchasing blind a PS upgrade costing more than the ER - Iā€™ve sure this latter is a very good idea too, but why not try the free things?

DB.

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I just disconnected the ER.

Back to the Catalyst 3560.

It sounds good! Fuller and sharper.

Background is less clean and perhaps less precise without the ER, but everything is slightly fuller and sharper as a whole.

Not sure of what I prefer.

I might enjoy some noise after all :joy:

So yes, no doubt, in the context of my system the ER removes something. Clearly. Might be noise, might be something else.

Iā€™m puzzled.

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Ooohhā€¦errr, trouble at tā€™mill !

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Not really, at least not as far as Iā€™m concerned :wink:

I usually donā€™t like tweaking around. But this was just a matter of unplugging one single cable.

Interesting experiment. Iā€™ll leave it that way for a week or so.

What you describe also happened when I first got my ER switch. I preferred the fullness of my Cisco switch over the (at that time) over-lean sound from the ER. I find all new components run-in and sound ā€˜held-backā€™ or restrained - it has always happened - and the ER was no different. The ER was at that time obviously cleaner and faster with far better detail and imaging - but it was over-lean and did not allow music to relax and fill-out as I had with the Cisco.
The Cisco by comparison was easy-going - but grainy and blurred vocal inflection and was fuzzy in extreme HF and over-fullsome in bass; it was just I was used to that presentation and the ER was a perceptual surprise.

Several weeks later that all changed for the better - and a few month later it is not the case at all - run-in done!
This is with the bundled PS too.
Even with a better linear supply I think you will have run-in but from a higher and better starting place.

What you describe is exactly what I expect. It is interesting to hear the same thing from someone else. :bear:

DB.

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Thatā€™s exactly it!
Especially when I listen to some Pink Floyd (I not only listen to classical :wink:)

Again, thatā€™s exactly it! :ok_hand:

For voices and piano, the ER does the trick. It is far better, clearly.

For the rest I perceive an over-leaness, if I may say.

I suppose we easily get used (and seduced) by some graininess, like a false pretence of precision.

When I stated, rather timidly, that with the ER my system sounded a bit like the Soulution systems I auditioned, I was referring to noise floor and precision (with the Magico S3 MkII)

Piano, voices and even symphonic pieces sounded amazing on the Soulution systems. I suppose that the 760 DAC and 711 amp have an extremely low noise floor.

When adding the ER to the ND555 I perceive the same precision, especially for piano. Attacks and decays are extremely accurate.

Unfortunately for Pink Floyd and symphonic music I get the cleaness but loose the fullness (not sure this makes sense).

I hope the ER will settle down (I canā€™t believe Iā€™m saying that :joy:) as it did for you.

My ER + UltraCap1.2 have been on for about 2-3 weeks now. Letā€™s give it 3 weeks more.

Having the ND555ā€™s performance close to the Soulution 760 at half the price wouldnā€™t be so bad :star_struck:

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That will help. I found a minimum of 10 days run-in until I was confident it was improving in the direction I wanted, but that was just the threshold for me to decide to keep it. Iā€™m glad I did, as it continued to run-in almost linearly for week after week and was still improving months later.

The cable into the ER (from the Cisco) and from the ER (to the HiFi) do make a considerable difference in tuning the SQ you attain.
The cable on the ā€˜inā€™ side of ER I found had to be a good ā€˜HiF-typeā€™ cable like AQ cinnamon (I later used Vodka, but that takes an age also to run-in).

The cable on the ā€˜outā€™ side of the ER to the HiFi worked far better as a non-HiFi type cheap Cat6 (KabelDirekt 1.5m Cat6); I purchased a range of inexpensive Cat6/7 to try - the KabelDirekt takes about two days to run-in and at first sound dull and dreary and then nicely opens-out.

ā€¦with all this it took some realisation that these things tune the end result and to open-mind experiment without presumption or assumptions and learn from the results you get in practice.

In any case you reach something you like - and it does not matter ā€˜howā€™ or ā€˜whyā€™ - I ponder those later - many reasons I can imagine - but you have a working solution allowing music. That is always my aim. :bear:

DB.

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At the risk of being stoned by forum members could I possibly dig into your experience and request a suggested starting point for connecting the following from my Virgin media router:

  • Cisco 2960 (?) switch
  • ER with standard packaged power supply
  • Synology NAS drive
  • Innuos boxes
  • nd555.
    I would really appreciate your thoughts on how best to connect these. At the moment the ER has not been introduced and Iā€™m wondering if the Cisco should remain but even that question will provide you with a hint of just how clueless I am with regards to these matters!

Hoping this doesnā€™t set too many sets of eyes rollingā€¦!!

Peter

You seem to be doubling up on stuff. Not sure why you need a Cisco 2960 switch AND a ER switch, and why you need a Synology NAS/Server AND Innuos (unless the Innuous is for ripping purposes.

If it were me starting afresh I would go for ER (or EE8) switch, Synology NAS/Server (or Melco if you have the funds) and ND555. Start experimenting with cheap ethernet cables to connect these, such as CatSnake 6a (floating shield), and borrow one or two more expensive cables such as AQ Vodka, as mixing cables often a gives the best balance.

I agree with some listening experiences concerning the ER, vs the Cisco.
With stock ps, ER fully run in, the Cisco sounds a bit fuller, but in the meantime less refined, colored and textured.
The fullness is a bit crude, the Cisco tends to globalize the sound.
With the addition of the MCRU in my case, the sound became fuller for the ER, but a more refined and nicer , organic and lively fullness, analogue like.
It depends on the linear ps being used too (with the ER). Because with the Farad, the sound was clearly leaner.

Hi Peter,

I have everything connected like so :

The Synology NAS could be used as storage.

My Synology NAS with a storage pool of 44 To is not dedicated to music. I have everything in there :grin:

My ER setup is like so :
[cisco]----(fiber)----[ER]-----(12m cat.6a)ā€”(wall socket)ā€”(AQ Vodka)ā€”[ND555]

I chose to use fiber between the Cisco and the ER in order to completely isolate the ER from the rest of the network.

I use high quality SFP modules from Swiss GBIC for both the ER and the CISCO.

That leaves me with the last 1,5 meter to play with.
I suppose I could swap the AQ Vodka with other cables.

But Iā€™ll wait a couple of weeks before trying that.

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Nigel/ Thomas

Thanks very much for your replies.

Nigel, the (probably not well thought through!) idea I had was that the digital music - both hi res and music burned from cd using the Innuos drive would/ should be of higher quality if played direct from the Innuos to the nd555. Slight problem is that the Innuos only has a 2tb hard drive and I suspect that the combined music collection, will exceed this capacity. The NAS which has 18tb would provide a complete back up of all music (and other) data and, I hoped, would allow a rotation of music onto the Innuos for playback through the nd555. Slight side issue is that the Innuos does not seem to be designed to easily allow rotation between it and the NAS! Expensive learning curveā€¦

From Thomasā€™ schematic, would it make sense for me to retain the Cisco, connect the incoming Virgin router to it and also the Innuos and NAS. Then have an ethernet connection from the Cisco to the ER and then direct to the nd555?

My ignorance is limitless so please donā€™t be shy in letting me know if my note above makes sense or is flawed. Many thanks for your help with this.

Peter

Thomas

Your further post appeared as I was plodding through my reply.

I suspect I have a much simpler arrangement compared with yours. My incoming Virgin Media router is in the same room as the stereo. It serves the tv service via ethernet; and wifi for broadband and mobile calls. A second ethernet cable goes to the Cisco which only serves the stereo boxes I described earlier. There are no other connections to the Cisco. Iā€™m assuming that the wifi connection to the NAS drive for back ups has no impact on any of this.

For my simple set up, am I okay using ethernet connections at all points? I have not played around with different types of cables and was going to order a set of catsnake cables once I have figured out what needs to go where! After that I may give further thought to improving the cables, but my main priority is to try and establish the sensible route map first. Hope this makes some sense but please shout if not!

Peter

I also tried that - my Cisco 2960 has a Fiber output so it made sense that it may be better.
I really wanted it to sound the same or better - as I also wanted to move stuff to tidy my installation, but it just didnā€™t sound right here.

I got a bright very high-frequency ā€˜edge of hearingā€™ effect and a smooth loose sound from the Fiber. I experimented and found earthing the ā€˜inputā€™ side of the ER seemed to remove the HF (previously the Ethernet did that), but it still sounded wrong. It just lacked low-level fine detail and did not hang-together as I remembered it.

Putting it back onto Ethernet and it all snapped-back into focus and was clearly better - so that is what I had to settle for.
Others have said that doing the optics with a better module separate from the one in the ER work better, but I have not tried it and realized it was more of a can of worms than I wanted open right then.

There is the assumption that the ER perfectly isolates both sides, maybe it does, but not via its own Optical input as I hear it.

Again - I wanted the solution with Optical to be better - but I always verify things and in this case I run it electrically connected via Ethernet.

DB.

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Curious. This could be related to the choice of SFP modules. Choosing the right transceivers can be tricky, especially with Cisco switches.

I have some experience with Swiss GBIC, they always proved to be reliable and compatible with Cisco switches.

Iā€™m really pleased with the result in terms of isolation provided by the fiber connection.

Iā€™ll let the ER settle before trying swapping cables.