Yelamanchili manohar
Well-Known Member
Yes sir, I would recommend an optimised switch for the Aurneder too. The issue is not time domain jitter, but noise on the ethernet lines, which when cleaned sounds much better in my experience.
Do I really need an " Audio Grade Network Switch "?
- Thread starter preston8452
- Start date
Network switch as a filter between router and streamer?
Yelamanchili manohar
Well-Known Member
Yes Sir
balavignesh002
Well-Known Member
Go for fiber switches you can avoid noise being conducted on copper switch ports.
You have to find streamer or DACs with fiber port.
Yelamanchili manohar
Well-Known Member
Thanks. Yes, I already have fiber after the router, which did make a good difference
Pardon my limited understanding of this. By fibre do you mean optical? (As in Fiber optical cable and port)
balavignesh002
Well-Known Member
Yes, fiber optic cable works on light energy for data transport, hence digital data can be transported without noise created on the power supply of switches.
When the switch is not audiophile grade it can avoid noise being transported using fiber optics.
Yes Even I assume, WiFi if well implemented/optimized with audiophile application in mind might work better. But until then Etherenet rules.It might be interesting to read Auralic’s CEO on this:
Ethernet or WiFi - which is better for high-end audio streaming? | Darko.Audio
Implementation, implementation, implementation.darko.audio
Personally, I prefer the sound over wifi in my CXN streamer than over Ethernet (even with the well-regarded Blue Jeans cables). The latter sounds like it is picking up some disturbance. Not surprising in a clutter of cables including power cables behind the cabinet. The wifi output sounds more natural to me.
BTW, I don’t understand what a network switch is or why it is needed. My CXN pulls the data from my Airtel provided router via Wifi or Ethernet cable. Do I need a network switch additionally or does it replace the router? Can anyone help me understand please?
Listen to an Audiophile Switch with LPSU and you'll be astonished with the improvement. Add a dedicated master clock and you can never go back.
sachinchavan 15865
Well-Known Member
Any affordable suggestions for both? Anything below say 20k? Also, LPSU for source or amp, where does it make most impact? Also, wouldn’t adding a PSU need one to make some alterations to the internals of the equipment? How easy and safe is that?
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balavignesh002
Well-Known Member
Good Idea. But Wi-Fi has its own problems which user cannot control, for eg.. Rough APs, Co-channel interference. Limited channel availability as other APs will consume available channels in the Air.
The HDPlex LPS models offer multiple sockets for different voltages.
Picture below is from their 300W LPS model that offers Neutrik XLR connectors. Cables are included in their supply.
Thanks!The HDPlex LPS models offer multiple sockets for different voltages.
Picture below is from their 300W LPS model that offers Neutrik XLR connectors. Cables are included in their supply.
Get 12V Netgear full metal switch at under 4k from amazon, AFAIK one of the Reputed Audiophile Switch Manfacturers uses the same switch board in its Audiophile Switch.
12V LPSU is available on HPZ for 15k. Do a wired connection from main router to desktop switch at your hifi rack. Get a Cat 8 Ethernet Cable for connecting the switch to Streamer. You'll be very much delighted to see the SQ improvement. If you have budget get one more 12V LPSU for main router as well.
There are 2 routes which bring in the noise, to the streaming based setup,
1. Power corruption (Remedied by good power cables, Conditioners, Stabilizer, UPS and Balanced Isolation Transformer etc)
2. Etherenet noise (Remedied as discussed above)
We Had great SQ benefits by investing in tackling these 2 issues.
As a Next Upgrade Comes the Audiophile Switch With Good Quality inbuilt or External Master Clock.
YMMV
HDplex LPSU is there, but not considered a great solution as far as the popular opinion goes.
square_wave
Well-Known Member
There is this friend of mine who works for a very reputed high end audio dealer in the US. Without any "buyer's justification" psychology being involved, he has been able to try out various gear that stay in the fringes in the world of networked audio. LPS, Network switches and all that. The goal was to get nearer to the sound of a flac file that is stored on a SSD locally on a streamer device.
Every change resulted in some minor change to the sound when you deal with files being played via network. Streaming from Qobuz or networked audio files. Since these files are just zeros and 1's, I guess the changes could be due to additional gremlins introduced via network into your streaming devices. Not sure what they are though.... but it is a worthwhile experiment.
An example of a related phenomenon is when you deal with USB audio. If your dac has a USB input design that is galvanically isolated, the sound is cleaner and more natural. It gets even better when your Dac's power supply design gets better and better. Although you are just dealing with Zeros and 1's in the digital domain. It is always the additional crap that enters the device that messes with digital.
Just my 2 cents.
Every change resulted in some minor change to the sound when you deal with files being played via network. Streaming from Qobuz or networked audio files. Since these files are just zeros and 1's, I guess the changes could be due to additional gremlins introduced via network into your streaming devices. Not sure what they are though.... but it is a worthwhile experiment.
An example of a related phenomenon is when you deal with USB audio. If your dac has a USB input design that is galvanically isolated, the sound is cleaner and more natural. It gets even better when your Dac's power supply design gets better and better. Although you are just dealing with Zeros and 1's in the digital domain. It is always the additional crap that enters the device that messes with digital.
Just my 2 cents.
keith_correa
Well-Known Member
Can someone please explain to me the function of the "master clock" (or any clock for that matter) in a switch and it's relevance/effect in data transfer in a network?
If I use an audiophile switch or audiophile router powered by various types of power supplies and if this said piece of equipment is in my network topology, and if I transfer a Microsoft Word document (for example) over a network, can someone explain to me how this said piece of equipment affects the data transferred? What happens exactly?
If I use an audiophile switch or audiophile router powered by various types of power supplies and if this said piece of equipment is in my network topology, and if I transfer a Microsoft Word document (for example) over a network, can someone explain to me how this said piece of equipment affects the data transferred? What happens exactly?
sachinchavan 15865
Well-Known Member
The difference between word document and music file is that with the latter time sequence of data matters.
keith_correa
Well-Known Member
What is meant by time sequence and how is it relevant in music data and not in other data?
Even i am wondering, "master clock" concept in router.
I don't think that the timing of clock, inside a router is of any relevance.
Those clocks inside router of are already way high speed ( in fact they have to be), compared to music transfer speed. Hence that speed should not have any impact.
I don't think that the timing of clock, inside a router is of any relevance.
Those clocks inside router of are already way high speed ( in fact they have to be), compared to music transfer speed. Hence that speed should not have any impact.
MS Word doc connects to the brain via eyes while music via ears. As for clock, if you think of its pulses as dots, for music to sound accurate, the distance between two consecutive dots must be same across the range of dots (44100 dots per second of the music). If it is not then data stream is considered to have jitters. Similar to how when the EKG comes jittery, a cardiologist is engaged, if the music stream is jittery, music is not accurate and we start our acrobatics with switch, clocks, LPSs etc.
So, yes, since there isn't any jitter-free clock, we all are listening to music that is not 100% accurate but some are close to 100% (good quality clock) and some are far(poor quality clock). The cases where master clocks are used are used with the idea/assumption that master clock contains less of jitters than the slave devices.
As for LPSs, think of your music system as a big circuit and the more noisy devices you have in circuit those affect the final outcome from speakers. The good LPSs are way less noisy than SMPSs.
I know Mr. Correa knows all these
but this was an opportunity to share what I know so I did.
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