Can a $2,500 audiophile ethernet switch make differences in listening? | Hacker News Reader

Can a $2,500 audiophile ethernet switch make differences in listening?

tomshardware.com

This reminds me of gold plated optical cables... Where signal is optical so it is only slightly more durable, not that plugging and unplugging should be common...

I actually wonder doing proper testing with this stuff. That is run packet generator over sustained period of time and then compare number of errors to more commodity grade switches. The difference is likely be minimal, but at least that should be the proper way.

Ofc, the other components might have bad ethernet-hardware so better quality signal might theoretically help.

I wonder however if this is more than cheapest standard board and chip in heavy package with seemingly internal powersupply.

If an audiophile-oriented network switch makes that much of a difference in the context of an audiophile network player, it can be suspected that the design of the player itself suffers from some significant shortcomings on its own, whether from a buffering perspective, immunity to transmitted or radiated noise, etc.

Are you saying that it modify the sound/bits instead of been “as more transparent possible”, that is a goal for an audiophile usually? (I said the same in my comment, it’s the first time I read of this big difference with an eth switch)

If you were to place a poorly shielded amplifier / player near the switch, then the electromagnetic interference could leak from the switch to the amp. Wrapping the $20 switch in Alfoil and might be almost as effective and far less costly.

The noisy electromagnetic field would still extend through the wires to other devices.

This is marketing gimmick that has been going back for decades. As long as there is no extreme jitter, latency, etc the delivered data packets are the same as with a $20 switch. As long as the DAC, etc are identical there cannot be any perceptible difference.

Would be interesting to perform double blind testing with such a setup.

According to the review (https://positive-feedback.com/reviews/hardware-reviews/syner...):

> The Synergistic Research Ethernet Switch UEF was a real eye and ear opener

> There are products that can be considered just the icing on the cake. This is not that. The Ethernet Switch UEF provides a dramatic step forward for streaming and digital performance. It is an important component and without question a real game changer. Congrats to Synergistic Research for another outstanding design and for the superb product execution

...but bits, aren't just bit? This is not an analogic thing. If this switch doesn't altern the bits/audio of a song, how can it improve the sound?

placebo effect

This is satire, right?

…I hope!

> ...but bits, aren't just bit? This is not an analogic thing. If this switch doesn't altern the bits/audio of a song, how can it improve the sound?

Not every bit is equal. There are parity bits, stop bits, acknoledge bits, juicy bits ( the switch must be very careful with the latest), start bits and so on and so forth. And then they are organized in frames. So you see, it is not an easy job for a switch to deal with all this stuff carefully so to not alter the quality of the audio signal.

Any part of electrical distortion is so minuscule compared to the non linear distortions in both physical loudspeakers and human ears that it's laughable to worry about.

When it comes to the levels of distortion in electrical/electronic components in the last 50 years since the 1970s, all hifi amplifiers are truly described as being "wire with gain".

Here's a good review of a (cheaper but still audiophile) ethernet switch: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/s...

> , the ethernet switch does make an impact on audio streaming quality. He notes that when using the switch to stream audio online, the detail of the music is equal to the best files stored locally on his hard drive. He says he even prefers it to vinyl recordings in some cases.

He shall get rid of his 156kbps Opus files and try some flacs. If he has a vinyl player like his switch ( power cord near the ethernet ports) it is understandable that the recordings are worse. And he shall take care that all ethernet ports are used, otherwise the sound quality will suffer.

This is a scam since switches don't do any analog-digital conversions beyond that of digital data signals. Latency is important for many sound applications, but I doubt this was relevant here.

Always amusing to read about audiophile hardware. :)

I assume you assume you know better?

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