The 64-pin devices (isolation transformers??) that are under the metal over-hang, and adjacent to the RJ45 connector blocks, are VERY different. The GS108’s devices look and feel like plastic…and scratch like it too. The GS108Ev3’s devices are about 1/3 the height and feel like actual silicon; far harder and very difficult to scratch. The CPU heatsink on the GS108Ev3 (black heatsink) is 3x the height/mass. The boards/traces themselves are also obviously not the same. No idea what this means for audio quality, but they are absolutely not re-badged versions of the same hardware (my original assumption prior to finding Xanthe’s discoveries here).
iFi iPower Elite 12v/4a arrived. Right out of the box, the above applies as a relative statement over the iPower X. But the improvement between iPower X and iFi Elite is not as big as the improvement going from iPower 2 to iPower X.
Using with a simple Pangea AC-14 Mk2 SE IEC power cable that I had literally laying around.
I would say the iFi Elite brings 50%-75% of that improvement, additive, over the iPower X. Having gotten it at a significant discount for an open box (never used) item, I’m actually glad I went with the Elite. At full price, I’m not certain I would still think that way.
Bill Evans Live at Shelley’s Manne-Hole is revealing with more ease and transparency the noises of glasses clinking in the background and a giving the general presentation of a more 3D, realistic space…nearly that Shelley’s Manne Hole is now in my own room…or melded with it… and that the overall illusion of space and depth has become much more convincing. Decay of notes is longer, but not contrived.
Jump factor/slam has also improved noticeably. The weight of the piano keys has more verity.
I have a regular GS105. I’d like to give the E model a try. Will I be able to configure it for low power mode if I only have a Mac computer? I read somewhere that I needed a Windows machine.
Netgear has a Prosafe Utility for macOS. I downloaded the windows version and it’s pretty simple to use.
It finds the switches on your network (pro tip: label them descriptively), gives you the link to the admin page. The default Netgear password is…password (they make you change it immediately upon login). Then you are at the admin panel.
The only issue I had was that both GS108Ev3’s I bought were on old firmware that did not permit toggling the Low Power mode. Update to the newest FW.bin file from Netgear (and then clearing your browser cache after it is successful, so the admin page displays properly).
Toggle Low Power to “enabled” after the FW update and you’re off to the races.
I’m intrigued by all this talk of Netgear and Cisco switches. These are not dedicated audio-grade switches right? They are just standard IT grade. I thought that people had more or less abandoned these with the advent of dedicated hi-fi network switches.
So what gives?! How do these compare with say the Chord EE8 or others?
Netgear & Cisco are standard IT switches, the basic ones are unmanaged (plug & play), the more advanced are managed (require a bit of IT knowledge)
There is no such thing as audio grade or hifi dedicated switches, these are just normal network switches with (maybe) circuit, process or power enhancements.
No comment on the prices.
That line of reasoning doesn’t make sense to me. If audio grade switches have enhancements then they are not the same as normal network switches. Yet you seem to claim that they are different and yet still the same.
This seems to me like saying that all linear power supplies are the same. So if we take a Naim HiCap, open it up and re-work the gubbins inside the case then would it still be a HiCap? I don’t believe so, but perhaps you do?
Certainly the reviews I’ve read of audio grade switches like the EE8 and the Melco S100 suggest that they substantially out-perform standard IT switches in trerms of dynamics, speed, timing etc. So this suggests to me that they are different in some way.
