Very nice setup and yes, EtherREGEN would likely be only a different flavour given the quality of your chain.
Out of interest, have you already tried swapping the position of the Buffalo and the LHY AS8 pro?
The other aspect that has genuinely rewarded is vibration control, Stack Audio AUVA under all the platforms supporting the switching/PSUs and zaZen II plus AUVAs under the streamer.
…back to network cables 
I use MeiChord Opal throughout for music. Blue Jeans Cat6 A for TV streaming.
Great suggestion, will give that a try. Would also make things look much neater and I could eliminate a switch.
Network quality and sound is very situational so it might work out different in your setup. However, optic fiber indeed isolated your network from pollution within the chain but there is a lot variation in the sfp modules and some of them utterly sound bad. Also there are a lot of experiences of people that simply don’t like the sound of fiber optics. Converting fiber signal uses a lot more power for the switch. Sometimes even more than the switch main board itself. This could generate noise on itself as well. The DAC cable doesn’t have this issue and it even bypasses certain circuitry on the mainboard so there is also something to say for this connection. For my personally, I don’t care how it works as I’m not technical enough to fully grasp both connection types. That being said, for me fiber sounded cleaner, blacker and more detailed but it robbed the body out of the mids and lows and extended the treble. By doing that you get a super clean sound but it also robs the emotional impact, fun, drive and natural flow of the music in my opinion.
We recently compared the two options with four people where a fifth person did the switching between fiber and DAC cable. All four of us preferred the DAC cable and non of us knew which cable was playing.
A cheap Cat6 cable
Ok, thank you for the further explanation. As you say DAC cables are available very cheaply so worth a try
I’ve just been comparing the two between Cisco 2960 & 333:300 and that observation very much remains. It’s so obvious.
The Bluejeans 6a floating gets the balance spot-on. It simply brings more life to the performances. The Designacable Catsnake 6a floating last leg is soft and wallowy by comparison.
G
FS has many of them. And I don’t mean FS Cable.
It’s important you get the right one for your switch. Their support is very responsive.
Blue Jean Cables
Custom length and reasonably priced.
Do bear in mind that any effect of an ethernet cable or any other network component will depend on the specific gear it is feeding, especially the DAC. Some DACs are for more susceptible to noise than others. And also don’t forget that what to one person may be a positive effect someone else might perceive as a negative effect (cf my observation in an earlier post about effect on perceived brightness). The electromagnetic environment in which the network sits, and other attached network components are also like need to be of significance. All this means that one person’s experience and preference may very well be different from another’s.
Just read a mind boggling news that optic fibre can pick up human voice.
Apparently, the sounds waves cause vibrations in the fibreoptic cable, which in turn cause phase shifts in light transmission and can be picked up at the receiver end. Crazy…
I’ve tried various ‘reasonably priced’ streaming cables in my digital set up including Designacable Catsnake, but have finally settled on:
Generic Cat 5 cable from the Ubiquiti router to wallplate, Blue Jeans Cat 6A to Reiki Audio Superswitch Pro X, Reiki Audio Jundostream to NSS333/NPX300.
Graeme,
NoNaim’s comparison of Blue Jeans/DesignaCable CatSnake 6a floating and your recent comparison of the same cables seem entirely at odds with each other, unless I am going mad!
I got my cables transposed, sorry. I’ve amended my post to correct the mistake. @NoNaim was correct.
G
No worries, we all make them. Thanks 
I got lost on it too haha. Good it’s corrected now.
Yes, I’ve heard that before. Just don’t talk, listen to music instead!
Good excuse to skip the talking when having dates 
AudioQuest Diamond
