Thank you, interesting, sounds like you got a really good deal there.
There are two ‘jump factor’ tracks we daren’t play on our system for fear of heart attacks:
I see that you also have a Sage coffee machine (or at least a machine that uses the dame pressure dial)!
Those are superb jump-factor tracks. The Garage Door is just so useful!
My wife has refused to watch any scary (horror) movies for a few years now. 
Yes!! “Breville” here in the US, but yes I do indeed! Sage for my drip brewer, Sage for my burr grinder, and Sage for my Espresso machine. 
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.
Unless you upgrade the power supply, it’s not that much better than the standard one. It really sines with an iFi iPowerX or Elite.
Or a Night at the Opera!
+1
At the risk of cluttering the thread, I must emphasize’s Xanthe’s point, above.
Understood. I’m going to get the iPower X too. Thanks for the response and your initial findings!
Very helpful! Thanks
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.
In that case there are no audio grade power cables, power blocks, racks….
The Fraim rack is just a rack, with feet, and shelves.
If you want to call them audio grade, that’s OK, its only words.
I get the distinct impression the vendors big up the marketing blurb & the price X 10 to attract the ‘audio grade user/listener’.
To me all these items are just (most of the time) better spec, better/different materials & design details than the lower cost general commercial grade products.
Re switches, I have not yet found a report on a switch that provides any indication or proof that it out performs any other. The reviewers wax lyrical about how much better it sounds, I would hope so at those prices, but I don’t read anything about speed (numbers), and not sure how you measure dynamics or timing.
Yes these are standard ‘rack grade’ IT switches. Honestly, between Xanthe’s info and Alpha Audio’s work, it’s breathed new life into these “normal” switches. Especially when higher quality power supplies are used.
I can’t compare to the EE8, however. No experience with it in any critical way and I’ve never owned one.
Well the fastest switches seem to be 40G QSFP+ fibre optic ports 40Gbps + 100Gbps fibre uplink, however these seem to be in the £10k+ bracket, and totally unnecessary for domestic use.
10Gbps wired Ethernet are also available and 10 times faster than the EE8 and 10 to 100 times faster than the Melco S100; however this still gives no advantage to streaming and, unless the rest of your network is 10GE capable it given no advantage to the network either.
As various have pointed out, the real difference comes in terms of the electrical ‘noise’ transmitted down the cable into the streamer (note that, as far as the analogue parts of the circuit are concerned, even the digital signal itself is ‘noise’!). Using low power mode on the switch and a particular low noise power supply is one way of achieving this. There are other things that can be done internally in the switch to reduce electrical noise, but as additional cost.
Functionally a Gigabit Ethernet switch will do the same job, whether it’s described as ‘audiophile’ or not.
Simon-in-Suffolk has also pointed out that below a certain point, reducing noise doesn’t necessarily improve the perceived audio quality, in fact it can actually sound less good if the resultant noise shaping is distasteful!
The only way to evaluate these expensive (£430 for the EE, £2100!!! for the Melco) switches, is in your own system, in your own home and with your own ears! … Then compare them to the ifi Power X and Netgear GS105E (~ £165 total).
You can then say exactly the same about for instance a NC 250 vs Nap 250 dr or Ndx2 vs Ndx.
I haven’t tried a standard IT switch in my system, I just bought an EE8 on the strength of the reviews and it sounds superb to me. But I don’t know how a ‘standard’ switch would sound.
As for proof of increased performance in objective terms I have absolutely no idea what one would measure. And even less interest.
But let’s not go there. That is opening a can of worms that may very well escape and shut this down.
I am a simpleton. To me if it sounds better I’m happy.
I’m just wondering - these switches are very cheap compared to audiophile varieties. If I put a cheap say Cisco or Netgear switch between my router and EE8 switch then is it likely to give a worthwhile improvement?
What concerns me is noise from the extra SMPS and also from the switch itself, which presumably will be noisier than an audiophile one. So maybe swings and roundabouts in terms of performance gains?